Why do colonial people call football soccer?

Question

its silly really. and why can't they make up they own names for their sports, american football should be called dodgeball or handball. i don't know americans hey.

er tattie herbet are you weird? football is only called soccer by people who don't regularly play the game. And yes i'm from england too, lol. The country that invented it.

And hey the term colonial wasn't meant to be derogatory at all, you were colonial once and thats just the way it is. I used the trem colonial because its useful when refering to past colonies of Great Britain, namely australia and the usa. Also in the Uk recently people have used the term in joking reference esp. after that God awful inaccurate film 'the patriot' , before then I have never ever used the term.

Answer 1

colonial? it's been like 230 years, i think you can stop calling us colonials.

Answer 2

The paragraphs below are from the link that has been given for the source. It says it better than I could have, so here you go:



"Expert: Mark Smith
Date: 6/21/2002
Subject: Terminology

Question
Why is football called soccer by the USA and how & when did this alternative name come about?

Thank you!



Answer
We have to thank the students of the 1880s for the word "soccer". It seems it was the practice amonst the well bred students of Oxford to abbreviate words whilst adding "er" to the end; "brekkers" for breakfast, for example.

On asked if he wanted to play "rugger" (i.e. the "rugby rules") a student replied "no, soccer", an abbreviation of "association", or the "association rules", i.e. the rules of the Football Association in London - the name stuck, and became the poular slang term throughout England for football. The student was Charles Wreford Brown, later an England international and F.A. vice-president.

When the game crossed the Atlantic, "soccer" was still the most common term for the game. But then we started calling it "football" again, and the Americans didn't. So it's our fault that football is called soccer in the USA. I suppose in the 1920s we should have told them that we'd deciced to revert to the term "football".

It's the same with some of their funny spelling of words like colour, labour and neighbour. When the English first went to North America we spelt them color, labor and neighbor, then we decided to add a "u" but the USA has kept the original form of these words.

Best wishes,

Mark Smith"

So, It's not actually us "crazy" Americans after all ;^)

Answer 3

Football is the name given to a number of different, but related, team sports. The most popular of these worldwide is Association football, which also goes by the name of soccer. The English language word football is also applied to Rugby football (Rugby union and Rugby league), North American football (American and Canadian), Australian rules football, and Gaelic football.

While it is widely believed that the word football, or "foot ball", originated in reference to the action of a foot kicking a ball, there is a rival explanation, which has it that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played on foot. These games were usually played by peasants, as opposed to the horse-riding sports often played by aristocrats. While there is no conclusive evidence for this explanation, the word football has always implied a variety of games played on foot, not just those that involved kicking a ball. In some cases, the word football has been applied to games which have specifically outlawed kicking the ball.

We colonials can call it whatever we please. Why do you call the trunk the boot or the hood the bonnet?

Answer 4

I think a lot of people are trying genuinely to understand why 'Americans' call a particular sport 'soccer', while in this era the rest of the world call this same game 'football'. It can be very confusing with all the different names for the same or similar sports.

Also, people do tend to play football according to the way it is played in their own country, and there are variations on the way it is played, and on the rules according to the country or tournament, or league the game is played in. One country may frown on certain practices in a game, whereas another country may encourage the same practice.

I think we need to be more understanding of these differences, although more importantly there are way more similarities, and whatever it is called it is still recognisable as the same game.

Since there are so many sports known as types of football, for instance Rugby Football, Australian Rules Football, American Football; it in fact makes more sense to call the sport 'Soccer Football' in order to distinguish this sport from other football sports.

Yet since the modern term has become simply football, perhaps it is time for America to also call it football while communicating with other nationalities. Americans have to call it soccer in America or everyone will think that they mean 'American Football'.

Communication can be so difficult at times, even between people speaking the same language.

People from the USA call themselves 'Americans; while people from other countries in the continent of America consider themselves Americans as well, since they live in that continent.
British people may still use words like 'colonials' to distinguish between people from the USA versus people in the rest of the continent of America. It isn't necessarily a derogatory term in this day and age.

Answer 5

Soccer is more popular in South Africa, but there's more money in rugby (because its the fav sport of the most rich people) that's why rugby seems bigger and SA also hosted a rugby world cup already but not a soccer world cup yet(and the one SA will host in 2010 is rumoured to be a failure) The Ausies have an own sport wich is very near to rugby "Australian Rugby" Don't know about New Zealand I'm not making this up, I'm an South African myself.

Answer 6

ok, from all the replies given so far, you've already have a comprehensive answer.

i'm posting a reply to soften the hazing you've gotten for using the term "colonial people" ...most americans do not like it... it reeks of condescension... and raising the ("condescending") question - why DO americans call a sport ("lame", as it may be) by a different name than the rest of the world?

so, do be a good "Foreigner".
from now on, show respect and culture tolerance:
- refer to americans as "americans"
- refer to football as "soccer"
- and use the term "football" when you mean american football

*wink*

Answer 7

A rather condescending post. Why Cricket? I don't see any bugs out on the pitch.

The fact is that your football and our footballs all developed smultaneously. Ours is called football because that was the length of the original ball.

But the real question is this: Why do you care? Why are you so insecure that you have to worry about this?

Answer 8

Wow...I like that term "Colonial People" your people should use that term more often, I mean just reading the responses you pissed off alot of Americans with that term, they even forgot the football/soccer question....thanks I will be using that from now on.

Answer 9

Many people in North America call Football soccer because because it could get confused with American Football. I guess somebody wanted a different name for football so it wouldn't get confused with american football.

Answer 10

You have obviously skipped history class. They threw our tea into the harbour in a fit of pique when Britain insisted it was to be called football. Well sir, one doesn't treat English tea like that and so we were at war. They won we lost, end of story. Now they call it what they like but, hey it's now their country.

Answer 11

we have soccer AND football. it just happens that our football looks like your soccer. we also have dodgeball and handball - not the same things at all.

and we haven't been colonial for over two hundred years, Gov.

are you just looking for something to pick a fight about? look closer to home, its more satisfying.