You often hear people, particularly sports announcers, talk about a "high rate of speed." What do you think they mean? According to the specific definitions of physics terms, what are they really saying?

High rate of speed as used by most announcers is actually not correct. Speed is the rate at which distance changes with time. Speed already expresses a rate. What one can deduce is that they probably meant to emphasize more on the how fast a sport is proceeding. Ordinarily saying speed would have been fine.

According to physics, the rate of change of speed is acceleration. Acceleration is the change in velocity with time. A body is said to be accelerating if its velocity is constantly changing.