If I’m talking to an English speaker from outside of the US, is there any confusion if I say “soccer”?
For example, when I was in college a friend asked for a “torch”. I was confused for quite some time, because I didn’t know it was another word for “flashlight”. Does the same thing happen with the word “soccer”? Should I clarify by saying, “…or football”?
Thank you!
Not a native English speaker, but my hunch is, soccer will almost certainly be understood. Also it will identify you as American.
And Canada 👋
And Australia, at least when they’re not trying to suck up to the British.
And English… I’ve heard them use soccer as well on many occasions
Yeah, soccer is actually an English term that they created to refer to association football, as opposed to rugby football or the hundreds of other forms of football.
If an Englishman uses ‘soccer’ he’s almost certainly from the upper class.
As “soccer” was played by the elite (such as the Oxford lad who is said to have coined “soccer”), it soon spread to the working classes, and became “football”.
And the British, at least when they’re not trying to make Americans look bad.
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Yes that’s a common slang for it
Which is America.
Canada is in North America the continent, which the US (sometimes referred to as America) is also in - saying Canada is America is like saying Great Britain is Europe
Edit: NA is a sub-continent, not the continentEdit 2: Scratch Edit 1
North America is a continent.
Looked it up properly, you’re right. I shouldn’t have second-guessed myself
I think I have seen Central America referred to as a sub continent, but that doesn’t really make sense other than to create a formal differentiation between them and USA/Canada.
And North America is in America
People in the USA would probably reword that sentence as “And North America is in the Americas.”
It’s similar to how North and South Dakota are called “The Dakotas,” not “Dakota.”
And “America” is in “North America”
Yes, but I don’t think the person I was replying to was referring to America the landmass given the context and wording - plus even in the context given, it would still be more accurate to say North America, as Southern/Latin America doesn’t share the same cultural identity with North America
I debated whether I should say NA or American, but I figured I don’t know what Canadians use, so there we go. Anyway, nice to see that debate is still alive and healthy. I gave up on it ~20 or so years ago. Writing unitedstatesman was exhausting after a while :)
U.SAean? U.Sean?
Estadounidense?
No hablo Español
Like Kleenex means tissues, just think of it as a brand name for US citizen
TIL…
But it’s not called ‘soccer’ in mexico or central / south america, so ‘america’ in that context wouldn’t make sense
If you really want to throw them off, call it the proper name rather than the nick name. Association football. Most adult non-american english speakers are at least tangentially aware that the name soccer derived from that. But it certainly won’t make you sound American.
But if an American says football, that can create a bit of confusion.
Thank you!
English people understand the limitations Americans have to live under when it comes to language
Edit: jesus you make little high brow joke and all the idiots gets butthurt.
We had to call it soccer. We already had a sport called competitive diving.
When I get asked if I watch soccer as a hockey fan I have the same feelings. The Women’s version of soccer is much tougher and I would rather watch that. They take a beating and get bloodied but keep playing unlike the men falling over including the coaches from being brushed by a piece of paper.
This video does a good job capturing the differences between coaches: https://youtu.be/9HxzLEqI-qE?si=VPWHKI081v80eA3k
This one does a great job highlighting the competition diving angle. I think
artist*artistic diving might be more applicable though: https://youtu.be/_OXdfJgCmLc?si=7n-tIrOIsxznm49WIsn’t American football just rugby with padding /jk
Hey, that’s not fair! It’s actually just rugby with commercial breaks every 5 minutes!
You do realize the word Soccer for the actual game originated in England right?
It just so happened that “Rugby football” got shortened to Rugby and this “Associa toon (Socker) football” got shortened to Football.
Since since an American sport came around the same time called “Football” they kept the name “Soccer” for Association Football.
Just letting you know a little back story.
A small article about it can be found here. https://www.britannica.com/story/why-do-some-people-call-football-soccer And there are plenty more info out there about it.
I’m going to call them soccer football and American football from now on
I’m going to be an insufferable pedant and reply, “Do you mean association football or rugby football?” whenever anyone uses either :P
I refer to Soccer the football played with your foot and then the American version as " Egg-ball" played with your hands.
That said I’m also Canadian and for many years in our small “hand egg-ball” league we had 2 teams with very similar club names called the Rough Riders and the Roughriders so I shouldn’t be throwing so many stones…
For a while, the governing body in the US was the United State Soccer Football Association, so you’re good, and it’s also some good trolling of the zealots on either side of the “debate.”
I love it!
It would require more research than I’m willing to do, but the only part of that article that set off my sports-history-nerd Spidey Sense was this:
In full, it was known as gridiron football, but most people never bothered with the first word.
I don’t know that anyone actually involved in playing or codifying the game ever used “gridiron football” in anything like the same official way that Association football or Rugby football were used. It feels much more like outside observers trying to impose logical categories from afar, British exceptionalism at its finest. AFAIK, gridiron was always used as a nickname for the field, and the sport itself was only ever widely referred to as “football,” American exceptionalism at its finest.
