# Is America calling soccer "soccer" arrogant? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2006, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254 "2006-06-19T04:54:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/21 "2006-06-19T13:37:36Z")
[QUOTE=Malacandra] No, that’s the name of a funny movie. [/QUOTE] Surely, you can’t be serious?! :dubious: > [@](#): > > No, a “boot” is part of a car, a “trunk” is part of an elephant… Hey, where are you going if an elephant sits on your car? > [@](#): > > Damn Yanks with their “candy” bars and their chewing gum and their cheap nylons. (What were GIs doing being issued with nylons anyway?) Would ya believe they were producing a stage production of the Rocky Horror Show? > [@](#): > > And that’s right on the money. When you get back to the roots, “football” was less a game involving kicking a ball around, and more about an orchestrated fight between neighbouring villages, with an inflated bladder as the _causus belli_. I heard it was played with the severed heads of enemies, but I suppose that detail matters relatively little. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/22 "2006-06-19T13:42:58Z")
[QUOTE=Raguleader] Surely, you can’t be serious?! :dubious: [/quote] /me does the gag. > [@Raguleader](#): > > Hey, where are you going if an elephant sits on your car? To phone the local paper and get some pictures, in the hope this will pay for the new car… > [@Raguleader](#): > > Would ya believe they were producing a stage production of the Rocky Horror Show? Easily. > [@Raguleader](#): > > I heard it was played with the severed heads of enemies, but I suppose that detail matters relatively little. 🙂 Yeah, but they go soggy after the first hour or two, which is a real downer when you’ve a whole Shrove Tuesday afternoon to kill, take it from me… oops. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/23 "2006-06-19T13:47:39Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] AThe exception is rugby, with AFAIK neither code getting called ‘football’ regularly, anywhere. [/QUOTE] As **calm kiwi** mentions, there are parts of the world where “football” means one of the varieties of Rugby. These include New Zealand, New South Wales north of the Murrumbidgee, and possibly South Africa. (I come from New South Wales, where the default “football” is Rugby League, but where soccer, Rugby Union and Australian Rules are also played. And people watch American football on TV. I doubt if anywhere in the world has more kinds of football.) ---
**Author:** ![light\_strand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a6a055/32.png) [@light\_strand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/light_strand)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/24 "2006-06-19T13:52:09Z")
I’ve been cruising the World Cup message boards on the BBC, and was really shocked about how much everyone hates America these days. So no, it’s not arrogant. It’s one more case of an American wanting to fit in. ---
**Author:** ![Manny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dec6dc/32.png) [@Manny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manny)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/25 "2006-06-19T13:53:18Z")
[QUOTE=Raguleader] Surely, you can’t be serious?! : [/QUOTE] Since **Malacandra** declined; Yes, of course he’s serious. and don’t call him Shirley! ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/26 "2006-06-19T14:00:58Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] As **calm kiwi** mentions, there are parts of the world where “football” means one of the varieties of Rugby. These include New Zealand, New South Wales north of the Murrumbidgee, and possibly South Africa. [/QUOTE] Sorry, missed that :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/27 "2006-06-19T14:09:21Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] As **calm kiwi** mentions, there are parts of the world where “football” means one of the varieties of Rugby. These include New Zealand, New South Wales north of the Murrumbidgee, and possibly South Africa. (I come from New South Wales, where the default “football” is Rugby League, but where soccer, Rugby Union and Australian Rules are also played. And people watch American football on TV. I doubt if anywhere in the world has more kinds of football.) [/QUOTE] Rugby is played at “Bath Football Club”, in England, for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/28 "2006-06-19T14:09:47Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] American Football –\> Football, in North America where it is the most popular game of its type. [/QUOTE] Except in Canada where they play Canadian football. ---
**Author:** ![zuma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9c0ed/32.png) [@zuma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zuma)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/29 "2006-06-19T15:23:53Z")
A’s have won 10 in a row, Jered Weaver went 4-0 and got sent down, the Braves’ 14 year streak is over. Americans are too disinterested in soccer to be arrogant about it. It’s tiring to tell the euros every 4 years that Americans don’t care. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/30 "2006-06-19T15:32:09Z")
American football used to look very much like rugby football. The innovation of sometimes actually throwing and catching the ball, now a pretty dominant characteristic of the game, didn’t occur until the 1910’s. But the name of the game was well entrenched by then, even though the use of the feet was no longer significant. I thought Aussies called the American game “gridiron”? That name is obsolete too, btw - fields have been striped in only one direction, not both, for about as long a time. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/31 "2006-06-19T15:33:34Z")
Why doesn’t anyone think the English are arrogant, because everyone says “football,” their word for the game? After all, the Spanish “futbol” is just a transliteration; there is not “fut” and no “bol” in Spanish–it would be “bola del pie” or something. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/32 "2006-06-19T15:58:07Z")
American football is still often known as gridiron here. And the film “Airplane” is called “Flying High”. ---
