Could you be more specific? Do you mean rugby football? Gridiron football? Gaelic football?
Oh! Maybe you meant association football. But that’s kind of long-- maybe we can just say “asoc football” to save time.
Actually now that I think of it, people just say “rugby” instead of “rugby football,” so maybe we can drop the “football” part as well, and just say “asoc.”
There we go, now we have a nice, unambiguous way to refer to the style of football that we’re interested in. Now I just hope the school children don’t mess it up the way they did with rugby, calling it “rugger…”
Yes, that’s the Major League Soccer team I’m referring to. As I said, there are plenty of Messi fans that call the sport soccer. Your claim is objectively false.
To be even more fair, the British started calling it soccer, so the Americans called it soccer. If they want to fuck around with the English language, they’ll find out when Americans try to speak it.
“Football” is a term used to describe a wide range of field sports played on foot, as opposed to on horseback. It has nothing to do with whether or not you handle the ball with your hands.
I didn’t know handball was played by doing handstands.
But seriously, that’s the first time i hear that argument. 99% of field sports are played on foot, that’s a terrible criteria. Football is obviously called that because you use your feet (primarily) to manipulate the ball. In handball you manipulate the ball using your hands. In basketball, you put the ball in the basket. Name contains words that are directly related to the activity performed. Besides having no ball and not using feet (primarily) American football plays nothing like a football game. It’s definitely a misnomer.
You could argue that American football plays quite a bit like rugby football, Gaelic football, and Aussie Rules football though. Association football is the odd one that decided you literally can’t use your hands oh except the keeper and oh I guess throw-ins? Every other form of football involves handling the ball with your hands, including the older forms from which modern ones descended.
I think you’re looking at it through a modernist lens; a lens through which the role of horses is virtually nonexistent, and you have exposure to a wide range of international sports with different lineages. Basketball and handball are much newer than the concept of “football,” and share no history with it, so it’s no surprise that they didn’t wind up being called “football.”
The claim isn’t that everything played on foot should be called football (that would be a weird criterion, and not useful). The claim is that the group of sports called football are so called because they are played on foot, not because players are only allowed to use their feet.
It’s not a super widespread idea, but Wikipedia discusses it, so it’s at least not just something I made up.
Obviously you know I was referring to association football. I’m aware of the etymology of soccer and ruggers, but thank you for your insightful comment. It genuinely was a nice read. While etymology is interesting. It doesn’t dictate the current usage of language.
On the topic, I used to play Aussie Rules (Australian Football).
Thank you! There are two wolves in my heart: One favors being snobby toward the way Americans say things. The other favors being pedantic about term specificity.
Could you be more specific? Do you mean rugby football? Gridiron football? Gaelic football?
Oh! Maybe you meant association football. But that’s kind of long-- maybe we can just say “asoc football” to save time.
Actually now that I think of it, people just say “rugby” instead of “rugby football,” so maybe we can drop the “football” part as well, and just say “asoc.”
There we go, now we have a nice, unambiguous way to refer to the style of football that we’re interested in. Now I just hope the school children don’t mess it up the way they did with rugby, calling it “rugger…”
To be fair, pretty much anybody who’d use Messi’s name in context is gonna say “football” and never “soccer”.
He plays for Inter Miami in the MLS. I assure you, plenty of Messi fans use the term soccer.
You mean “Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami”?
Yes, that’s the Major League Soccer team I’m referring to. As I said, there are plenty of Messi fans that call the sport soccer. Your claim is objectively false.
I don’t think you’re approaching this extremely serious argument with the necessary gravitas.
To be even more fair, the British started calling it soccer, so the Americans called it soccer. If they want to fuck around with the English language, they’ll find out when Americans try to speak it.
You hardly can fuck around with language more than calling a sport played primarily by hands, using a prolate spheroid “football”, mate.
“Football” is a term used to describe a wide range of field sports played on foot, as opposed to on horseback. It has nothing to do with whether or not you handle the ball with your hands.
I didn’t know handball was played by doing handstands.
But seriously, that’s the first time i hear that argument. 99% of field sports are played on foot, that’s a terrible criteria. Football is obviously called that because you use your feet (primarily) to manipulate the ball. In handball you manipulate the ball using your hands. In basketball, you put the ball in the basket. Name contains words that are directly related to the activity performed. Besides having no ball and not using feet (primarily) American football plays nothing like a football game. It’s definitely a misnomer.
You could argue that American football plays quite a bit like rugby football, Gaelic football, and Aussie Rules football though. Association football is the odd one that decided you literally can’t use your hands oh except the keeper and oh I guess throw-ins? Every other form of football involves handling the ball with your hands, including the older forms from which modern ones descended.
I think you’re looking at it through a modernist lens; a lens through which the role of horses is virtually nonexistent, and you have exposure to a wide range of international sports with different lineages. Basketball and handball are much newer than the concept of “football,” and share no history with it, so it’s no surprise that they didn’t wind up being called “football.”
The claim isn’t that everything played on foot should be called football (that would be a weird criterion, and not useful). The claim is that the group of sports called football are so called because they are played on foot, not because players are only allowed to use their feet.
It’s not a super widespread idea, but Wikipedia discusses it, so it’s at least not just something I made up.
Obviously you know I was referring to association football. I’m aware of the etymology of soccer and ruggers, but thank you for your insightful comment. It genuinely was a nice read. While etymology is interesting. It doesn’t dictate the current usage of language.
On the topic, I used to play Aussie Rules (Australian Football).
It’s pretty annoying when some rando on the internet pretends not to understand what you were referring to, isn’t it?
Thank you! There are two wolves in my heart: One favors being snobby toward the way Americans say things. The other favors being pedantic about term specificity.
“Soccer” causes these wolves to fight.
If one of those types of football was by far the most popular sport in the world we might just call it “football” without any qualifier.
The one with your foot and a ball. Not your hand and an egg.