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“Soccer” is closer to being the correct word though, because it’s specific. There’s many types of football, and in Europe we usually use the word to mean “assoc
by pdpi 8y ago
“Soccer” is closer to being the correct word though, because it’s specific. There’s many types of football, and in Europe we usually use the word to mean “association football” specifically, as opposed to “rugby football”, “Gridiron football”, “Australian rules football” or a number of other games named football.
It was in Oxford, where both Rugby and Association football are commonly played at the university level, that the term soccer came up, as an abbreviation of “association”, in the same vein as rugby football is referred to as rugger — the -er ending is a common form of local slang, and is why Boris Johnson is often referred to as Bozzer.
- mamon 8y ago"Football" is a very specific term, which means "game played with foot (feet)". The fact that some moron called another game "American footbal" when they should have called it "American rugby" does not justify renaming this beautifull game to "soccer".
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoWhilst I agree that American football bears a greater resemblance to Rugby football; Rugby football, like Association football ("soccer") is another style of football game. Soccer isn't called that because of American football, the name "soccer" arose in UK where lots of towns have their own style of football game. It obviously caught on as a name in USA because they also have a naming conflict. I too hate the name soccer, because of what I had inculcated in to me as a child.
- kerng 8y agoTo give some perspective, it's called football because these types of sports are played on foot and not on horseback.
- filmor 8y agoWikipedia gives this as an "alternative etymology", the primary one still being that it was being played by kicking a ball around, analogous to handball.