I work in professional sports (in a tangentially related field, at least) and with NFL in particular for almost 25 years and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered “gridiron football” as a turn of phrase.
you see terms like ‘gridiron’ for football, ‘grapplers’ for wrestlers, and ‘harriers’ for (cross country) runners frequently (or overused) in small town newspapers covering local high schools.
I’ve been pissed that the Ravens didn’t incorporate the Maryland flag which literally has elements designed to emulate the “gridiron bars of a fortress” since the day their uniforms were unveiled because of that relationship.
I’ve heard it for sure
Agreed, and I’m not sure it was EVER used that way. I’ve only ever seen it written, and in places where someone wanted to distinguish it from the other codes without giving the impression they were excluding Canadian football. It’s a useful term in the right context, but it’s not “the full name”. Contrast to soccer, where many teams have “Association Football Club” right there in their names as “AFC.”
American football is (semi-)frequently called gridiron in Australia. I’d say most people would know what sport you meant if you called it that.
We usually call soccer, soccer but soccer nerds and those with close English heritage will call it football to feel superior.
I’d have to say American Exceptionalism at its finest when it comes to sports is the World Series.
Do English people know that they originated “soccer” as Oxford slang for “association football?” Nothing hits like the English ignorantly shitting on their colonies for adopting the stupid English practices forced upon them by the English at the time.
English shitting on our colonies is our favourite past time. You should come along sometime.
America isn’t a British colony, we won a whole war about that.
Isn’t now, but it was a colony, and that’s more than enough for us to shit on it
Imagine going from one of the biggest powers in the world, owning more than 25% of the entire Earth and having one of the biggest navies on the planet, to losing nearly all of it and returning back to an island approximately the size of Madagascar. Even losing a war of independence, and having to ask the winner that beat them for help in WWII because they were losing. All that, and it’s citizens have the audacity to keep making fun of Americans.
You know, looking at it that way, it really makes Britain look really petty. Which is rather appropriate.
Did you know making fun can be friendly and fun
You say that like most of us aren’t in on the joke - good banter is one of the few things we Brits even produce anymore…
It ruins the fun if you take it too seriously, which (from my experience) Americans seem to do a lot - that’s one of the other things that outs you guys amongst Brits fairly quickly.
“English (simplified)”
One reason it’s dangerous for me to drink in the UK is that everyone from the UK sounds like a small child to an American.
So yeah, big language differences. Some soccer hooligan would get all mad at the telly about his footy and I’d end up being stabbed for laughing.
…and you wouldn’t have your gun to drunkenly shoot a bystander while ‘defending yourself.’
It’s tough to be an American abroad.
Right? So many unique challenges lol
At least you don’t need to know geography to get on a plane.
I am amazing at geography, so that’s not an issue.
The real problem is getting around once you land, and I can say with absolute confidence that is universal.
Me too, show me a map of the US and I can show you which one is Texas.
No, we understand. In fact, if anything it’s easier if you say soccer! If someone with an American accent says ‘football’ I normally assume they mean gridiron, so sayings soccer is actually a little clearer.
Of course, in different parts of the world, ‘football’ might mean rugby (either union or league), Gaelic football or Aussie rules football. So, the potential for confusion is pretty wide!
This. ‘Soccer’ is well understood and unambiguous, though it might prompt certain assumptions depending on your audience. There are times and places you might prefer to say ‘football’ to mean ‘Association football,’ but if you just need to communicate simple factual information in two syllables, it’s probably the best word for that.
There are times and places you might prefer to say ‘football’
Even countries or continents.
Interesting, thank you!
Well it’s not actually that bad of a deal to call football “soccer”. But what really grind gears is to associate football exclusively to “American football” which is what (American) internet do. Rage over “soccer” is just part of the backlash.
In Australia we have Soccer, Aussie rules football (AFL), Rugby Union (Union) and Rugby league (Usually referred to as “League” or “NRL”) all of them also known as “Football”
I have a pretty deep burning hatred for people who insist on correcting people when they say Soccer. It honestly just makes you look like a twat “yOu mEaN wHaT tHe rEsT oF thE WoRld CalLs foOTbALl!?!” Like you fucking understood well enough to know this was your moment to open your cockholster and needlessly add that little tidbit like anyone else was confused.
senseless pedantry in general is one of the things that annoy me most. i first started realizing my hatred for reddit when someone replied to a comment where i said ‘bury the lead’ with ‘lede*’ and i was annoyed enough to not comment for a long time after that. im not a 19th century newspaper columnist so unless youre trying to save the barely literate farmers on computer science subreddits from a minor misunderstanding, thats a comment better left unmade.
It’s ok, we know you guys are weird.
The word Soccer is actually British - it’s short for Association as in Association Football, although it’s slang from Oxford University of all places, and is late Victorian.
Irony is a surprising number of “Americanisms” turn out to be old British terms that died out in Britain but reached and continued in the US.
