Here is the latest... http://www.mlsnet.com/content/03/oped0219connolly.html Can anybody explain to me what is lame about calling Major League Soccer, the MLS. Just curious. I do totally agree with the moratorium on soccer catching on in the US. As a fan, I always want more, but we do have things pretty good right now. Especially compared to the past.
Repeat after me... The Major League Soccer is a division one professional league in the USA. Now let's try it this way...Major League Soccer is a division one professional league in the USA. Which do you prefer?
Would you say "The Major League Soccer is good"? No - you say "Major League Soccer is good" Would you say " Please Welcome The Pearl Jam"? No - you say "Please welcome Pearl Jam." Grammatically speaking Major League Soccer is a proper noun. It does not need the prepositional modifier "the". I just made that up. "...and less fans like the ones who book rooms at the team hotels just to snoop around and report back to the message boards." Who does that?
nice column, name is once again misspelled though but then again, i don't think 5% of bigsoccer correctly spells damarcus beasley... so not exactly a biggie, just a nitpick ---------------- as for the column ending prediction... i'd go with armas over those two... olsen is going to be very ginger with that ankle all year... they will make sure he gets more rest than he needs, and with plenty of reason... no reason to lose him again for a long spell... let it heal as for wolff, i don't think he can stay healthy...
Love the shout outs, but when will these ESPN, MLSNET guys stop getting their best material from our boards? And the reason we don't say "the MLS" like you say the barkley card premier league, la primera, the eredivise or la scidetta(sp) is because we just say MLS. There's no need for a title when an acronym will do just fine. How would it sound saying, "I work for The IBM?"
Good points, but I still don't see anything that annoyingly wrong with it. For basketball it is often referred to as the NBA, but you also hear people say I went an NBA game. Same with "the" NHL or "the" NFL. The only one that this doesn't seem to apply to is MLB. But they all fall under proper nouns.
I think the confusion comes from the fact that we refer to our pro hoops league as "the" NBA and our gridiron league as "the National Football League" and the fact that we refer to the top soccer league in Britain as "the Premier League" etc... It's a force of habit for most American sports fans to refer to the leagues with a "the" in front of it. Even baseball, which shares Major with MLS, is often refered to with a "the" as in "the bigs" or "the show" or "the National League" or "the AL". I know it sounds wrong to us soccer fans and while I would rather not hear it, I understand why so many use it.
On the cowbell t-shirts. I've seen them being discussed on the boards, but does anyone have the background on the SNL skit Connelly refers to?
The MLS just sounds so stupid. Everyone please stop using it. When people refer to Major League Baseball, they don't call it, The Major League Baseball. If it was correct to call it "the MLS", the Web site would be called TheMLSnet.com. -VON
It's Barclay mate, as in the bank, or like Devin if you're unfamiliar with that. That's why when Barclay went to DC the headline read 'DC banking on Barclay' or something to that extent. It was a nice punn, to bad most people won't get it.
Some of us where around when the NASL folded and their was little to no soccer. We are still "gun shy" from that experience...
I agree with most of what Connoly has to say (as usual), except the following: "...cities all over the country are fighting for MLS expansion teams..." Yeah, sure they are.
One of Connolly's wishes was amusing: "...less fans like the ones who book rooms at the team hotels just to snoop around and report back to the message boards." Who on BigSoccer is guilty of this? The Donovan groupies, perhaps?
Yeah, they are. They just don't want to spend money on one. Who wouldn't want a rent-paying tenant for their cities' stadium? And international exposure?
You can watch part of the skit here. http://blueoystercult.com/Media/TVappear.html Scroll down until you get to the Saturday Night Live photo.
Engineer trying to do advanced english here, so hang on as I screw up royally... The top 5 leagues: The NBA = The National Basketball Association The NFL = The National Football League The NHL = The National Hockey League MLB = Major League Baseball MLS = Major League Soccer Doesn't appending "The ..." to the first three have something to do with the fact that the name is two adjectives modifying Association or League (a proper name of some sort), whereas the last two are modifying the name of the sport? Like I said, I'm an engineer trying to remember his high-school/college english from too many years ago, so I'm probably way off...
Re: Re: Connoly on MLS.net Would you say "He's the best player in MLS" or "He's the best player in MLS"? I'd go with #1. I don't buy the whole "if you wouldn't say the Major League Soccer you wouldn't say the MLS" argument. Since people would say "I went to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration", but not "I went to the NASA" (or maybe some of these posters would), I don't think these things are universal. Until some english professor straightens this out, I'm unconvinced. Maybe we should just post this question in the referee forum. That's easily the most grammatically correct forum I've seen...
More cowbell info on this thread: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28585&highlight=cowbell The direct link for the entire skit (also linked in the above thread) is: http://mknx.com/v/cowbell.wmv
I got a form letter from Bruce Arena asking for $$ where he spelled Beasley's name "DeMarcus". I don't even know anymore.