Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball

Re:Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball by prawn on Monday September 12, 2016 @10:55PM (#12485332)

"Before the final twist, Mack, who led all scorers with 30 points, looked as if he’d go from hero to goat in that split second when he fouled Brown, who led Pitt with 24 points. He admitted he was guilty of the infraction."

Odd that the first example appears to be from a basketball write-up, which is exactly where I very frequently hear the term goat/GOAT used in the sense I described.

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Re:Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball by elgenie on Tuesday September 13, 2016 @12:42AM (#12485675)

The cited first sage of "goat"-as-common-idiom-for-failure in that article is from 1912.

The acronym dates back to maybe 1992 or thereabouts: http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2016/07/goat.html

GOAT, the positive acronym, isn't even used in today's sportswriting about basketball (at least without an unpacking explanation). It's more of a slang / online forum term.

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