Most won’t be confused at all. They might be surprised but pretty simple logic would result in a fast realisation of what you actually mean. I am surprised though, that you, as an English speaking person couldn’t figure out that a torch might refer to a flash light.
Torch has another common meaning though. Does soccer?
I’m not comparing them as it is not relevant.
I’m simply stating that it should be pretty straight forward to figure out that they don’t mean the other kind of torch and if not, it should at least be deducible
Before he hit the end of that sentence, I thought torch was going to turn out to mean a lighter. :(
That’s exactly right! I wrote about it in another response. :)
I disagree, because in American english, the object you’re talking about has a word (flashlight), and it is expected that people use the accepted words if they want to be understood.
How would you like if someone was asking you for a pair of scissors but they called them a knife, and got incredulous when you handed them a knife? You’d expect them to call them scissors, not a knife.
I take it you don’t talk with many people who are not Americans
Because we have actual torches too. You guys don’t have actual soccers to get confused by. Given the right context we can figure out when you mean flashlight, but said torch.
I understand this, but still one should be able to figure out that a person wouldn’t ask you for a flaming torch, in a dark place, especially when there isn’t one around, but there instead is a flashlight near by that they originally meant.
Right, with modern context we can figure it out pretty quickly, after we learn that the term torch is used for flashlight. The first time I saw it i thought they were talking about a cigarette lighter
I’d have just chalked it up to good ol’ British humour.
Torch is a ligher
Haha it’s true! When my Malaysian friend asked me for a torch, I was running around for five minutes looking for a lighter, like this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aKrxd1q3Mw&t=8
It’s all I could picture, no one ever asked me for a TORCH before. Like in Indiana Jones?? 😅
Until I stopped and asked, “Wait, what do you need it for?”
“To look at my car, something is wrong with the engine.”
…and that’s when I realized. We had a good laugh.
I’m an American who lived in England for a couple of years. Due to American media the majority of everyone understood what I meant when I said things like soccer, trunk or hood of a car, fries, etc. Words with different meanings between the two could get confusing like biscuit, chips, or pissed.
Since soccer doesn’t have another meaning I never ran into someone who didn’t know what I was talking about. However, when saying football in an American accent some thought I was referring to American Football by default.
I can only remember one instant where someone did not know what I was talking about. That was when I asked someone at work where the dumpster was and I got a blank stare. I explained, the big metal thing outside for trash and they were like, “oh the skip”
From now on I’m calling it Foot Football. That other game is Hand Football.
Football and handegg.
Footsphere and Handprolatesphereoid.
Jokes aside, for those who don’t know, the real nomenclature is association football (origin of the word soccer) and gridiron football, respectively. Many more types and subtypes of football too!
Everyone understands, most gringe.
While it will absolutely out you as a US American, we will understand - same as when you say “Candy” and similar common Americanisms
Edit: Also, while mostly used to refer to flashlights as you guys call them, torch can also refer to other non-lantern light-emitting instruments
… wtf else do you call candy?
As others have said, sweets
Wait…I think you’re saying that Brits call candy sweets…maybe…
Definitely Brits, but not just Brits - Sweets is the preferred term in much of the English speaking world, with Candy being very distinctly associated with the US.
Interesting. I’ve used candy to refer to non-chocolate sweets. Sweets refers to sweet candy, and chocolate.
On that note, for a long time, I’d thought “candy bar” was called as such because they tend to not contain any actual chocolate.
How people refer between different types of sweets varies even within Britain, nevermind other countries… but at least in my experience chocolate sweets get referred to as chocolates, and non-chocolate sweets as just sweets (though I have heard the terms sugar sweets and confectioneries thrown about for those too)
Chocolate isn’t sweets.
It sure as heck ain’t sour
Wee Confectionary Yum Yums
Sugary Goobery Toothery Hurties
Confectionery…sweets
Sweets?
I’ve actually heard people call candy “sweets” here in the midwestern US quite a lot
We use both
Goddammit… I’ve watched enough Bake-Off, I should’ve known that.
Lollies, or a lolly.
I don’t think all the people saying soccer in an Australian accent would appreciate being identified as an American.
True - I had forgotten you guys call it footy and soccer. Though I suspect the Aussie accent would give you guys away before we got to the topic of footy
We’re just happy that you mostly leave us alone
Thank you, I didn’t know!
It is just football all over the world, in contrast to American “football”.
Australians also call it soccer.
Not sure why you got a downvote on this - it’s entirely accurate. We have our own local football code that we call, you know, football.
It is “Fußball” in German which is what I speak natively. But I still usually say “soccer” when I speak English because that is unambiguous.
As a non-native English speaker I fully understand what it means and will happily correct it to football for you :P
Ah yes no worries, we even heard about them Soccer moms here in Europe.
Australia and nz say soccer too
It’s soccer here in Australia too. Like the US, we have our own local football code too.
