The Game is aWHAT?

Just a short note here for all you fans of the Sherlock remakes.

You will find that the writers often try various techniques like quotes to connect their Sherlock to the original, with varied success. One of the most frequently used quotes is "The game is afoot". 

This harks back to much older material, specifically in Shakespeare's Henry IV, and it is a reference to hunting. Even today we refer to the prey in a hunt as game. The game is afoot originally meant that the rabbits, foxes, or whatever, were up and running. So when we hear this used as a reference of the game of cat-and-mouse which is the search for a killer, this is quite a drift from the original meaning.

Of course, this little thing does not spoil an entire Sherlock-themed show. No, it takes a Jonny Lee Miller to do that. And even then he was helped along by some pretty poor writing.

While I am on the subject of misused phrases, when someone wants to follow up on something with a query they sometimes say "that begs the question... " then follow up with the question itself. But that is not what the expression means. If you are trying to say "that makes me want to ask..." you could say "that RAISES the question". Begs the question means you assume the very thing you are trying to prove. Remember that terrible old ask "Have you stopped beating your wife?" It's something like that. 

I see that AI keeps trying to butt in and help me write parts of this post. As you can see I have successfully kept all intelligence out of my work so far, artificial or otherwise, and I am not about to change course now.