**Author:** ![brad\_d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@brad\_d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brad_d)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/33 "2006-06-19T21:15:00Z")
Regarding the notion that the name “football” has anything in particular to do with the kick-based nature of the game, a repost of what I said a couple of years ago in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=272276&highlight=football): My source for all of this is _The Simplest Game_, by Paul Gardner. It’s a book about (what’s known in the US as) soccer, but there’s some interesting info in there about the origin of the sport and the “football” name. Page numbers for my citations are from the 3rd edition. Specifically, this tidbit from the first paragraph of Chapter 1 (p.1): > [@](#): > > The word _football_ came into use in England in the mid-fourteenth century to describe a game played not _with_ the feet but _on_ foot, in order to distinguish it from the pastimes that were played on horseback. The 1300’s version of “football” bore scant resemblance to either modern game. The ball was carried, kicked, thrown, or whatever in what sounds like the ultimate in “barbarian ball”. Gardner writes (p.1), “The most notable feature of the contests was an absence of rules.” Apparently, the game developed over the next 500 or so years as a very popular but hideously dangerous and often outlawed activity. Football was played by students at various schools in England, normally against the wishes of the administration, and while every school had its own particular version, two distinct “codes” of play evolved. One allowed players to run while holding the ball, while the other permitted use of the hands to stop a ball, but required that it be advanced only with the feet. Both were known as “football.” A guy by the name of Thomas Arnold was the headmaster at the Rugby School from 1828-1842. Rather than following the examples of his predecessors by trying to squash this game, he laid down some rules at Rugby and encouraged play of “football.” The version of football being played at Rugby was the “handling” one, and a number of other local schools adopted this style as they gained control over the sport on their own campuses. Still, every school pretty much had its own set of rules. In 1848 Cambridge University tried to publish a unified set of rules. According to Gardner, these rules have not survived. There is, though, a somewhat abbreviated version published in 1862 by J.C. Thring. Of his ten(!) rules, one was that hands could only be used to stop the ball. Clearly Cambridge favored the “dribbling” version of football. You’d think that this “handling” vs. “dribbling” distinction would be what ultimately sent the two divisions of football off down their own evolutionary paths, but Gardner claims that this is not the case. Instead, it was another of Thring’s rules - one stating that players’ kicks could only be directed at the ball, and not at other players. Kicking opponents’ legs, or “hacking”, was at that time considered an integral part of the “handling” version of football. Proponents of this game did not take kindly to its being outlawed. In 1863 Cambridge put together another set of “universal” rules for football, which again proscribed both hacking and carrying the ball. The grumbling grew louder in some circles. Later that year a climax was reached: leading football clubs (non-school groups, which had been growing in popularity) from the London area got together to organize the Football Association, the goal being country-wide regulation. In trying to lay down the official rules, though, they were forced to acknowledge that there were, in fact, two games laboring under the common name “football.” Gardner writes (p. 7): > [@](#): > > The final break came over the question of hacking. The majority of the club delegates considered it a barbarous practice and wanted no part of it. Yet a minority considered it vital to the sport - “Hacking is the true football game,” said their leader - and, when they were outvoted, withdrew from the association. > > If there is a date marking the birthday of soccer, then it is December 8, 1863. The day that the F.A. published its first set of rules - the day that the F.A. banned running with the ball and hacking. The “dribbling game” became known as “association football”, being played according to the F.A. rules. The “handling game” became known as “rugby football” (evidently after Rugby, where _its_ first rules were codified some time before), and organized itself under the Rugby Union in 1871. Popular student slang of the day often dropped the end of a word and replaced it with “er” or “ers”; the name “soccer” apparently came about in this manner based on the abbreviation of association - “assoc.” Gardner doesn’t go into much detail on the evolution of rugby football into what we now call American football. (It is, after all, a soccer book.) I believe it was somewhat straightforward, though(?) Possibly not… Anyway, the conclusion I draw is that “football” isn’t just a term that some dudes here in the states decided (for no reason) to slap onto a game that evolved from rugby. Rather, it’s a reasonable thing to call a spinoff from _rugby football_, which is the full name of its parent sport. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/34 "2006-06-19T22:19:26Z")
Does anyone get all upset when the Italians refer to it as “calcio”? The best thing about calling it “soccer” is that it pisses off people like “Commenter 1” & “Commenter 2”. They sound like a couple of wankers. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/35 "2006-06-19T22:26:59Z")
[QUOTE=adam yax] Except in Canada where they play Canadian football. [/QUOTE] Which is identical to American football except for a couple of differences in the rules. I don’t know of anybody who calls it “Canadian football”. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/36 "2006-06-19T23:04:06Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > (What were GIs doing being issued with nylons anyway?) Don’t ask, don’t tell. ---
**Author:** ![Jayrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Jayrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayrot)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/37 "2006-06-19T23:34:56Z")
Where does foosball fit in? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/38 "2006-06-19T23:37:51Z")
[QUOTE=Jayrot] Where does foosball fit in? [/QUOTE] That’s an anglicisation of the German “Fußball” - which, of course, means “football”. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/39 "2006-06-20T00:33:09Z")
[QUOTE=Rysto] Which is identical to American football except for a couple of differences in the rules. I don’t know of anybody who calls it “Canadian football”. [/QUOTE] I do, when I talk about it with my American friends and family. Interestingly, I find here in the Canadian west, that the term “football” refers to the Canadian game, while “NFL” is used to refer to the American version of the game. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254/40 "2006-06-20T01:26:28Z")
Some info I dug up for another thread: [Social, economic, ethnic, and demographic influences on the growth of American Soccer](http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/growth.html) > [@](#): > > In 1871, the English Football Association met to establish a consistent set of rules, and due to disagreements, the Association split into two groups, one using association rules, which evolved into modern soccer, the other using Rugby rules. In the United States shortly afterwards, the major colleges decided to use the Rugby style rules, which eventually evolved into modern gridiron football. Interestingly, what is often called the first true soccer game in the United States, using identifiably soccer rules, is a game in 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton, is also considered the first true Football game in the United States, and happened two years before the split. After the college decision to adopt the rugby rules, college soccer became a minor endeavor in the larger sports world. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-calling-soccer-soccer-arrogant/361254.md?page=3)