Spyke

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158 replies

lemmy.world

It’s called football because it’s primarily played with the feet (unlike that other ”football” game).

149
lemmy.world

American football has been referred to as just football (in America) longer than football (soccer) was called just football in Britain. It was called association football as a distinct game separate from rugby football and other football games. Football distinguishing it from games played on horseback. Soccer was British slang from association (similarly at the time rugby football has slang term rugger.) Eventually the association part fell out of use but other countries that had developed their own football games tended to still call it soccer. I don't really care either way, I'll call it football when talking to people who call it football and soccer with people who call out soccer, I just think the origin of the terms is pretty interesting.

44
lemmy.world

Football distinguishing it from games played on horseback

The problem with this line of argument is that basketball would also be football, as would baseball, cricket, hockey, and even cycling.

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lemmy.dbzer0.com

You had me until cycling. Which would clearly be "ball-less tech polo" or something like that 🤷🏻

14
wiesonreply
feddit.org

We sometimes call bicycles "wire donkeys"

4

Only in the US, though. It's yet another of their silly regionalisms that confuses everyone.

6
lemmy.world

Cars are horseless carriages. Does that mean they are more or less likely to fall into the football category?

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lemmy.world

Counterargument. I've never seen cycling done on horseback. Therfore it is football.

Unless we classify a bike as a mechanical horse. Then we have mountain horsing, road horsing. Trick horsing. And all the velodrome horsing events.

2
lemmy.dbzer0.com

I've never seen cycling done on horseback. Therfore it is football.

I've never seen it done on foot or with a ball either, though.

Two-wheel chasies?

Or as a compromise, Wheelhorsing around?

1
droansreply
lemmy.world

You mean football, football, football, knifeball, and wheelball?

12
wiesonreply
feddit.org

I'm not beholden to what some rich kids (not my class) of the university of Rugby or Oxford or whatever (not my town) in England (not my country) called the sport once upon a time.

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5765313496reply
lemmy.world

For that matter, you're not beholden to call it anything. You could make up a new term for it if you wanted. Don't let "the man" stop you!

6

That's the spirit! And I do, now that I think of it. I call it Fubbes.

3

Same. I don't remember when I had the urge to check soccer/football term origins and was pleasantly surprised about it. IIRC it also have some class segregation about it as well (of course it does).

4

longer than football (soccer) was called just football in Britain

This may blow your mind but there are other countries and they have always called it football (or the localized equivalent).

1
Hawkereply
lemmy.world

It’s called football because people run around on their feet, as opposed to horseback for polo.

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shpunclereply
lemmy.dbzer0.com

So basketball, baseball and handball is basically football too, neat.

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Hawkereply
lemmy.world

I suppose they are.

Except here in America we call them “ketter”, “baser” and “hander”

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trololololreply
lemmy.world

Are you proposing to renaming polo to horse golf? This logic is a bit weird but sure.

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dudefacereply
lemmy.world

It’s because it’s played on foot, rather than horseback like many early sports

But close

16

That's not necessarily why, the origins of the word are lost to the mists of time. Either might be true!

5
piefed.social

This is how I learned the US lost at the World Cup.

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dudefacereply
lemmy.world

They didn’t just lose, their king pissed of the Europeans so much they felt it necessary to stomp them in to the ground

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droansreply
lemmy.world

On one hand, as an American, I would have loved to see us win.

On the other, nothing made me happier than seeing our asses get handed to us after Trump played interference.

9

That team is in a tough place. I also would have liked a win. But seeing trumpy-baby lose is always a fun time

3

The way the US goalkeeper lost the ball on the 3rd goal was hilarious. Kicked the ground hard instead of the ball.

2

I found out by seeing a post about CUM being defeated. Canadians, Americans and Mexicans. I only get my latest news from shitpost communities.

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lemmy.world

Can they also adopt the metric system like everyone else while they're at it too?

And also dump Phillips screw heads. They're godawful.

