commentator's curse
- noun
- Literature
:
maldición del comentarista
- Many fans blamed the defeat on the commentator's curse after the player missed an easy goal just after being praised.
Examples
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She refused to say anything positive, fearing the commentator's curse might strike her team again.
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The commentator's curse is a widely recognized phenomenon in sports broadcasting.
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The commentator's curse struck right after the praise!
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Did you see that commentator's curse during the game?
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After the commentator praised the player, the commentator's curse struck, leading to a crucial missed opportunity.
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Fans often joke about the commentator's curse when a sudden mistake follows a compliment during the game.
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The sports analyst discussed the commentator's curse after the team performed poorly right after receiving praise.
Surface Forms
Morphology
commentator's + curse
Knowing 'commentator' and 'curse' allows a learner to infer a general notion of bad luck associated with a commentator (possession signals association), so some of the meaning is compositionally recoverable. However, the conventional sense that a commentator's praise specifically triggers an immediate poor performance is a culturally specific, metaphorical extension that a B1 learner would likely not predict without exposure, so the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The phrase commentator's curse comes from live sports moments: a TV or radio commentator praises a player and then, as if by a curse, the player immediately makes a mistake. So it means praising someone and then, by 'bad luck', things go wrong.
