Little England, Big Words: The Soccer/Football debate
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by user Tyduffy
There is nothing more characteristic of British intellectuals than the tendency to pontificate and generalize about subjects which they have little first hand knowledge. They cordon off their finest minds in All Souls College so they can study the universe from the confines of their offices without having to deal with the plebs. The Brits and their Empire are largely responsible for every academic discipline feigning objectivity and entirely ignoring the perspective of non-Western peoples until well into the Twentieth Century.
Not surprisingly, this tendency filters into their football coverage as well. From the finest in literary journalism to the proverbial blogger ranting in his underwear from his parent's basement, football articles regarding outlying areas, particularly the United States, are rife with arrogance, condescension, and mis-information. Intended for an ignorant and ethnocentric audience, they inflame inaccuracy and idiocy. As with Orientalist scholarship, football articles in Britain often shed far greater insight into the author, than they do the subject at hand.
The topic is massive and the fallacies are many, too many to address in a article. Therefore, this will be the first in a series of instructional lectures for our elder cousins in the UK. Today's topic is the origin of the term "soccer."
The word "soccer" is normally the primary target of snarky British commentators when examining football in the United States. The Fiver from the Guardian refers to "MLS Soccerball" and other derivations such as "sawker" are employed to ridicule the American accent. Its perceived Americanness gives it a bitter taste in the mouths of Brits (who mysteriously don't get that from Marmite).
However, the word "soccer" actually comes from England. Association football set down the rules for the game in 1863, mandating that hands could not be used and divorcing it from Rugby football. In the lovely English tradition of shortening complicated words into cutesy little nicknames (see: Bendy Buses), the word "socca" was used by the lovely chaps at Oxford in 1889, which morphed to "socker" in 1891, and finally arrived at "soccer" in 1895, as opposed to "rugger." It wasn't Americans who invented the term. It was those finest minds in England having a jolly before being ushered off to the Empire to unleash havoc upon the natives.
The United States is not even the only place where the term is used. "Soccer" is also commonly employed in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Ireland. (It was even popular in Britain in the 1960's and 1970's) What do all of these places have in common? There is another popular brand of "football" to compete with, be it Gaelic, American, Canadian, Aussie Rules, or Rugby. "Soccer" was employed not to stain "football" but to more easily differentiate it.
In fact, it is not the usage of the term "soccer" in America that is unique to the English language. It is the British employment of the term "football" solely for the kicking game that is in fact the unique expression. Brits certainly like to imagine themselves as existing in the "normal" and "objective" state of affairs, but, particularly in this case, they are the exception rather than the rule.
Americans often vacillate over the term "soccer." When discussing Europe we always employ the term "football" so as not to sound unknowledgeable to European fans. But, in reality, it is only perception and myth of British superiority (by Britons) that grants "football" ascendancy in the English language. So use "soccer" loudly and proudly my fellow Americans, there is no shame in it.
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