>>>>>>After a VERY long day and short night, I got on a plane for Germany and got absolutely no sleep on the flight over. We landed and were picked up by the friends we were visiting and stopped by an Italian restaurant and had the same thing.
>>>>>
>>>>>And now you did the same to me :). You were "picked by friends... and stopped by a restaurant"... and then the my brain was briefly stopped by the same restaurant :).
>>>>>
>>>>>But that's English. Speaking of stopping, whenever I see "tub stopper" written, I imagine a Keystone cop movie, with someone sliding down the slope in a bathtub, and a pack of cops running after him and shouting "stop that tub"... Today I saw a "bottle stopper", but no movie came up.
>>>>
>>>>And how do you feel about hockey announcers when they tell you there's been a stoppage in play.
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>>>Nikako. (untranslatable - "no how" is the nearest)
>>>
>>>Even when I had TV, I didn't watch sports. And it's been a simple fact of life that sports reporters have more seconds which to fill with talk than they have available cells... so sometimes they fly on fumes. Whatever rubbish they add to the language is simply not in the same league with amateurs.
>>
>>British sports commentators know when to keep schtum and only comment on teh action, and the odd interesting aside. I've noticed that US commentators just never shut their yap.
>
>You must watch different sport to me. Commentators seem mostly to describe whats happening in front of me and produce endless cliche. As I'm not blind I don't need that. What a commentator could do is shut up mostly and add some insight occasionally.

Then I must. Not Sky Sports, if that's what you watch. What I meant mostly is that US presenters seem to abhor the lack of the sound of their voices. Our presenters, say at a footy match, will say "X ... passes to Y, dispossessed by Z. Oh a nice pass up to J". ie they describe the game as it happens (and remember that there might be partially sighted or blind audience). The US presenters like to give you running commentary on a players, say, transfer history, and anything they can to fill "dead air".

>Imagine going to a football or cricket match and having someone commentating like that sitting behind you . You would definitely end up thumping them.

You've never been to a footy match then? There's always someone with an opinion around you who insists on sharing it :-)
>
>Here's a quote from Clive James on some very old TV
>
>"But the voices-over on the swimming are a Principia Mathematica of condensed argument compared to the vocal gas enshrouding the visuals from the diving pool. ‘Here she comes, into the back position,’ says our irrepressible voice as the diver walks to the end of the board and turns around, ‘and look at those toes working at the end of the board: and there she goes, round into the twist and round and down and... in.’ Television for the blind. "
>
>http://www.clivejames.com/television/visions/auntie

I've often imagined a tennis commentator doing it like a footy - "Venus ... to Sharipova ... who knocks it back to Venus ... back to Sharipova ..."