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Janxreply
piefed.social

Torx is king, but I would happily use only Phillips if we as humans got rid of slotted screws/screwdrivers. Every single time I'm forced to use one it annoys me. You can minimize it slipping out by using the right size, but who the hell wants to use or carry more than one of these? And it still doesn't eliminate the problems, whether you use it for high or low torque applications...

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The only good thing about slot screws is that you can use any reasonable flat thing as an emergency screwdriver. And the screwdrivers can serve as a general purpose prying tool I guess. They suck at their official job.

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lemmy.world

How many damn times does it have to be said that philips is perfectly fine for low-torque applications, such as furniture you need to assemble yourself, as the screw will slip before the materials get damaged from too much torque. It truly is the most good enough option for ~90% of consumer grade products.

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DaddleDewreply
lemmy.world

The problem is that manufacturers keep using Phillips screws for high-torque applications.

Just this week I nearly stripped a drill bit installing some curtains and the manufacturer had supplied some Phillips wood screws. I had to keep my entire bodyweight behind it to stop it from camming out. Phillips wood screws shouldn't even exist. They won't even stay on when you put them at the end of your drill. I ended up throwing them away and used my own Robertson screws which went in like a charm.

All of this based on the assumption that people would overtorque fasteners if you didn't use Phillips screws, completely ignoring the fact that this isn't a notable problem for the many manufacturers who use Torx or Allen screws.

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Anything Philips can do, Torq can do better. There is already a simple method to prevent furniture damage or any other rare instance where you want the screw head to slip : use the correct sized screw and dont over torque it.

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lemmy.world

Yes please. As an American I've become the annoying girl who often gives measurements in metric (tbh I mostly fit along with the Canadians on units) and I've grown to strongly prefer robertson screws.

4

Roberson was also a Canadian, so you're fitting along well in uh... your screw preferences too!

1

the metric system is superior for baking.

I dont know whats wrong with a phillips head, but imma keep my driver thanks.

1

Most US students learn both but there is no centralized education so literally nothing is or can be adopted. The only standards you will follow are the discipline specific standards set by a collaborative council of large industry corporations who simultaneously approve or deny a course of accredited status of college credits.

1
lemmy.world

Mr. Beast has always been and will continue to be a huge piece of shit.

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lemmy.ca

It must be a generational thing but that guy creeps me the fuck out, and if horrific allegations about him came to light, I would not be surprised.

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lemmy.dbzer0.com

I prefer handegg.

A toxic masculinity-fueled sport like that could do with a whimsical but accurate name to balance things out.

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Omgpwniesreply
lemmy.world

waitball, where you spend most of the game waiting for them to do something with the ball

10

Or AdvertiseBalls. It’s just commercials with a bit of gameplay in between.

7

New MLB rules have fixed that, they have a timer on the play now so pitchers don't spend all day checking bases and shit. 15-18 seconds between pitches, 30 seconds between batters is overall less waitball than the NFL 40s play timer and timeouts.

1
Aulireply

Which is which I don't know how people say soccer is boring cause nothing happens. When nothing literally happens in the 3 plus hour football game.

0
programming.dev

One if the very few YouTubers I forbid my kids to watch. He's pretty much a summary of what's rotten in our civilization. Such a piece of shit.

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The only reason he hasn't fully embraced MAGA is because it'll kill his ratings.

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feddit.online

There are worse individuals, apparently the wells he dug in Africa were a real philanthropic venture.

That said, I would be fine with his career ending, I am sure many more people would be doing far better jobs than him.

4
Ismayreply
programming.dev

Not the problem. Most of his videos are exploiting human misery to makes a few bucks.

The dude made people torture each other, jump in burning houses to make views. That's simply pure evil and not something I intend my child to think it's normal.

Any barely good society would simply shame him out of business .

2
feddit.online

Both things can be true, I just wouldn't declare him any sort of criminal mastermind the likes of Trump, Putin, Musk, Xi, or Hitler. A lot of people in this thread are wishing death or suffering upon the dude but I think that's a little extreme.

