BS: Use of the word 'football'

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 19 Jan 14 - 12:19 AM

NFL "Futbal Americano" as it has been called in other countries, seems to be catching on in your UK. You, of course, have our greatest sympathy. There will, I understand, be three regular season NFL games at Wembley in 2014, and there is talk of having the Super Bowl there at some point, as well as moving an American NFL team to London (we like to say "NFL", and we say it a lot).

The rise of the NFL as a fixture in American Culture has been seen to parallel the rise in the culture of American "Military Might", and not just humorously. So much for Grishka's idea that it is a substitute for military conflict. It seems more to be a celebration of it.

The "Game" is more or less a confrontation of brute force, with armored bodies slamming against each other . Many professional players have suffered multiple Traumatic Brain Injuries while playing the game, and the New York Times reports that at least 50 kids, High School age and younger, have been killed in competition since 1997.

And then of course, there are Super Bowl Parties...

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 07:33 PM

The current professional NFL resulted in 1922 from a re-organization of the American Professional Football Assn.

(1869 was the date of a collegiate Rutgers-Princeton soccer type football game.)

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 07:07 PM

A quick 'google; gives a start date for The Football Association as 1863
A similar google for NFL gives a start date of 1869.
Any attempt by NFL to sue the FA for use of the word 'football' would surely fail.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 01:40 PM

Rumor- The NFL will sue the Football Assn. in England and related bodies aimed at making them desist from use of the term "football" for the non-contact game otherwise known as "soccer."

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: gnu
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 06:03 AM

One knee equals two feet.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: J-boy
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 12:14 AM

Could the "foot" in American Football refer to a unit of measurement,perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,michaelr
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 07:21 PM

No, BBS, none of the "balls" referred to are egg-shaped; rather, they are shaped like quenelles (or suppositories).

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 12:06 PM

While we're putting the world to rights on the terminology of soccer, can we correct the idea that Cardiff won the FA Cup in 1927.
Cardiff won the English Cup in that year.
As Cardiff is not in England the Football Association decided that the competition needed to be re-named (for future tournaments).

So names in soccer can be changed. The 'World Cup' was also re-named The Jules Rimet Trophy (but it never really caught on)

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: gnu
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 11:50 AM

Hahahahaa

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 11:40 AM

It is a similar egg to the rugby egg and the Australian rules football egg. Why don't you go into a pub full of drunken rugby men and tell them they ought to call their game "eggby", then tell the Aussies to change their game to eggball down under?

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,Big Ballad Singer trying to cut down on cook
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 11:34 AM

An acquaintance once explained that (in the American game) the majority of the plays involve use of the hands, not feet. The object possessed by the team is not a ball, it's rather an egg.

Perhaps, then, the US game should be called "Handegg".

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 08:42 AM

I suppose the vast majority of the world doesn't confuse football with American Health and Safety pastiche of rugby. I know rounders when I see it for that matter.

Sheffield Wednesday Football Club. Est. 1867. (The clue is in the title.)

Up the Owls!

(Man with all his own teeth is looking for like minded football fans, preferably from Leeds in order to point and laugh at them. SWALK)

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: gnu
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 08:34 AM

Watch Football!

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: olddude
Date: 08 Apr 13 - 08:50 PM

Well I played the game, a wide receiver and I can assure you I caught many a foot in the balls upon being tackled ... so hence the name I think

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Apr 13 - 07:19 AM

And, bearing in mind Damon Runyon's NY word for a newspaper, would The Sun on Wednesday name itself 'The Bladder Blatter'?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Apr 13 - 07:09 AM

Bladder Blabber might be more fun to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: gnu
Date: 08 Apr 13 - 06:30 AM

Guest... hehehee! And, the TV update shows of gameday results would be Bladder Blather?

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 07 Apr 13 - 12:18 PM

Use of the word 'football'....a guy with little hands trying to 'pleasure his wife'??

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Apr 13 - 09:46 AM

The American game of football is misnamed simply because it doesn't use a ball. A ball is defined as a spheroid or ovoid. The American football does not meet either criteria. It is a kind of 3D vesica piscis. Since vesica is Latin for bladder, I propose that the NFL change its name to the NBL--National Bladder League. Monday Night Football will just be Monday Night Bladder. Varsity bladder, touch bladder, flag bladder, powder puff bladder, NCAA bladder, bladder team, bladder helmet.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 07 Apr 13 - 06:29 AM

Mike, I didn't use the "watched by" phrase; as I undestand it both codes of Rugby attract exemplary supporters.
Yes a disappointing result for Nottingham Forest yesterday but Blackpool came to frustrate and succceeded. We're still in the play offs however!!

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 02:51 PM

I was in the company of a large piece of silverware today, which bore an inscription including the waords "Northern Rugby Football Union Challenge Cup".

