Comment on !football@sopuli.xyz , for football fans (the one where you touch ball wit your foot)
CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoIf football refers to a single, specific, concrete sport, why do we use it to refer to Canadian rules football AND Gaelic rules football AND American football AND association football?
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
‘we’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, considering that’s like 5% of the world population that would refer to it that way.
CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Maybe in terms of active vocabulary, but in terms of passive vocabulary ~100% of English speakers will recognize the ambiguity
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Everybody outside of said countries will consider ‘football’ to refer to, well, football, without any ambiguity. They may be aware Americans are idiots about it but it’s not something that comes up in daily conversation.
CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Right. You want to use the word football exclusively to refer to soccer because your goal is to be exclusionary. You don’t want those stupid Americans to talk about your favorite sport. But I really want to talk about soccer with y’all a lot, and it’s really frustrating that you are willing to discard this rich history and culture associated with the word soccer in favor of the word that British aristocrats used to distinguish themselves from working class soccer fans, and I find it very sad what you’re willing to sacrifice just to keep me out of the conversation.