When Did We Start Calling ‘Football’ ‘Soccer’? (2024)
The 2014 Brazil World Cup, likely to be the "most watchedsportingevent ever," is currently taking the world by storm. Though soccer has long been the world's favorite sport, itspopularity has been surging in America over the past few decades, particularly among big-city literati, says the New York Times. These new fans often eschew the word "soccer" as a crass Americanism and adopt the name "football" for their new favorite sport.
I don't begrudge fans here who have only recently awakened to the charms of what the rest of the world has long known as the beautiful game. Welcome to the party!
The problem is your soccer obsessives. … They refer to the sport as "fútbol," hold long conversations about the finer points of the 4-4-2 formation and proudly drape team scarves around their necks even when the temperature outside is touching 90 degrees.
Clegg wouldprefer that American fansstick to the tried-and-true American name for the game—"soccer." There's only one problem with that argument:according to Uri Friedman writing for the Atlantic,the word “soccer” is no less British than the word "football."
Brits coined the term soccer in the late 1800s to refer to Association Football, the sport we now know as soccer/football. "Soccer"was picked as a way to differentiate from another kind of football—Rugby Football. For a similar reason, "soccer"became the favored term in America, a way to differentiate against Gridiron Football.
For years both "soccer"and "football"were used interchangeably in England—football was the favored term, though "soccer"picked up use after World War II.
In the end, British fans gravitated to the term "football" for the same reason Clegg is now dissuading new fan from donning scarves and saying "pitch"instead of "field"—they wanted to distinguish themselves from Americans.As the sport picked up popularity in the States in the 1980s, says Friedman, there was a backlash in England, and "soccer" dropped out of use.
Colin Schultz is a freelance science writer and editor based in Toronto, Canada. He blogs for Smart News and contributes to the American Geophysical Union. He has a B.Sc. in physical science and philosophy, and a M.A. in journalism.
Linguistically creative students at the University of Oxford in the 1880s distinguished between the sports of “rugger” (rugby football) and “assoccer” (association football). The latter term was further shortened to “soccer” (sometimes spelled “socker”), and the name quickly spread beyond the campus.
The association in association football was also shortened to soccer. This clips off the first and last three syllables of association, leaving –soc-, onto which that chummy –er was added, yielding soccer. The term is first recorded as socker in 1891. Footer is slightly older, found in that fateful year of 1863.
Within the English-speaking world, the sport is now usually called "football" in Great Britain and most of Ulster in the north of Ireland, whereas people usually call it "soccer" in regions and countries where other codes of football are prevalent, such as Australia, Canada, South Africa, most of Ireland (excluding ...
In 1872, the first game of soccer as an organized intercollegiate sport was played between Rutgers and Princeton University, at New Brunswick, N.J, where Rutgers won the match 6-4. However, it wasn't until the 20th century that soccer started to gain popularity in America.
"Rugby football" became "rugger" for short, then "rugby". "Association football" became "soccer." After these two sports spread across the Atlantic, Americans invented their own variant of the game that they simply called "football" in the early 1900s.
The word soccer was a recognised way of referring to association football in the UK until around the 1970s, when it began to be perceived incorrectly as an Americanism. For fans who are more interested in other codes of football, within their sporting community, the use of the word football may refer to their own code.
Linguistically creative students at the University of Oxford in the 1880s distinguished between the sports of “rugger” (rugby football) and “assoccer” (association football). The latter term was further shortened to “soccer” (sometimes spelled “socker”), and the name quickly spread beyond the campus.
Association football became “soccer” in England. Rugby football came to the US and evolved into another version of the game. That game became “football” in the US and rugby football became “rugby”. Soccer came to the US and stayed “soccer”.
Soccer- the most popular sport in the world – was originally known as “association football.” Newspapers seeking a shorter phrase began to refer to it as “assoc.” That name was soon shortened to “soc” and then grew back a bit to “soccer.”
Wrestling, mankind's oldest and most basic form of recreational combat, traces its origins back to the dawn of civilization. Carvings and drawings estimated to be between 15,000 and 20,000 years old, found in caves in southern Europe, illustrate wrestlers in hold and leverage positions.
As authors Silke-Maria Weineck and Stefan Szymanski explain in their book, It's Football, Not Soccer (And Vice Versa), the formal name of the sport is “association football”. British university students in the late 19th century nicknamed it “soccer”, a twist on the second syllable of “association”.
Here we explain why Americans call football "soccer": History: Football originated in England, where it was called "football". At the beginning of the 20th century, the sport became popular in the United States, but there were already other sports with the same name such as American football and Australian football.
The Chinese ball game of cuju has a history dating back over 2,000 years, with mythical origins harking back to an even earlier age. Cuju is often written as ts'u-chü and translates literally as “kick-ball”.
Soccer is not popular in the U.S. for a few reasons: Soccer historically hasn't been seen as an "American" sport, the men's team hasn't fared well in the World Cup, tie games don't sit well with the U.S.'s culture of competition, most popular spectator sports have high scores, and there is little opportunity to ...
Introduction: My name is Edwin Metz, I am a fair, energetic, helpful, brave, outstanding, nice, helpful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
:focal(2148x3332:2149x3333)/tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer/4b/64/4b640d8f-686b-4f43-ba45-1b366799670f/06_16_2014_soccer.jpg "When Did We Start Calling ‘Football’ ‘Soccer’? (1)")
/tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/headshot/smartnews-colin-schultz-240.jpg "When Did We Start Calling ‘Football’ ‘Soccer’? (2)")
