Re: Aussie terminology question

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'.

>   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 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.

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