The summary of everything rotten with our civilization lies elsewhere.

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Ismayreply
programming.dev

Of course not. He's a pos of a YouTubers, he's not a genocidal maniac.

Yet, he's a proud representation of the absolute mess we're in. Some genius 200 years ago had the great idea of saying it was ok to remove any ethic/humanity from the economy. And now, we're living in a dystopian hell where it's ok to profit from misery and where empathy is a sin.

He could organise squid games to sell cereal without blinking. Empty husks profiting.

0
Ismayreply
programming.dev

Bernard de Mandeville, 1670 - 1733. First "neo liberal" author and the man that coined the ethicless economy. I was off by 100 years tho 😁

Not to say everything was perfect and nice before, but he's one of the father of modern capitalism and the first to theorise businesses didn't have to be ethic.

For him, the virtue of the society would be a guard against the sin of the economy. Like that, businesses could focus on making as much money as possible.

Of course, it was stupid. Greed and cupidity were not magically contained...

0

So theres actually another great example of economic nationalism and inflation without need for ethics slightly before that: Vlad the Impaler.

and actually, a much more successful example: Ghenghis Khan, aka First Emperor (of Yuan dynasty) Taizu whos descendents ruled China for 400+ years with a noticeable amount of wealth disparity and multiple widespead famines.

Neither Greed nor Stupidity are inherently capitalistic in nature, nor is it recent, and nor are any individual outcomes.

1
feddit.uk

Wasn't there a chance of winning the World cup at around 1%? They had such a crap team that they had to import players from other countries who were technically American but didn't actually live there. Irony of irony is that Trump relies on immigrants to fill out the team.

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They had the easiest path in the entire tournament to the round of 16, finally met a country halfway decent and got the doors blown off them.

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yermawreply
sh.itjust.works

To be fair I think that happens in every country. England used to have the best players in the world (Until SA started throwing money at the sport i guess, I dont follow much these days), but at world cup time suddenly we're playing against those players because theyre all foreigners.

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rainwallreply
piefed.social

May not be common, but I've heard it in american slang. I think its more an old carry over from telegrams that never quite left our shared language.

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T156reply
lemmy.world

Did telegrams use full-stop? They pretty much only used STOP, no?

It seems more likely that your man picked it up from a British influence, like a friend or something.

1
Paninireply
lemmy.blahaj.zone

I've been hearing it in regular language for 30 years now across all of lower Michigan and upper Wisconsin. It's very decidedly present in American English, thought it might be less common than in Britain.

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feddit.online

I hate this sentiment. I'm never going to let go of the word soccer, and it's irritating to pretend like I would. The Brits have decided they're done saying soccer and they only say football now, and it's irritating to pretend like anything the US does will change it. Let dialects be dialects and let's be done with it.

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lemmy.world

Soccer is a British word though, but predominantly southerner / Oxfordian.

Association Football used to get contracted to Assoc or Soc to differentiate it from Rugby Football.

And in Oxford, they historically liked to add -er to the end of things; still in parlance today is calling Rugby “rugger”, £5 note “fiver”, the Bodleian Library “Bodder”.

Assoc became “soccer”.

It’s not an American thing. It’s a posh southern England thing that got exported to the states by American students at Oxford returning stateside and bringing the game back with them, and forgotten by the English because the southern teams pale in comparison to the north’s.

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sepireply
piefed.social

Americans don't even know that other countries exist. So if you start telling this to an american, they will dissociate and remember something or other about The Simpsons.

5
feddit.online

A big part of why I will not give up the word soccer is because of the class implications and the association with soccer's working class and union roots.

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crazypeople.online

I think the suggestion was that people who don't say soccer would have to switch, not the other way around?

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feddit.online

I'm pretty sure that's what he meant, and I don't like it. I read the community note as the opposite, and I also don't like it.

3
crazypeople.online

Okay maybe I read it wrong but you don't have to do what people on twitter say. In fact, I'd probably recommend you do not take guidance from it

6
feddit.online

Fear not gentle potato, there is no danger of me stopping saying soccer no matter what people on Twitter say.