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,Robbo
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 01:53 PM

Who are 'Notts Forest'?

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: MikeL2
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 01:36 PM

Hi Dave

I never heard the bit about the Rugby League description, but I don't doubt you at all. But I would question the "watched by hooligans " phrase.

I have watched many League games for many seasons and though the game itself can be rough, the spectators and fans are among the best behaved and knowledgeable I have met. They are more like a family and welcome anyone who wants to join them. Of course they argue about their favourite team but in my experience they are never vicious.

I see Notts Forest drew with Blackpool - not good enough if they are to qualify for the play-offs eh?

Regards

Mikel2

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 01:30 PM

Team games involving physical skills are probably the most successful invention of mankind to bring about civilization and to prevent wars. Much more successful than art and religion, still not entirely successful. In some societies, a man's game must (or had to) involve the risk of spilling blood, and in "soccer" this risk was considered too small.

Still, those of us who rightly criticize the moral and cultural "degeneration" of sports games nowadays, should compare it to the wars of youth gangs, and have some respect.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 01:19 PM

The full ref for above quote given in wiki is ~~

Ernest H. Jenkins, Elizabethan Headmaster 1930–1961

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 01:13 PM

'As late as 1972 the retired headmaster of a Hertfordshire grammar school recalled "the footer" (by which he meant rugby) having had a poor season in 1953–4.'

from wiki entry on '"‪Oxford "-er"‬ (qv)

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 12:51 PM

"I have children's books from the early 20th century in my collection where "football" involves a team of fifteen."...
.,,.
Indeed, Peter. It cannot be stressed enough that school stories like The Loom Of Youth [Alec Waugh 1917] used 'football' to mean 'rugby'. In that book, the hero Gordon Carruthers, who had been regarded as a good footballer at his prep school, in his first rugby game at his senior school, takes a flying kick at the ball which results in a try for the other team. "You bloody little fool," another of his team says to him' "for God's sake none of your soccer tricks here!"

So there is evidence of 'soccer' used quite early [see my view, 5 Apr 5.16 am of its origin in the Oxford '-er' slang of the late C19, which I derived from the work of the etymolgist & linguistician John Honey], in contrast to 'football' being used generically for rugby.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 07:31 AM

Oh baseball is a game. Monopoly is a game. Baseball is not a sport. Or Darts or curling or Golf...

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: gnu
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 07:27 AM

SOB!!! First game on TV today is West Bromwich Albion FC vs. Arsenal FC. Second game is not a game! It's BASEBALL! A pasttime, at best. Oh, woe is I. Oh, wounded heart! Maybe I'll get some housework done.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 06:12 AM

MikeL2
The way I heard it was:-

Association Football - a game for gentlemen played by hooligans
Rugby Union - a game for hooligans played by gentlemen
Rugby League - a game for hooligans played by hooligans.

Posted just before I become a dickhead and go to watch Forest v Blackpool

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 06 Apr 13 - 05:23 AM

I have yet to meet anybody in the UK, who confuses football, with rugby.
I have always wondered when the distinction came about, sometime in the 30s or 40s possibly? Wodehouse has a sub-plot in one of his novels where there is confusion and I have children's books from the early 20th century in my collection where "football" involves a team of fifteen.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 10:36 PM

We were poor, JtS. We didn't have ponds or harbours or fields or factories. Alls we had was an old tennis ball and a nail and the desire to get to the NHL. We made our sticks outta alders. One year, we lost our sticks in a snow an couldn't play hockey fer near over a whole year... them alders is tough ta whittle down, eh.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 10:12 PM

I play "goodminton" because there is nothing "bad" about a game with shuttlecocks!

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 09:02 PM

MtheGM... I hear ya. Just wanna say, everyone else does too.

"A silly and pointless discussion." Yeah, so what?

"possibly excepting squash"? SAYWHAT? Richard!!!! DUH!!!!???? I am simply ahghast! SQUASH? Doesn't EVERYone know of the ULTIMATE sport requiring more physical prowess than ANY other? How dare you even mention squash within a thread about the sports of mere mortals? Unless yer talkin about trash squash... that there blue dot an shit. Yellow dot or die says I.... iffin ya can't yellow dot yer squat!

And, I learned ta play Yellow Dot Squash Canuck Rules. Let? Hahahaha! Fuck that! Ya block the ball or hog the court, ya get knocked down or a nasty bruise in the back from a Yellow Dot goin a millon miles per hour. LET that be yer lesson!

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 06:47 PM

In Canuck Football we got bigger balls. Isn't that enough to say? ;-)

Gnu, where I grew up "shinny" was played on skates on a frozen pond or harbour, street hockey with a ball on the street, ball hockey on a very nice flat field not far from the house, or at the abandoned candy factory. We also played ball hockey in the student center gym at Memorial University.


