If someone upsets you, you might say you are offended. If you’re charged with a crime, you will try to defend yourself in a court of law. If someone accuses you of putting your running shoes into the refrigerator, then likewise: You’ll defend yourself (unless, of course, you really did put your running shoes into the icebox).
But that’s in ordinary life. And while Coach Mike Ditka likes to compare football to life, there is a difference.
For one thing, no one is on offense in the NFL. They’re on OFF-ense. And there is no such thing as defense in professional football: it’s always DEE-fense. There are exceptions. I remember Coach Buddy Ryan being called a defensive genius. No one, to my knowledge, called Buddy a DEE-fensive genius. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
This is football, after all.
We don’t have to go far to understand this difference in pronunciation. Football is a sport where you’re supposed to hit first and explain later, so it makes sense that two of its most important words get accented on the FIRST syllable. It’s like you OFF first, and then fense, if at all, later.
I, myself, am into pro football. I support one of the local professional teams, and people who know that ask me why Iowa doesn’t have a professional football team. The answer is that if Iowa had one, Illinois would want one, too.
Now that’s a joke that I’m pretty OFF-ended by.
This is Tom McBride, and that’s my PERspective.
