His syndicated column ''Punch Lines'' appears in the ODT, and he is something of a national icon. Fighting Talk arises out of his passions for boxing, politics and the media: a potent confection, as Rod Vaughan discovered in 1985.
Fighting Talk takes the form of a reference work, providing an alphabetical list of terms and figures of speech associated with or derived from boxing, but which have migrated into all kinds of discourse, particularly in the domains of politics and journalism.
This is no dry dictionary, however. Each entry (on average about a page in length) is an entertaining short essay on boxing, social and linguistic history, mixing erudition with the anecdotal. Many entries are accompanied by effective illustrations ranging from historic portraits of famous boxers, match photographs, political cartoons, and even memorabilia, such as a mouthguard used by Muhammad Ali, now in the possession of the author.
There is really no disputing Bob Jones' central argument that the language of boxing pervades our figures of speech to a remarkable degree, unparalleled by any other sporting jargon. Our adversarial systems of law and parliamentary government particularly lend themselves to such figures. Perhaps Bob Jones presses his case too far in some instances. He explains the term ''fan'' as a shortening form of ''fancy'' (the Regency English collective term for followers of boxing).
The Oxford English Dictionary and most other dictionaries explain ''fan'' as a shortened form of ''fanatic'', and the earliest citations in OED from the 19th century suggest an association with baseball rather than boxing. Similarly, ''hard-nosed'' may not necessarily have been associated exclusively with boxing. Early citations in OED connect the word with hunting (a hard-nosed dog in late 19th-century American speech was one insensitive to smell), and other early usage suggests a connection with American football, where blows to the nose were also an occupational hazard before full-face helmets.
The book opens with a wide-ranging discursive introduction that gives further insight into Bob Jones' passion for his subject. He also confronts the threats to the sport as he sees them. There is, for example, the interference of the ''nanny state''. He observes (in inimitable Jonesean style) that ''Norway and Iceland ban professional boxing, thereby aligning themselves in this context with North Korea, Iran and Cuba''. Modern medical scientific research into head injuries in a range of sports may lead to further intervention elsewhere, if not an outright ban on boxing.
Fighting Talk is an engaging and erudite book by a writer who knows his subject, and who ''brings home the bacon'', to use yet another phrase originating in the world of boxing. Random House have done it proud in their design and production. Keep it in mind for Christmas.
- Greg Waite lectures in English at the University of Otago.
