So if you were watching the NRL, and the commentators referred to it as football (as I believe they do), what would you tell your daughter? And this in a country that uses the word to refer to 4 different sports.
I just spent the last 40 mins reading this entire thread, so thanks for that DynamoEAR I can't believe how many total tools posted here. I still maintain that the discussion on word etymology that Kenntomasch was part of was actually very valuable and informative, though.
The NRL game tends to get called "League" in Australia, with union being Rugby. They actually seem more relaxed about the name football, even if that tends to be used for the AFL. Take this sports website as an example. Guess which sport the football tab takes you to. http://www.sportal.com.au/football By the way (without wanting to pour petrol on the fire of discussion here) in case it has been repeated in the last 50 pages or so, the idea that football is called so because it is played on foot rather than on horseback is almost certainly wrong. It was being called football hundreds of years before horseback sports such as polo were known in England. There also existed another medieval ball game called handball, which we can probably assume wasn't so called because players played while doing handstands. Records of football and handball date to the 14th century, although handball seems to have died out in England, but prospered in continental europe. So yes, it perhaps is a little silly to call a game football when it involves very little kicking. I'll probably ponder that while tucking into a festive mince pie...mmm....packed full of mincemeat of fruit and spices and no mince or meat at all. Lovely.
Both. FSC and GolTV are the two biggest English soccer/football only channels in US. They call it football all the time.
What does FSC stand for ? What's the big prominent word in the name of the channel and on their old/new logos ? Yes, FSC does have individuals who use football quite a bit but the tone of the channel is much more "soccer" than anything else, euro-poser studio hosts aside. GolTV uses football much more so than FSC. Futbol to be precise.
So both. Nope. They say football while speaking English, so it must be football instead of futbol. Also for MLS clubs, what does FC stand for in FC Dallas, Seattle Sounders FC, Toronto FC, etc. Yes, 'football club'. You must think MLS is entirely 'euro-poser'. So again overall 'both' is right. Oh.. by the way bigsoccer.com and bigfootball.com both go to the same site.
RichardL has the right idea here. Many things, including some sports and some foods, were given their names ages ago. In the interim, the things have evolved, but the names haven't changed. Therefore, the names are no longer an accurate description of the things. Does RichardL get bent out of shape over this? No, he takes it in stride, accepts the fact that that's the way language is sometimes. The rest of us should follow his example.
Tell that to the 'Gol' in the name and the motto 'tu futbol, tu canal' .... Also, have a look at their website: http://www.goltv.tv/index.php GolTV is most definitely Latin-centric. You mean like the Chicago Fire Soccer Club ? Or Club Deportivo Chivas USA ? REAL Salt Lake ? DC United ? The league names here are a joke in of themselves, having artificially been derived from all over the place. If you could say things without putting your own stupid/bullshit qualifiers on them .... Oh by the way, it's Major League SOCCER ...
NO both. Match commentary and shows are almost always in English. I don't care about your taste/opinion/preferenece on names. So.. both. Nope, not my own. I showed you various facts. You showed your own taste/preference/opinion. Yup, I never said only football. So again both. Toronto Football Club is in Major League Soccer. Both.
They might be speaking English, but that doesn't change the fact that it's 99% Latin originated people speaking it and pronouncing it futbol. Also, the shows are mostly done by people that are most definitely not English/Gringo. The majority of the league programming they have isn't English and is made up more so of Latin leagues than any other type. I don't care about yours either .... but that has nothing to do with this. I merely pointed out that there are as many other blatant rip offs in the names of the teams in our league here. It isn't simply "football." Your facts: saying "no" and "both" over and over My facts: showing a channel's website, reminding you of a channel's actual name, showing the actual names of clubs, showing the word used by the league itself for its name ... etc etc. There's a big difference there. How are mine NOT fact again ? DC United, Club Deportiva Chivas USA, Chicago Fire Soccer Club, and REAL Salt Lake are as well ... what's your point ? Oh right, BOTH BOTH BOTH BOTH. Shouldn't that be .... Penta-something if we want to be correct ? It's certainly more than both. You're trying way too hard for something that really isn't that important. Like I said, just stop putting your own qualifiers on things and it wouldn't be so bad.
When the primary language is English, how is it 99% Latin? It's major products are LaLiga and Bundesliga. It's European. FSC's major products are EPL and Serie A. Also European. You don't seem to have GolTV. I do. Almost all the programming is in English. When they speak in English and say [ˈfu̇t-ˌbȯl], you write football. Do you have GolTV? You are confused about what you are talking about. I didn't express my personal feelings unlike you. I provided the facts that terms soccer and football are interchangeably used in this country for this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football. Examples were soccer/football channels in English often say it 'football', and also naming of MLS clubs. Then you expressed your personal feelings that you don't like them. Your feeling is not the point. The fact is that they are both used. Facts: Some of the teams in MLS use FC as part of the team name (5 of them?). FC stands for Football Club Those English soccer/football channels often refer the sport as 'football' Football and soccer both are interchangeably used. Personal feeling/opinion/preference: I don't like it.
Gun barrels haven't looked even remotely like barrels since the Middle Ages. Yet we haven't started calling them "gun tubes".
Holy hell you're dumb. Yes, I have GolTV ... that's how I know what I do about it. It's sad that you say you do, yet apparently know so little about it. I mean, I don't know how can claim to have a channel yet not see/know/understand that it is heavily influenced by and overtly Latin themed. Also, you need to look up the term Latin ... as in Latin-American, or Latino ... because you clearly don't know what it means and thusly what you're looking at/seeing/hearing on that GolTV you supposedly have. While the two biggest leagues it has are Liga BBVA and the Bundesliga, the main focus of the channel is Latin-American/Latino leagues (Spanish/South American). It is also 100% Bilingual. Every single show/match is broadcast in Spanish and English. But yes, I'm the one who doesn't have a clue when it comes to GolTV Not one bit. You're apparently confused about GolTV though ... I'd love for you to directly quote where I did that. Not once did I say otherwise.
Being German I couldn`t care less whether someone calls it football or soccer. For me it will always be Fußball, for an Italian it`s Calcio and for a Pole it`s Piłka nożna. So if the Americans call it soccer, let them do it.
its football, it always has been football. Soccer is a silly word that yankees did to differenciate it from their football. But always it will be football and nothing will change that
Yet another person is who unaware that the name "soccer" was invented by English college students in the 1880s, not by Americans.
Meh, during ESPN's WC coverage last year, "football" was used more, even by guys like Mike Tirico and Reese Davis, who aren't that much into the sport. Plus, the attractive and desirable Michelle Beadle would call it football during SportsNation and the weekly countdown. So the use of the original (and IMO more appropriate) name is on the rise, while the other is being relegated to just nickname status. 20 years ago, if you told someone that you're going to a football match, 99.9% would assume Gridiron, and wonder why u called it a match. Nowadays, many would know what you mean, and most of the rest will ask which kind of football do u mean.
You do know that the original term for it, was soccer ... right ? Abbreviated form of Association Football (Assoc -> soccer), to differentiate from the other forms (rugby/etc). Football wasn't even the original term for the game as we know it today.
I'm going to start calling it "Stickless Field Hockey" just to annoy the "it's called FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!!1111111111eleven" purists.
No, 'soccer' is a nickname for football, not the original term. It was coined very early on, though, so it's an easy mistake to make. 'Soccer' was originally a facetious abbreviation that happened to stick; no more, no less. Edit: Everything that needed to be said (and plenty more that didn't) has already been stated in this thread. Arguing about it at this point is dumb.