3

Other countries call it soccer (Australia and New Zealand) but don’t get the grief Americans get as we are not playing most sports with ourselves to be special

It’s a shortened word for “Association Football” and it is used in the UK as a term frequently enough

7
lemmy.world

I used to think this too, but I learned that "soccer" is a slang British term for "association football" or "assoccer". Kinda cool

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(word)

It was initially introduced to colonies as "soccer", so it's no wonder it stuck in some places.

Anyway, call it what you want. I use both depending on what social circle I'm talking to.

21

Right?

Thank fuck we didn't have Soccer AM on sky TV from 1995-2023.

Or Soccer Aid. Which was broadcast by ITV.

Or World Soccer, which is Britain's longest running football magazine.

Stop speaking for us mate, you don't have the clout.

20
valarreply
lemmy.ca

Y'all did invent the word tho

18

Y'all were literally calling it soccer in like the 60s and 70s in programs and magazines. I admit these are still more niche than the general populace but they still existed. I hate these arbitrary pedantic arguments where both parties are ostensibly correct. Trolls.

8
programming.dev

(british) - literally no one ever has called it soccer here.

From Wikipedia:

The rules of association football were codified in England by the Football Association in 1863. The alternative name soccer was first coined in late 19th century England to help distinguish between several codes of football that were growing in popularity at that time, in particular rugby football. The word soccer is an abbreviation of association (from assoc.) and first appeared in English public schools and universities in the 1880s (sometimes using the variant spelling "socker"). The word is sometimes credited to Charles Wreford-Brown, an Oxford University student said to have been fond of shortened forms such as brekkers for breakfast and rugger for rugby football (see Oxford "-er"). However, the attribution to Wreford-Brown in particular is generally considered to be spurious. Clive Toye notes that "they took the third, fourth and fifth letters of Association and called it SOCcer."

So, yes, literally a lot of people used to call it soccer there, so much so it was taught in schools.

7

Get with the times, grandpa!

(jk, jk)

ETA: It's kind of an interesting throwback. Bill Bryson has pointed out that in the colonial period culture in North America (Eastern seaboard really) was still heavily dependent on trends from Britain (and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Europe). But because it took a while for be slang and terms to make it over the Atlantic and propagate across the colonies, they were usually a few decades behind (I think he actually said about 50 years behind). This meant that colonialists in America were using terms in daily life that were considered pretty antiquated by Brits. And could lead to bewilderment and mocking if the team into Brits.

The use of 'soccer' / 'football' in North America compared to the UK could be seen as an echo of that old dynamic.

4
feddit.uk

Since they won, we should rename that bit of water the Gulf of Belgium.

21

Nah, he’s aware of what he’s doing.

He was just “engagementmaxxing at all costs” before it was en vogue.

2

People with kids, please don’t let them get brainwashed by those cancer influencers

13

Mr. Beast is an American ambassador for sure! He's probably yachting in the Gulf of America as we speak!

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sh.itjust.works

If you want to feel a little better the word soccer comes from English universities back in like 1880 as a slang word for association football. It was used interchangeably with the word football without issue for about a century in England. British media regularly featured the word in prominent broadcasts like Soccer Saturday or magazines like World Soccer. When the sport reached the yanks they kept the word soccer and dropped the word football and the reverse happened in the UK around the 1980s.

8
lemmy.world

heard a similar story about the English accent, that it used to sound like the American one but drifted after US independence.

not sure how valid that is or how to even prove it

4

So, there's some truth to this, but not in the way that you've summed it up.

Crucially, you need to understand that there isn't a "the English accent". It's also important to remember that as wildly different as accents in England are now, they were even more different from each other several hundred years ago.

So which accents are we talking about for this story? Well, the early American colonies had settlers mostly from London and Southern England.

This is the accent that then diverged.

At the time, and in the South of England particularly, speech was becoming less rhotic. In the American colonies, however, it retained its rhoticity, as it still does in many parts of Britain even today.

