"Soccer" is an English term!

**Woodsheal** · 1st July 10, 04:43 PM

According to this article, anyways:

http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/wor...all070110.html

**BoldHighlander** · 1st July 10, 06:12 PM

I had never gave the origin of the word soccer much thought before Brian, so I reached over and pulled out my well worn copy of the Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, and I found the following inside:

soc-cer\'säk-әr\ n [by shortening & alter. fr. association football] (1891): a game played on a field between two teams of 11 players each with the object to propel a round ball into the opponent's goal by kicking or by hitting it with any part of the body except the hands and arms --- called also association football.

This seemed to be a fairly consistent definition found in other (on-line) English dictionaries.

**BoldHighlander** · 1st July 10, 06:24 PM

A quick on-line search found a number of sites explaining the origin of the word 'soccer'. All concur it was the Brit's whom first coined the phrase.
Here's just a few:

Origin of the word soccer

Why Football Is Called Soccer in America: The Origin Of the Word Soccer

QUICK FACT: Origin of the word soccer | Sideline Soccer

**ThistleDown** · 1st July 10, 06:39 PM

Originally Posted by Woodsheal

According to this article, anyways:

http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/wor...all070110.html

That's Webster for you.

Left over from the days when I played memory has it that soccER is not ruggER football. The toffs played the latter (strange, because I went to a "toff's" school) and Association football played with the round ball had to be called something else. So came Rugby (the school) Football and Soccer (the plebes) Football. Oh my, there might be something someone wants to say about all that, but memory is memory

Yes, an English word just not used much after Rugby dropped "football" and Soccer claimed it. I think I will go and have a little lie-down.

**O'Callaghan** · 1st July 10, 11:31 PM

It's not that Americans call it soccer, it's that they refuse to call it football, or even permit it to be called football, that's annoying. When I call it football, many Americans actually say to me "It's not football, it's soccer, football is ... (insert long boring description of American Football)" and I always reply "soccer is short for association football". It's not that people from the UK don't already know this, we do, the issue is that Americans don't know where the word soccer comes from.

**MacBean** · 2nd July 10, 01:01 AM

Originally Posted by ThistleDown

That's Webster for you.

Left over from the days when I played memory has it that soccER is not ruggER football. The toffs played the latter (strange, because I went to a "toff's" school) and Association football played with the round ball had to be called something else. So came Rugby (the school) Football and Soccer (the plebes) Football. Oh my, there might be something someone wants to say about all that, but memory is memory

Yes, an English word just not used much after Rugby dropped "football" and Soccer claimed it. I think I will go and have a little lie-down.

We always called it rugger, and never rugby. Rugger was played in Winter on the lower (muddier) fields, while football was played in the Autumn on drier fields. There were two kinds of rugger, something to do with the scrums, that I no longer remember, but we played the young school boy form and got really muddy, which was fun. Never heard about toffs or plebes until I got to see films in the US, much later.

We were always taught that football had been illegal in England since the Middle Ages when it disrupted traffic in the streets and ended up in fights. I think the English were quite proud that they played a game that wasn't allowed, made it more interesting. We didn't have varsity teams but did win colours, which were a great honor, I think perhaps they were the same?

Anyway, making the transition between cultures at 13, clearly football (US) was a form of rugger (UK), while soccer (US) was a form of football (UK). That was odd, but not half as odd as trying to hit a baseball in the air, that was just strange.

Now in Brazil, football isn't a sport, it's an art! Old men and children of 6 could run circles around me (or over me, or between my legs). It was marvelous. My son teaches me to watch the ball, not the legs, but then he played right half, not left wing and the skills are quite different...which is another thing I can't get used to. The names of the positions is either different between countries or keeps changing. Brazil learned it from the English, so their names were the same as what I knew (only translated).

My son just got his first kilt (had to keep it on topic somehow). He looks a bit skinny to me

**CDNSushi** · 2nd July 10, 03:13 AM

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

**Lallans** · 2nd July 10, 06:46 AM

Reading the historic threads here reminded me, apropos of nothing in particular, of the old adage that "football (soccer) is a game for gentlemen played by ruffians and rugby (rugger) is a game for ruffians played by gentlemen."

Anyway, in regards to the nomenclature controversy, my personal belief is that soccer will never be called football in North America because that name is already very firmly taken by a large number of giant guys in heavy body armour. And football will never be called soccer in the rest of the world because you don't play it in your socks.