Marking the SATS writing tests, some of the little boys have choosen to write about football in their short writing task. I've now come across several references about having to 'skill up' other people. Excuse my footballing ignorance, but what does this mean? Is it a technical term?
One of my favourites in my group, answering the question 'Why do you like this game?' has written in regard to football 'Because I was born'. Bless his heart. I think he means, if you are alive at all, you must love it.
BTW, for anyone who remotely gave a shit about the Asians in Football, seems there is some activism out there. Phew. (Also there's apparently a footballer of Bangladeshi descent who plays for Fulham. I intend to stalk him.)
About Courbet (yet again)
4 days ago
9 comments:
Um. Are you sure there is an 's' in the front of that mystery phrase?
Nice to see that the Irons are after all involved in getting Asian kids playing football. :)
Skill up means nothing to me. What's the context?
It might be from computer games (especially ones like World of Warcraft) where to 'skill up' is to gain levels (or points, or whatever other measure) in a skill; like 'improve' or 'practice' depending on context.
I've not seen it used transitively as you quote, but I'd treat it as 'train' or 'help X to improve'.
Boz, noooo... our kids are still little innocents. Thank the lord.
Yay for the Irons! Damn, I forgot to ask the boys today. I think it was something like 'I like football because you can skill people up...
QE, much as I'd like to think it was altruistic, I've got a horrible feeling they mean 'you get to show off and score points off each other'. Will check tomorrow...
The Japanese have a nasty habit of turning nouns into phrasal verbs by sticking prepositions on the end. Skills up is just one such bastardisation. I'm dismayed to hear that it could have spread back to the UK - an early case of non-native speech influencing native speech?
Eh, that should be skill up. Sorry.
'Because I was born'.
That is adorable.
TB, I forgot to ask them what they meant again yesterday. (English is not their first language most of the time, & part of my job is to work on their fluency. So they do make mistakes - like 'off the lights' instead of 'turn off' and the one that drives me crazy, 'Miss, can I eat some water?')
AA, if you could see him, he is even more adorable.
I'm amazed that you work in a teaching environment and have never heard this expression. It just does what it says on the tin. Skill up means teach. It's intellectual capital. Passing on their skills to others so that the others have improved or UPgraded their own skills.
Natch.
An americanism that is now used a lot in the global professional suited world of industry & business.
Post a Comment