Comment on Does the rest of the English speaking world generally understand what an American means when they say "soccer", or does it help to clarify by adding "football"?

• mysoulishome@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m going to call them soccer football and American football from now on

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  • LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’m going to be an insufferable pedant and reply, “Do you mean association football or rugby football?” whenever anyone uses either :P

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  • WashedOver@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    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…

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  • wjrii@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    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."

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  • irish_link@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I love it!

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• wjrii@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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.

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  • GentlemanLoser@ttrpg.network ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    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.

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    • ares35@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      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.

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    • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      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

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    • wjrii@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      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."

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    • Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      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.

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