Football was the name of the game for hundreds of years among the common people.
Then at prestigious boarding schools, it became codified and gentrified as "association football". Posh (read: elitist) slang often abbreviates things to -er. Hence (a)socc-er. The same applied to rubgy (fully originated in elitist schools) which is shortened to "rugger". As in "rugger bugger".
So Americans are using the pretentious, elitist, never in common usage term, which they settled on either because of Americans thinking they were being worldly or because posh kids were the people that could travel to the US and influence things there.
We call it soccer in the PNW because that's what the lumber workers who brought the game here called it when they immigrated. I'm not sure they were particularly posh.
I'm not claiming that every individual calling it soccer was posh or indeed tried to sound posh. But that's how it stuck in America, where there was no working class attachment to "football" to contend with, and why it sounds weird to European ears. It's also a useful distinguishing word from... soccer because other football exists. Gaelic football where I'm from, Aussie Rules, and for reasons best unexplored, that game where Americans only allow one specific guy to kick the ball
Its quite the opposite in the US, in fact. If I say "I went to the football match last night to watch the Sounders, and they were poor. Pedro finally saw the pitch and stayed tight to the touchline until he came off with a knock," it sounds like I'm trying to be posh. A working class person would say "I went to the soccer game last night to watch the Sounders, and they are bad. Pedro finally saw the field and stayed close to the sideline until he came off injured." Soccer's history in the US is immigrant and working class -- the Philadelphia Ukrainians who organized around their immigrant identity, or Bethlehem Steel who organized around their union -- and when Americans attempt to affect Britishness, it does not sound working class at all, it sounds like pretense.
13 replies
"Kinda of"
Actually this misses vital context (shock).
Football was the name of the game for hundreds of years among the common people.
Then at prestigious boarding schools, it became codified and gentrified as "association football". Posh (read: elitist) slang often abbreviates things to -er. Hence (a)socc-er. The same applied to rubgy (fully originated in elitist schools) which is shortened to "rugger". As in "rugger bugger".
So Americans are using the pretentious, elitist, never in common usage term, which they settled on either because of Americans thinking they were being worldly or because posh kids were the people that could travel to the US and influence things there.
We call it soccer in the PNW because that's what the lumber workers who brought the game here called it when they immigrated. I'm not sure they were particularly posh.
I'm not claiming that every individual calling it soccer was posh or indeed tried to sound posh. But that's how it stuck in America, where there was no working class attachment to "football" to contend with, and why it sounds weird to European ears. It's also a useful distinguishing word from... soccer because other football exists. Gaelic football where I'm from, Aussie Rules, and for reasons best unexplored, that game where Americans only allow one specific guy to kick the ball
Its quite the opposite in the US, in fact. If I say "I went to the football match last night to watch the Sounders, and they were poor. Pedro finally saw the pitch and stayed tight to the touchline until he came off with a knock," it sounds like I'm trying to be posh. A working class person would say "I went to the soccer game last night to watch the Sounders, and they are bad. Pedro finally saw the field and stayed close to the sideline until he came off injured." Soccer's history in the US is immigrant and working class -- the Philadelphia Ukrainians who organized around their immigrant identity, or Bethlehem Steel who organized around their union -- and when Americans attempt to affect Britishness, it does not sound working class at all, it sounds like pretense.
Same in Australia. Although we do have our own foot-the-ball game that may have been adapted from an indigenous game, no one fuckin' knows
Holy shit I never knew where the word soccer came from. Shoulda called it assfoot tbh
The abbreviated "rugby"??? And to a word that's just as long?
These are shibboleths more than abbreviations but I guess soccer is both.
Ah yes, the Oxford "-er".
The latter, most likely. Also, when Rugby was introduced to Harvard, Harvard wanted to just call it Football, iirc.
Poland here. We use the Polish term when we mean the European one and English when we mean the American one. Usually.
Boom! Poland coming from left field, burning two countries with one swift move.
Where does handegg fit into this?