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>Only recently have I noticed a trend to condemn it as 'American', and if anything is sure to bring out a rather nasty, old-fashioned snob in some English peopl
by TMWNN 6y ago
>Only recently have I noticed a trend to condemn it as 'American', and if anything is sure to bring out a rather nasty, old-fashioned snob in some English people, it's being 'American'.
Similarly, until 1980 "soccer" and "football" were interchangeably used in Britain (http://ns.umich.edu/Releases/2014/June14/Its-football-not-soccer.pdf http://ns.umich.edu/Releases/2014/June14/Its-football-not-so...), when "soccer" became less popular because of a mistaken belief that it is an Americanism. Not class reasons, as often claimed; this would be news to the millions who watch Soccer Saturday and Soccer AM.
In the English-speaking world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(word)#National_usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(word)#National_usage , "football" is only unambiguously association football in Great Britain. In Ireland, "football" = Gaelic football or rugby union, and "soccer" is frequently used. In Australia, "football" = rugby, rugby league, or Australian rules. In New Zealand, "football" = rugby or association football. In South Africa, association football is called "soccer" as often as in the US. In Canada, "football" = American or Canadian football. In other words, among English speakers Brits are outnumbered—whether by population or number of major English-speaking countries—in terms of how they use "football".
(Italy uses "calcio", which means "kick". Yet, for some strange reason Italians never ever get criticized for not calling the sport "football" or some other language's variant of that word, nor do self-loathingly pretentious Italians feel the need to call the sport by its "correct" name; strange, that.)
- senkora 6y agoThat may be true, but try making Italian food with non-standard ingredients and the pedantry comes out in full force.
- romanoderoma 6y ago> but try making Italian food with non-standard ingredients and the pedantry comes out in full force for very good reasons :)
- xxpor 6y agoHere's a 40k member Facebook group dedicated to just that https://www.facebook.com/groups/2110370665911902/?ref=share https://www.facebook.com/groups/2110370665911902/?ref=share
- m0nty 6y agoI wondered about that 'soccer' thing as well. It was always perfectly good English when I was growing up, and at school we used it to distinguish the game from rugby. The origin myth I heard was along the lines of 'I don't want to play rugger, but I do fancy a game of assoc-er' where it was an attempted play on words with 'association football' by someone at an independent school. I doubt the truth of this, but anyway...
- QuercusMax 6y agoNot a play on words. Soccer's etymology exactly comes from as"soc"iation football. Wiki's wording is a little confusing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(word)#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(word)#Etymology), but I believe they're saying that soccer comes from association football, but crediting that term to Charles Wreford-Brown can't be substantiated.
- OJFord 6y agoAt school in England in the 90s we alternated between (among others) 'rugby football' (aka rugby) and 'soccer' in games lessons. I've never heard 'soccer ball' though. 'rugby ball' and 'football'.
- jfk13 6y ago"Soccer ball" sounds perfectly natural to me (also English).
- romanoderoma 6y ago> Italy uses "calcio", which means "kick". Yet, for some strange reason Italians never ever get criticized for not calling the sport "football" As Italian, I can explain you why we use calcio and not football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcio_Fiorentino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcio_Fiorentino
- wheybags 6y ago> In Ireland, "football" = Gaelic football or rugby union, and "soccer" is frequently used. Not really. Football means soccer, people normally say "GAA" to mean Gaelic football (its an acronym, Gaelic athletics association). The word soccer isn't used much. Source: I'm Irish.