In American slang, the term ''inside baseball'' refers to the minutiae and detailed inner workings of a system that are only interesting to, or appreciated by, experts, insiders, and aficionados.
The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang
'. Ed. Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett (born 1970) is an American lexicographer, specializing in slang, jargon and new usage, and the author and compiler of language-related books and dictionaries. He is a co-host and co-producer of the American weekly, hour-long public ...
. Oxford University Press, 2004 (paperback ed. 2006). p. 5-6. The phrase was originally used as a sports
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...
in political contexts, but has expanded to discussions of other topics as well.
Language commentator
William Safire
William Lewis Safire (; Safir; December 17, 1929 – September 27, 2009Safire, William (1986). ''Take My Word for It: More on Language.'' Times Books. . p. 185.) was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He ...
wrote that the term refers to details about a subject that require such a specific knowledge about what is being discussed that the nuances are not understood or appreciated by outsiders.
Origin of the term
The term originated in the 1890s, referring to a
particular style of playing the game which relied on singles, walks, bunts, and stolen bases rather than power hitting. Within a few decades the term was being used to mean highly specialized knowledge about baseball, and by the 1950s it was being applied to politics.
See also
*
Jargon
Jargon, or technical language, is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside ...
References
External links
*
English phrases
American slang
Political terminology of the United States
{{poli-term-stub