5 ms·
Yes. Does it annoy you that we use our own dialect with its own meaning of certain words? If so, why? There’s some irritated comment like this practically every
by umanwizard 6y ago
Yes. Does it annoy you that we use our own dialect with its own meaning of certain words? If so, why? There’s some irritated comment like this practically every time (American) football is discussed online.
- marton78 6y agoI guess because Americans hijacked the name of this planet's most popular sport for something that is played mostly with the hands with an object that only distantly resembles a ball. It would be better to call it "Armed Rugby" or something.
- umanwizard 6y agoWe didn’t hijack anything. Go read up on the history of the games. Soccer and American football evolved separately from the same family of proto-football games (as did Rugby and Australian football). These were all called “football” well before the modern rules of either current game had crystallized. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football
- vehemenz 6y agoUnfortunately, that's not how language works.
- humanrebar 6y agoIt's played on foot, just like the other footballs.
- philwelch 6y ago“Football” isn’t even the most popular name for the planet’s most popular sport. It’s probably “futbol”. In the English speaking world, there are over 328 million Americans who use the term to refer to American football, 37 million Canadians who typically mean either American or Canadian football, and 25 million Aussies who use the word to refer to Australian Football. Brits are a minority of native English speakers.
- billfruit 6y agoIn most of commonwealth Football is spoken of in the British sense. The American usage of it seems the more insular one, and therefore better deserves to be spoken about with qualification.
- umanwizard 6y agoIf we're arguing "majority makes right": the clear majority of native English speakers are Americans (about 65%). But I'm not going to say English people should start calling it soccer so I don't get confused. Let everyone speak their native language; there's nothing wrong with it!
- billfruit 6y agoYes, but it seems a tad inconsiderate for presume 'American' usage as the default one is all. I understand the original article may have written with an exclusively 'American' audience in mind, but writers and editors could have avoided that assumption by putting some thought into choosing a more 'international' usage, if only to gently nudge those Americans into a broader worldview, who might have an insular, exceptional view of their country, as goes an often expressed peeve.
- umanwizard 6y agoIs it inconsiderate to post English-language articles at all, given that the majority of the world's population doesn't understand English, and it's chauvinistic to assume our own language is "the default" ?
- philwelch 6y agoCanadians and Australians also use the word “football” to refer to their national forms of football, which are called as such because they are more closely related to rugby, which separated from association football in the mid-19th century. Ultimately, the word “soccer” is of English origin, broadly understood in England, and refers exclusively to association football. In any international context, the word “football” is ambiguous at best, and it’s chauvinistic for anyone to insist that the term must exclusively apply to their own country’s version of the game.
- akvadrako 6y ago> Yes. Does it annoy you that we use our own dialect with its own meaning of certain words? Because the audience of HN is not just Americans and the title of this submission gives no clue it's about the US.
- twangist 6y agoGiven that it was posted on the eve of the Super Bowl, and that the title promises to examine a dimension of "football" that hardly exists in futbol aka "soccer", I think your point is disingenuous.
- whoknew1122 6y agoThe title of this submission is literally the title of the blog post. If you must complain, go complain to the blog author.