Does the rest of the English speaking world generally understand what an American means when they say "soccer", or does it help to clarify by adding "football"?
Does the rest of the English speaking world generally understand what an American means when they say "soccer", or does it help to clarify by adding "football"?
If I'm talking to an English speaker from outside of the US, is there any confusion if I say "soccer"?
For example, when I was in college a friend asked for a "torch". I was confused for quite some time, because I didn't know it was another word for "flashlight". Does the same thing happen with the word "soccer"? Should I clarify by saying, "...or football"?
Thank you!
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English people understand the limitations Americans have to live under when it comes to language
Edit: jesus you make little high brow joke and all the idiots gets butthurt.
We had to call it soccer. We already had a sport called competitive diving.
When I get asked if I watch soccer as a hockey fan I have the same feelings. The Women's version of soccer is much tougher and I would rather watch that. They take a beating and get bloodied but keep playing unlike the men falling over including the coaches from being brushed by a piece of paper.
This video does a good job capturing the differences between coaches: https://youtu.be/9HxzLEqI-qE?si=VPWHKI081v80eA3k
This one does a great job highlighting the competition diving angle. I think
artist*artistic diving might be more applicable though: https://youtu.be/_OXdfJgCmLc?si=7n-tIrOIsxznm49WIsn't American football just rugby with padding /jk
Hey, that’s not fair! It’s actually just rugby with commercial breaks every 5 minutes!
You do realize the word Soccer for the actual game originated in England right?
It just so happened that “Rugby football” got shortened to Rugby and this “Associa toon (Socker) football” got shortened to Football.
Since since an American sport came around the same time called “Football” they kept the name “Soccer” for Association Football.
Just letting you know a little back story.
A small article about it can be found here. https://www.britannica.com/story/why-do-some-people-call-football-soccer And there are plenty more info out there about it.
I’m going to call them soccer football and American football from now on
I'm going to be an insufferable pedant and reply, "Do you mean association football or rugby football?" whenever anyone uses either :P
For a while, the governing body in the US was the United State Soccer Football Association, so you're good, and it's also some good trolling of the zealots on either side of the "debate."
I refer to Soccer the football played with your foot and then the American version as " Egg-ball" played with your hands.
That said I'm also Canadian and for many years in our small "hand egg-ball" league we had 2 teams with very similar club names called the Rough Riders and the Roughriders so I shouldn't be throwing so many stones...
I love it!
It would require more research than I'm willing to do, but the only part of that article that set off my sports-history-nerd Spidey Sense was this:
In full, it was known as gridiron football, but most people never bothered with the first word.
I don't know that anyone actually involved in playing or codifying the game ever used "gridiron football" in anything like the same official way that Association football or Rugby football were used. It feels much more like outside observers trying to impose logical categories from afar, British exceptionalism at its finest. AFAIK, gridiron was always used as a nickname for the field, and the sport itself was only ever widely referred to as "football," American exceptionalism at its finest.
I'd have to say American Exceptionalism at its finest when it comes to sports is the World Series.
I work in professional sports (in a tangentially related field, at least) and with NFL in particular for almost 25 years and I don't think I've ever encountered "gridiron football" as a turn of phrase.
you see terms like 'gridiron' for football, 'grapplers' for wrestlers, and 'harriers' for (cross country) runners frequently (or overused) in small town newspapers covering local high schools.
I’ve been pissed that the Ravens didn’t incorporate the Maryland flag which literally has elements designed to emulate the “gridiron bars of a fortress” since the day their uniforms were unveiled because of that relationship.
I’ve heard it for sure
Agreed, and I'm not sure it was EVER used that way. I've only ever seen it written, and in places where someone wanted to distinguish it from the other codes without giving the impression they were excluding Canadian football. It's a useful term in the right context, but it's not "the full name". Contrast to soccer, where many teams have "Association Football Club" right there in their names as "AFC."
American football is (semi-)frequently called gridiron in Australia. I’d say most people would know what sport you meant if you called it that.
We usually call soccer, soccer but soccer nerds and those with close English heritage will call it football to feel superior.
Do English people know that they originated “soccer” as Oxford slang for “association football?” Nothing hits like the English ignorantly shitting on their colonies for adopting the stupid English practices forced upon them by the English at the time.
English shitting on our colonies is our favourite past time. You should come along sometime.
America isn’t a British colony, we won a whole war about that.
Isn't now, but it was a colony, and that's more than enough for us to shit on it
Imagine going from one of the biggest powers in the world, owning more than 25% of the entire Earth and having one of the biggest navies on the planet, to losing nearly all of it and returning back to an island approximately the size of Madagascar. Even losing a war of independence, and having to ask the winner that beat them for help in WWII because they were losing. All that, and it's citizens have the audacity to keep making fun of Americans.
You know, looking at it that way, it really makes Britain look really petty. Which is rather appropriate.
Did you know making fun can be friendly and fun
You say that like most of us aren't in on the joke - good banter is one of the few things we Brits even produce anymore...
It ruins the fun if you take it too seriously, which (from my experience) Americans seem to do a lot - that's one of the other things that outs you guys amongst Brits fairly quickly.
"English (simplified)"
One reason it's dangerous for me to drink in the UK is that everyone from the UK sounds like a small child to an American.
So yeah, big language differences. Some soccer hooligan would get all mad at the telly about his footy and I'd end up being stabbed for laughing.
…and you wouldn’t have your gun to drunkenly shoot a bystander while ‘defending yourself.’
It’s tough to be an American abroad.
Right? So many unique challenges lol
At least you don’t need to know geography to get on a plane.
I am amazing at geography, so that's not an issue.
The real problem is getting around once you land, and I can say with absolute confidence that is universal.
Me too, show me a map of the US and I can show you which one is Texas.