Re: Aussie terminology question

On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 13:10, 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. 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'*). 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.) It
> seems to me that the Brits who tell Americans that 'football' means
> 'soccer' & any other form name or definition is wrong are lamenting the
> fact that American English is the defacto dialect nowadays, and I've
> always read it in the same way I've read British criticism of American
> spellings like 'behavior' and 'bastardize'.
>
> * 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. It wouldn't surprise me if
> gridiron was properly 'Gridiron Football'.
You'd be right there - it's derived from the game as played in the Rugby
Public School at the time of the British Empire.  It's actually "Rugby
Football Union", which gets transformed into "Rugby Union Football" by common
usage.

( Considering the form that the Scrum and the Ruck/Maul takes, and considering
that it derives from the adolescent single sex environment which occasions
deprivation homosexuality (no offense intended to all and any gays on this
list ;), I have often thought that it should be renamed Buggery Football
Union.  AFL barrackers get away with calling it the Bum-Sniffers' Game, so I
suppose there is precendence .... ;)
>
> >   Does "football"
> > there refer to Aussie rules?
>
> In Queensland and some parts of New South Wales and, perhaps, the ACT,
> (as well as New Zealand) 'football' apparently refers to one particular
> form of rugby (i.e. either league or union, but not the other), but as
> a Melburnian I know nothing about rugby so I don't know which it is.
In New Zealand it refers almost exclusively to Rugby Union; League is the name
commonly applied to Rugby League.  In the parts of New South Wales where
League has almost exclusive dominion owing to the fact that Rugby Union is
the preserve of the Private School system, League is footy.  In the Private
School system, of course, Rugby Union is football.

How New Zealand came to standardize and monopolize on the Private School game
is a story in itself.  It is quite ironic that the Welsh and the South
Africans came to standardize on the game of the English Upper Crust, the
which set of people they had reason to heartily detest!

Wesley Parish
>
> In the rest of Australia, football does indeed refer to Aussie rules,
> being the dominant code.
>
> Sometimes Aussie rules is called 'AFL', which stands for 'Australian
> Football League', I think usually by New South Welshpeople and
> Queenslanders: When they do this, they aren't talking about the AFL,
> but the sport. The organisation usually has a definite article, but
> AFL='Aussie rules' usually doesn't (to my knowledge---this isn't a
> usage I'm used to).
>
> 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.
>
> In colloquial speech, 'football' is often contracted to 'footy' (both
> the sport and the ball), all over the country.
>
> --
> Tristan.
--
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-----
Mau e ki, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, what is the most important thing?
Maku e ki, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, it is people, it is people, it is people.