Originally posted: 11/22/2022
Don’t blame Americans for “soccer.” 😆⚽️
Transcription:
The etymology of “soccer” is very silly.
It’s British schoolkid slang from the late 1800s that just stuck.
Not surprisingly, versions of the sport have existed for thousands of years, but in the mid-19th century some British schools standardized the rules and created The Football Association.
At which point, soccer became known as “association football” to distinguish it from “rugby football.”
Now here’s the fun part…
In that era, there was a trend among British kids to cut words short (and sometimes mutate them in other ways, too) and then add “-er” to the end.
The Daily Chronicle explained the trend in 1904: “Mr. Gladstone was ‘the Gladder’. An undergraduate left his ‘bedder’ in the morning to eat his ‘brekker’ in his ‘sitter’; later he attended a ‘lecker’ [lecture], and in the afternoon he might…take some…form of ‘ecker’ [exercise].”
The Prince of Wales became the Pragger-wagger. Or the P-wagger if you were short on time.
The trend wasn’t subtle and people were openly analyzing it as early as 1899 when a journalist for the Daily Telegraph wrote: “The triumph of this jargon was reached when some one christened the Martyrs’ Memorial the ‘Martyrs’ Memugger’.”
So what does this have to do with soccer?
Well, in the late 1800s in the UK, with two different football sports needing their own names, Rugby Football was shortened to “rugby” and Association Football was shortened to “assoc.”
And then, continuing its slangy bastardization and given the trend of appending “-er,” it became…soccer.
And there you have it. Soccer is short for Association Football.
And it’s British, not American. We borrowed it, but its existence isn’t our fault. 😆
Anyway, thanks for watching. Come along for more word histories if you feel like it, and sacrilege and puzzles too!
#etymology #language #soccer
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