Re: Aussie terminology question

On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 12:10 , Tristan McLeay wrote:

> On 7 Feb 2005, at 10.29 am, Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
>> The Wiggles seem to consistently refer to football as "soccer"; is this
>> normal?  I thought that was strictly an Americanism.
>
> Absolutely not.
Indeed not! I was always under the impression that both "soccer" and
"rugger" developed as late 19th cent schoolboy slang in the UK. Certainly
I was quite familiar with both words as a schoolkid. And sorry to
disappoint Mark, but "soccer" is still used here. We assumed the Merkans
borrowed it from us as convenient name to give to what much of the word
now seem to call simply "football"   :)

> The word was coined in a non-rhotic dialect, after all
> (it apparently derives from the repetition of 'assoc', as it used to be
> called 'Association Football'*).
Yep - during the 19th century in Britain various forms of football
received codified rules. In 1863 a body called the "Football Association"
formulated the rules of a game with 11 players on each and in which only
the goalkeepers of each side could handle the ball; the game was called
'Association Football' to distinguish it from other forms - or "soccer'.
The term 'Association Football' is still used here to distinguish soccer
from other forms of football.

> We do call it 'soccer' and as far as
> I'm concerned, calling it 'football' is the deviant name. (I hold that
> calling *anything* 'football' is deviant, because it always refers to
> the dominant football code in your area: a linguistic variable.)
Yes, certainly 'football' in English is a variable.

> It seems to me that the Brits who tell Americans that 'football' means
> 'soccer' & any other form name or definition is wrong
They are - but you are wrong also your generalization about Brits. Rugby
football (of both codes) has considerable following in the UK. Where the
context is clear, 'football' will be used; but if there is ambiguity we
will say 'Association Football'/ 'soccer' or 'Rugby (football)' etc. Just
over the sea from us in Ireland there is "Gaelic Football" with rules
established by the Gaelic Athletic Association. What Brits try to tell
Merkans is that soccer, like Rugby & Gaelic Football, is just another form
of football; like Tristan, we find the Merkan habit of of calling their
game "Football" without any qualifier deviant   :)

[snip]
> * Which is neither here nor there. Aussie rules is just a contration of
> 'Australian rules football', and I guess 'rugby' is probably based on
> something like 'Rugby rules football' too.
No. It is either "Rugby League Football" with 13 players on each side or
"Rugby Union Football" with 15 players on each side (there are other
differences). IIRC "rugger" meant the Union code - but the term seems to
have fallen into disuse. I believe Rugby League Football has quite a
following in some parts of Australia.

[snip]
> Of course, Aussie rules is the obvious sport for a cricket-playing
> nation to play. It saves significantly on stadiums and so forth, given
> that they're both played on the same oval.
Yep - and IMO it's an excellent game - a pity it hasn't caught on
elsewhere in the cricket-playing world.

> In colloquial speech, 'football' is often contracted to 'footy' (both
> the sport and the ball), all over the country.
Same in the UK  - but that may due to the influence of Australian soaps  :
)
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On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 05:48 , Philip Newton wrote:

> On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 11:10:57 +1100, Tristan McLeay
[snip]

>> British criticism of American
>> spellings like 'behavior' and 'bastardize'.
>
> Heh. -ize is used in the UK, too, AFAIK.
It is. It is the standard spelling used by both the Cambridge University
Press and by the Oxford University Press, for example. The spelling -ise
is prevalent but -ize is by no means un-British.

> And it's the original spelling, etymologically --
It certainly is, from Greek -izein via Latin -izare. It is the spelling I
was taught at school in the 1940s & 50s and the one I have always used.

> just as "aluminum" is the original form of
> the word.
>
> ...I still prefer -ise and "aluminium" because it's what I grew up
> with. I was just pointing out that criticising people for retaining
> the original spellings and claiming they corrupted them is...
> interesting :)
It is, isn't i? People are often surprised to discover _plow_ was once
used in Britain before Dr Johnson enshrined _plough_ in his dictionary.

================================================

> On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 01:12 , Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 11:10:57AM +1100, Tristan McLeay wrote:
>> (I hold that calling *anything* 'football' is deviant, because it
>> always refers to the dominant football code in your area: a linguistic
>> variable.)
>
> The only problem with that idea is that the game played by the USA's
> National Football League HAS no other name but "football".
But it's their problem if they want to distinguish it from other types of
football. Otherwise other people will apply their own adjective.

>  The term
> "Gridiron" properly refers only to the field on which the game is
> played; it was applied to the game itself only recently (and fairly
> briefly) as part of its introduction in Europe.  I don't think even the
> name
> is still used by NFL Europe.
Um - on the analogy of "Association Football" or, colloquially, "soccer",
the Merkan game is obviously "National Football" or, colloquially "natter"
     ;)

Ray
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ray.brown@freeuk.com
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]