Everyone, especially the Brits,

No point pissing and moaning about trying to make a word common usage in another country. Now excuse me I need to go to the loo, I mean bathroom or restroom but not to take a bath or rest.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,Ban Ki-Moon
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 03:19 PM

Do you often say Balls to the Secretary General of the United Nations?

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 02:46 PM

BALL ffs.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 02:45 PM

Footbal - a game for rough girls. [ Wilde ]

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,Ban Ki-Moon
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 02:39 PM

Calling a sport a name based on the corruption of the word that discribes it's organisation is pretty stupid

It's like calling the United Nations - the nits

Hey; it could work

Soccer is a poncy word used by americans, intellectuals and ball carriers who hate sharing the word football

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 12:27 PM

Not a matter of any sport 'deserving' the name of 'football' tout simple. It is just that formulations like "Rugby or football" are gross taxonomical errors; and, as one whose 'pedantry is legendary' (friend on another forum: have I by any chance happened to mention it before?), I cannot abide taxonomical errors; they make my flesh creep!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 12:16 PM

In the early 20th century, American 'football' included much more kicking and very little throwing. It was mostly running and tackling with kicking as a main tactic.... so 'football' was a better term than 'runball'.

English/European football was barely known here till after we all got 'better acquainted' during WWI & WWII. Thus, 'soccer' was simply a convenient term to distinguish the topic.. there is little confusion about which game is meant, even when certain parties object to it.

We in America have a very low participation in forms of Rugby and Australian football, and no sports discussion which begins with the word 'football' will have to define terms.

Sarcastic complaints about which sport really deserves the name are silly, as it is only in places like thread titles in forums where it needs clarification.

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 10:21 AM

In person-to-person conversation, there's little room for ambiguity where "football" is concerned. If you're conversing with a friend, the two of you know exactly what game you're talking about. Confusion only arises when the word is used by the media and, even then, it's fairly easy to decode. If the announcer sounds like he's from Nebraska, he's talking American football. If he sounds like he's from Leeds, he's talking "soccer".

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: MikeL2
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 10:14 AM

Hi PS to my above

Somebody once said " Rugby is a hooligans game played by gentlemen and Football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans.

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 10:12 AM

Lighter:

A silly and pointless discussion.

In other words, BS as BS can. The earth is round, water is wet, and snow is cold.

Those who say "I favor democracy" usually mean "... that's why I ought to be emperor."

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: MikeL2
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 10:10 AM

Hi

Ooop here in't North we have have 3 games !! (Association) Football, Rugby Union Football and Rugby League Football.

Whilst I agree with Michael and others that shortening the names would be a useful idea and "soccer" might prevail for (Association) Football, and rugger for Rugby Union; I can't see any of the Rugby League fraternity accepting rugger.

Around here we tend to use Football for Association, Rugby for Rugby Union and League for Rugby League.

This last week I have been lucky enough to go and watch all three types. I saw a sparkling Rugby League match between Wigan and Saint Helens. Fantastic exciting fare with some breathtaking tries.

Then I saw my beloved Manchester United beat Sunderland in a one-sided contest that amazingly came out only as 1-0. Not United at their best.

I also went to watch Sale Sharks play London Irish. Millenniums ago I used to play for Sale. We weren't sharks then!!! It was a frantic game built on many mistakes where the final result was 33-33. Phew!! Exciting but not what you might call classy rugby.

Regardless of what they are called the games were all well watched and the spectators and followers of all the teams enjoyed the matches. The winners a little more than the losers perhaps.

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 10:08 AM

Maybe the US version could be Bubwa (big ugly buggers wearing armour)?

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 10:05 AM

One should be called Fotgast (fall on the ground and scream theatricaly) while the other could be Copwyem (Carry on playing with your ear missing)

I'll let you guess which is which :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 09:12 AM

I agree with MtheGM's opening post even if it was he who posted it. I also agree with the Fanny-Fiddler, so maybe we could agree a common term for all games (possibly excepting squash, lawn tennis, and real tennis) that involve impacting a moving ball - I suggest "moronball" or "wankball". This could include table-tennis, and the various overhead games the objective of which seems to be to break the opponent's nose, like basketball, volleyball, netball, and lacrosse. Also included would be cricket, rounders, and baseball. I am undecided whether to amend the definition to include golf. Badmington could become "wankfeather"

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: olddude
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 09:09 AM

Well American football (my beloved Steelers) is mainly a running and passing game with little kicking so I have no clue as how the name got started

Subject: RE: BS: Use of the word 'football'
From: artbrooks
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 09:06 AM

Personally, I don't pay a lot of attention to football, much less all of those other games you east-of-the-ponders play.