Pardon The Expression

Sports lingo, like language in general, continually evolves, but why are the new expressions often so cumbersome? Blame it on growing specialization and a desire to make things sound more technical. For every current term that's more economical than the one it replaced—for example, triple jump (now) and hop, step and pimp (then)—there are dozens that are longer, more unwieldy and/or more stilted.