If you’re reading this in the US or Canada, you’re likely familiar with the sport of soccer. But, if you’re reading this pretty much anywhere else, then you probably know the same game rules and call it football. What’s the difference?
HOW DID WE END UP WITH TWO NAMES FOR THE SAME SPORT?
Let’s start in England in the 1800s. Young men, especially at boarding schools, played a number of versions of moving a ball (with hands or feet) across an opponent’s goal.
So, in 1863 in London, a Football Association (the world’s first) was formed to standardize the rules. Two codes resulted from it: rugby football, after Rugby School, and association football, after that newly formed association.
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WHERE DOES THE WORD SOCCER COME FROM?
Now, around the 1870s, students, especially at Oxford University, were fond of a playful slang practice where they shortened words and added –er to their end. Breakfast, for instant, became brekker. Rugby? Rugger. Football? Footer.
The association in association football was also shorted to soccer. This clips off the first and last three syllables of association, leaving –soc-, onto which that chummy –er was added, yielding soccer. The term is first recorded as socker in 1891. Footer is slightly older, found in that fateful year of 1863.
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WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN FOOTBALL?
But, what about that other football that people in the US bring to the Super Bowl? American football (a term recorded in the 1870s) is based on rugby and had already taken off by the time association football became popular in the US.
For whatever reason, the name soccer stuck for association football and football for the gridiron sport. In fact, the governing body for soccer in the US was called the United States Soccer Football Association until 1974.
From Dictionary.com
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