This is further complicated by the fact that later massive influxes of people came from parts of Britain that did retain rhoticity in their accents, in particular the West Country, Scotland and Ireland (incidentally, all which still have it today).

So, like I said, there's some truth to it, but it's not quite as you've phrased it. Elizabethan Brits didn't sound like modern-day Boston folk. Americans very much have accents all of their own, influenced by not just by native English, but speakers of other languages too.

So, it's definitely a neat little tidbit, but it's usually wildly mistated!

4

MrBeast filmed himself rigging sweepstakes and contests, endangering people with reckless negligence, but is still makes new videos.

Other people have had their careers ended over mere uncorroborated allegations of misconduct, so why tf is that loser still making shit?

8

Many sports are called football as they have a common origin (and probably because they are played on foot rather than horseback)

Can we just leave it at that for both sides?

7

I am not one to watch football.
But the crocodile tears I am hearing from US and some BS as well made me pirate the BE vs US game :D

7
lemmy.world

Americans pretty much stop playing footy at 12 years of age. If you are a talented athlete you probably end up playing basketball or football. American men will likely never be good since all the talent always goes elsewhere.

Footy/futbol/soccer is a third tier sport in the United States and it always will be. It's by far the single most popular sport in any country that is good at it. Median salary for the NFL and NBA is 10 times more than MLS.

Not even close really.

6

Americans pretty much stop playing footy at 12 years of age.

We have High School teams, Recreation Teams, and College Teams.

https://www.ncaa.com/brackets/soccer-men/d1/2025

It's not our highest-ranked sport, so it doesn't get the same attention as American Football, but it's not like it's not played in most towns.

1
PhoenixDogreply
lemmy.world

North America is hosting the world cup.

Not just the USA.

4

Neither should have South Korea or Japan or Qatar in the past, but they did.

1

He had a lot of fans. He's been dropping a bit in popularity with his fan base and the quality issues with his other ventures has tanked his brand.

3
infosec.pub

I'm all for calling the US/CA "football" as "gridiron football". I think it makes it seem more "alpha" anyway. (And, "football" alone matched the game play of "association football" better.)

2

I'll take some of his fans if he needs to lessen what he's gotta deal with. I will turn them into superweapons capable of destroying all the resounding forces of good united as one to oppose us, specifically, but I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart, honest.

0
feddit.org

I'm with the Americans on this one. If I say "soccer" everyone instantly knows which sport is meant. If I say "football", it's ambiguous.

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Surureply
mander.xyz

Football is only ambiguous in the US. Everyone else thinks of the sport where you kick the BALL with your FEET instead of the sport where you carry an OVAL in your HANDS. 🙄

30
pawb.social

Stopwatches also play a large roll, so I say we call it "egg time"

6

Half time show brought to you by Cooper Concussions. Get yours today.

1

This is a bit reductionist. There are plenty of countries around the world where "football" doesn't refer to soccer (i.e. any country with a large national football code, gridiron, or rugby)... Australia, new Zealand, South Africa, Pacific islands, Ireland, etc...

Football simply means Aussie Rules in Australia. Don't lump us in with the yanks lol.

3
feddit.online

International Federation of American Football recognizes 65 member narions.

0
Surureply
mander.xyz

It's in the name: American Football. It's what the sport is called outside the US.

0
feddit.online

Indeed meaning there are American Football as well as International Football leagues in 65 countries and not specifying which is a nonexplicit statement.

0
Aniviareply
feddit.org

Football is only ambiguous in the US

Or on the internet, where the nationality of the people you are talking to is usually not immediately clear.

If you say "soccer" or "American football" online, everyone knows what you mean without needing to know your nationality.

-2

Cannot believe this is controversial tbh, I hate creeping Americanisms as much as the next guy, but the very fact people are arguing about it here is proof that "football" is ambiguous in online spaces

3

You can tell when someone is american because usually they are as dense as a black hole.

-1