British Announcer Great at Choosing Words

Alan Pardew probably wants this one back. "He mugs him;" now there's a nice, acceptable metaphor. It's like theft: one minute, a player had the ball, and then poof! he didn't, because the other player practically stole it from him. Or "pilfers," "steals," or even "manhandles" him. You're English, you invented this language, not me. Go find a better way to say what you wanted to say ... anything but saying that Michael Essien "raped" Ched Evans on a hard tackle:

Pardew hasn't apologized for his insensitive remarks, and hasn't fallen back on the ol' Ron Burgundy defense. ("It was up there, so I read it.") Instead, we so far have the "misheard comment" card from BBC spokespeople.

She said: "What Alan Pardew said was misheard. It was thought he used the word 'rakes'.

"If it had been heard, there is no question there would have been an on-air apology."

That should be followed by a bunch of British sounding things like, "Yes, yes, harumph, harumph, quite so, carry on, yes." This is the defense I'll use when I go through a similar incident of misheard announcing later on in my career. I didn't say what you think I said, I just called that player a "nother flocking bustard," a reference to his similarity to the bird of the same name. It's not my fault you're hard of hearing and ignorant of avian taxonomy.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.