Why do Americans correct English people on their own language when it comes to football?

Answer 1

Soccer doesn't exist.....its called football and thats is that. We invented the game and called it football. What the yanks call football is played with their hands, so its either handball or rugby played with lots of padding and helmets coz they are scared about getting hurt.

Answer 2

Americans correct English people in much more than football
I think that the "correction"is only an effect of a normal change when a language has been exported to another country.
Just imagine what the Romans were thinking of the people that mangled,twisted and altered their beloved Latin that became Italian,Spanish,French and Portuguese.

Answer 3

Its simply a matter of what part of the word you pick up on.

"Soccer" comes out of "Association Football" Dont ask me how association morphed into soccer, but that is the root. The rest of the world picked up on the football and generally dropped reference to the Association.

On the other hand, American Fooball has more in common with Rugby, or "Rugby football" Rugby has generally become know by just that.. "Rugby", But the descendant sport of American football picked up the "football" name.

Answer 4

I personally believe it is because they 'think' people in America speak 'English'. And in a way that is true. It is true because our words are of an English background.
However, in reality, we do not have the same syntax, spelling of some words or pronunciation of some various words that the true natives of England have.
When we gained our Independence in 1776, the language started sharing some of the characteristics of native peoples who were already here. The true 'English' speaking people went back to their country and we moved on.
For instance, in England, the British would say:
Sally went to hospital.
We would say:
Sally went to the hospital.
So, the progressive form of English is not complete in the first
example.
Also, in your example of football, their sport was first created and they chose to call it football. We invented another sport (a few different rules) and called it soccer. They don't play our 'American' game of football!

Answer 5

Really? Because as I see it, it should be the other way around.

The sport which you insist should be called "soccer" is "football" to almost all other parts of the world (exceptions are Australia, Canada, and USA).

While "American football" is "football" only in the United States of America.

Answer 6

Because at this time of year we (Americans) have difficulty wrapping our minds around the fact that there is another sport besides what we call football. In the spring we should be ok with calling soccer football, but until the Super Bowl is over, don't count on it.

Answer 7

During the early 1800's, Americans felt "cultural nationalism" to a certain extent. At this time, modern American English developed. Regardless, I could ask you why you don't speak "proper" English like they did back in the times of Shakespeare; how about going further to the first writings of Beowulf, where this Old English appeared to be a completely separate language with archaic letters like "æ," "œ," et cetera? The answer to your question is the natural evolution of the language. In fact, English has many separate dialects, which include a plethora of dialects in England itself. "Now there's no doubt about which language came first" I hope that statement was a joke, because neither of these "languages" (dialects) came first and evolved apart from each other.

Answer 8

We won the war....i'm kidding. Americans, for the most part, usually think their way is the best way....Also because american football is such a tradition for us and it has become pretty much our national sport (apologies to baseball), that we don't even think of what the rest of the world calls football as such, since we named it soccer....We don't like change and we aren't very good at embracing other cultures or not doing things they way we believe is best (i.e. Bush ignoring the UN and going into Iraq...but i digress)

Answer 9

The US is a huge country that prides itself on its sports and they love American Football, and it only seems to make the UK football look smaller by calling it soccer, just remember it's ony America that corrects us Brits in my knowledge

Answer 10

I don't think there was any clear intention of correction in this, It's just a way people see their own things, Nevertheless, Foot ball is foot ball because even if you don't know about the game, at the mention of the name, Foot ball, you would guess how it's been played,