The sucker punch, the finger and getting in your face.

I'm learning some new phrases during this election cycle. One of them is sucker punch.  This is a phrase that makes your ears perk up during a normal boring blah, blah, blah newscast.

As I understand it, there was one solitary sucker punch last week but I hear the phrase at every newscast, every day.  You can tell the newscasters enjoy saying the words.  I don't blame them.  I now say sucker punched as often as I can because it makes me sound street tough and street smart.  Taken apart the words sucker and punch could be used for a child's birthday party.  A sucker is a lollipop and punch and is a sweet substitute drink.

The Urban Dictionary: Easily confused with a punch defined as a "bitch move" a true sucker punch is ... John sucker punched David, and then he nutted him while he lay gasping for ..

Wikipedia: A sucker punch (American English), also known as a coward punch, one hit punch, king hit (Australian English), or cold-cock (American English), is a punch ...

I heard Bill O'Reilly say when discussing this, 'He cold-cocked him.' Wait. What?  Aren't there some bad words in these definitions?  From what I have gathered, a sucker punch is an unexpected punch delivered without warning or real provocation.

The other phrase I heard during election news coverage was, "If you are going to get in my face, I'm going to get in yours." This makes no literal sense.  If you could actually get into someone's face, I would get into the supermodel Behati Prinsloo's face today.  Again this is street talk for someone getting too close to you usually with a jabbing finger leading the way.  I have difficulty shaking hands with strangers in church so I am somewhat sympathetic to throwing a sucker punch if someone gets in your face.

The finger.  I know what the finger means although it's hard to trace the journey from being Mr. Tallman on a child's hand to being a symbol for the grandest of insults.  Nevertheless, 'the finger' has also aroused impolite behavior during some political rallies.  I believe it was 'the finger' that provoked the 'sucker punch.'

Now I'm going to say something shocking.  I think all these schoolyard brawls aren't all that terrible. I think sometimes we are sick of words and need an old-fashioned controlled tussle where someone is around to pull us apart so there's no real damage done but some of the frustration is knocked out.

"I got him good, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did now let's go home."