Katrina Gulliver examined the way that cue sports has affected how we speak:
As English scholar Robert R. Craven writes in American Speech, many well-assimilated expressions come from billiards, “a game that the public does not follow with the same attention it gives to baseball, football, or other sporting sources of colloquialisms. Surprising, too, is the absence of stigma attached to most borrowings from the jargon of a game long infamous for its clientele of hustlers and underworld inhabitants.”
Studying origins of common phrases through various dictionaries, Craven found that billiards (and related cue games, snooker and pool) has given us:
- “Know the angles” (understand the subtleties and machinations of something; be generally capable)
- Break—in the sense of “bad break”, “good break”, “those are the breaks”, and possibly even “big break” (occurrence of chance, good or bad)
- “Dirty pool” (unethical practices)
- “Behind the eight ball” (at a disadvantage, in a tough position)
- To “snooker” someone (to trick them)
- “Call the shots,” from the rule that players must audibly name which ball they intend to sink before taking the shot (be in charge, predict)
- “Fluke” (chance occurrence, usually to the positive)
I use most of these, in and out of playing pool or snooker, and I had no idea that so many of them came from these sports.