this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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The meme doesn't really work. The working-class people who played football the most always called it football. Upper-class people at public schools (don't confuse this with state schools - in the UK, public schools are even posher and more expensive than private schools, and the name comes from letting anyone who could afford the fees in, not from any intention to educate the general public) needed to distinguish it from Rugby Football so they could make a rule against playing it, and invented the name Association Football. There's a tradition at public schools to shorten names in a particular way (Rugby football to rugger, buggery to bugger etc.) and when applying that to association football, it becomes soccer. Soccer has always been a term used to mock poor people who play football instead of rugby, so of course it's badly-received when people say it.
Soccer was a widespread term for it among all classes up until the mid-late 1970s, with books, magazines, newspaper columns, and so on using the term interchangeably with football. There appears to have been a switch to actively hating on the term, and it coincides with the rise of the hooligan in the 60s and 70s, and general xenophobia as demonstrated by the rise of the far right. It is at this point that “soccer” becomes a filthy American term among a certain type of “fan”.
So you're saying that because the printing press in the 50's used the term interchangeably, his claim that poor people always called it football is wrong?
Doesn't it sound likely that the upper class just... Owned more magazine companies maybe?
As the close relative of a football journalist, I spent my early life surrounded by historical books, journals, fanzines and programmes from around 1900 to the 2000s. Strikingly, pre-1970s, soccer and football were wholly interchangeable in every social grouping, every purpose, every outlet. Dockers down the pub would talk about footy, football, or soccer as if it meant the same thing. It is only with the xenophobia of the 70s that it became an “American” word and a naughty thing to say in certain company.
Would be lovely if you have some source or something to read about.
Consider my interest piqued. I gave the Wikipedia page a skim and it seems like a good starting point
Found a PDF of a 2014 study by Stefan Szymanski at the University of Michigan. Compares Soccer/Football use in The Times, NY Times, British football bibliography, Guardian, Independent and Time Magazine.
That's why UK clubs called Liverpool F.C, Manchester United F.C. ,Chelsea F.C, Fulham F.C. and so on? F.C. Inter in Italy, Real Madrid F.C., FC Barcelona in Spain and so on?
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TIL
the name comes from letting anyone who could afford the fees in
Thank you for including that, too
That's a very diplomatic way of saying: just the rich
Soccer is short for "Association Football" so either term is valid.
The Public Schools in the west of Britain were Army schools, they played Rugby, and used western prouniciation ie "castle = carsell" and "lieutenant=leftenant"
The Public Schools in the east of Britain were Navy schools, they played Association Football" and used eastern pronunciation "castle=kassel", and "lieutenant=lootenant".
Lieutenant is still pronounced differently in the Royal navy and army.
Reason why, most clubs founded in the 19th century onward, used football club in their names. Including Italian Spanish etc clubs founded by British immigrant
Also, did you know aluminum is the original word for the metal? The aluminium spelling was invented by British people after the fact simply because they thought it sounded better. Now they act like we're illiterate for leaving out the second "i"
Because other metals have -nium not -num
Well, many Americans indeed are illiterate, and this is going to become even worse with Trump and DOGE destroying the education system. But the current system is shit as well, the level of education lacks behind compared to other western countries by far. And then there's the unregulated homeschooling in many states, which religious nut jobs, flat earthers and other conspiracy idiots love to do. Most Americans only speak one language and only learn about the US and it's history while skipping the rest of the world. Many don't even know where the UK is on a world map. Even your vice president didn't know where Greenland was, that it's close to the north pole and fucking cold. There are loads of videos of interviews with random people on the street where the average person can't even tell how many sides a triangle has.
In the movie Idiocracy they predict the world to be extremily dumb in the year 2505 but Americans probably thought this was a goal to work towards, and had trouble reading "2505" and thought it was 2025.
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it was called aluminum by the original discoverer, but a later physicist called it aluminium so that it would be the same as germanium etc.
Everyone involved in that was british iirc. The guy that named it spelled it like 4 or 5 different ways and eventually aluminum mostly stuck, but the other science guys wanted everything to end in 'ium'
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