Yes, it's a fairly common term for a very specific thing. I have heard it used in billiards/pool, baseball and even bowling. I imagine it could be used elsewhere.
Here is an example in basketball from
They Call Me Coach, by John Wooden:
I faked a shot and passed to him underneath the basket, and he laid the ball up on the board. In doing so, he gave it a little English -- it went around and around and then out.
From an
ESPN article on a baseball game:
"I thought it was going to hook so I tried to give it a little English at the plate, and it kind of stayed fair," Harris said.
From an
L.A. Times article about a baseball game:
“I tried to give it a little English with my body and I was saying, ‘Stay fair, stay fair,’ ” Spiezio said. “That stuff doesn’t work.”
This time it did. The ball dropped into the seats in the right-field corner. In the sixth, he belted one to right field that gave him the second two-homer game of his career
From an article on
cue sports techniques in Wikipedia:
The term
english (called "side" in the UK, and sometimes simply called "left" or "right", and sometimes "check side" for left-hand side, and "running side" for right-hand side) normally refers to sidespin put on a cue ball by hitting it to the left or right of center. Generally, english is used to change the
angle of reflection of the cue ball after it contacts a rail. English also affects the direction an object ball takes on impact (the "
throw" effect), as well as the path of travel of the cue ball after impact with a cue ("
deflection" or "squirt").