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.
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
But not mexico or stuff in central / south america
But if an American says football, that can create a bit of confusion.
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-tIrOIsxznm49W
“English (simplified)”
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.
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.
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.
Everyone understands, most gringe.
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.
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.
While it will absolutely out you as an US American, we will understand - same as when you say “Candy” and similar common Americanisms
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
… wtf else do you call candy?
Wee Confectionary Yum Yums
Sugary Goobery Toothery Hurties
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)
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.
Ah yes no worries, we even heard about them Soccer moms here in Europe.
It’s soccer here in Australia too. Like the US, we have our own local football code too.
I’ve heard gridiron. Just not “gridiron football” together.
I’ve been kind of wondering that as well. A few months ago, I was in a call with a colleague in UK and we were chatting about our kids’ playing the same sport . Then his kid wandered into the picture and asked what “soccer” was and we had to translate American English to UK English
There’s more problems that occur when you talk about American Football as just football solely because people will attempt to follow along before getting blindsided by something that doesn’t make sense. At least when Americans talk about Soccer, everyone knows what’s going on. Seems like there’s often miscommunication that people are getting annoyed Americans refer to Football as soccer and not that your refer to American Football as football. Makes sense when you talk to people in your own country.
This isn’t American Centric. Whenever I’ve talked to people about Gaelic Football, it’s discussed as Gaelic football, not football.
