U.S. vs. UK: Where Does “Soccer” Come From?

The second day of 2010 World Cup action heats up as Team USA takes on England today, Saturday, June 12th, at 8:30 p.m. local time at the Royal Bafoking Stadium in Rustenburg. In the U.S., ABC will begin its coverage of the game at 1:30 p.m. EST and kickoff’s at 2:30 p.m. EST.

This is the first official match up between the “cousins” since the 1-0 U.S. defeat of Team England during the 1950 World Cup in Brazil; a game many consider the greatest upset in World Cup history and possibly the U.S. team’s greatest victory. Sixty years ago, when the U.S. and British media finally got around to reporting the game, many considered the news of the 1-0 U.S. win to be a typo.

In anticipation of today’s big game (and as people who work with words, we couldn’t resist), we thought we’d compare the rivals linguistically. British and U.S. English diverge on several levels, in the realms of pronunciation, grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. Keeping things light, we wondered about a key difference in vocabulary between the two nations that, given our topic, is quite relevant: Why do the British call the “world’s game” football while Americans call it “soccer”?

Find out after the jump.

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After some digging, I’m happy to report the following: Apparently American’s word for football is a shortened version of Assoccer, an abbreviation of “Association Football,” the term given the game as it was played at elite British boys’ schools in the 1860s. “Assoccer” became “soccer”

and the name somewhat stuck as it served to distinguish it from rugby-rules football.

As players, coaches, sailors, and the enthusiastic exported the game around the world courtesy of the British Empire, local languages appropriated “football” as a loan word. For example, the Spanish fútbol doesn’t literally combine the Spanish words for “foot” and “ball” but is an approximation of the British word for the ever-popular game. The game came to U.S. shores in the late 19th century and was called “football” in the U.S. until after World War II when the increasing popularity of the National Football League (NFL) prompted a change in name. Where English is a country’s first language, “football” often refers to the most popular form of football in that country. Only three English-speaking FIFA countries refer to the game as “soccer”: the U.S., Samoa, and Canada.

No matter what you call it, tune in to the big game and if you’re in D.C.

on Saturday, stop by DuPont Circle where all three of the day’s games will be screened for the public by Soccer in the Circle, who hopes to raise enough money to show the July 11th finals as well.

For more on the U.S. and UK, visit the Travel and Cultures section of the Nat Geo website where you’ll find quizzes, photo galleries, and much more. Or, to get psyched for the World Cup, re-read the June 2006 National Geographic Magazine

feature story on soccer, “The World’s Game”.

Photo: U.S. Soccer