this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
107 points (90.2% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35887 readers
1095 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

If I'm talking to an English speaker from outside of the US, is there any confusion if I say "soccer"?

For example, when I was in college a friend asked for a "torch". I was confused for quite some time, because I didn't know it was another word for "flashlight". Does the same thing happen with the word "soccer"? Should I clarify by saying, "...or football"?

Thank you!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MrNesser 82 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

English people understand the limitations Americans have to live under when it comes to language

Edit: jesus you make little high brow joke and all the idiots gets butthurt.

[–] Ensign_Crab 58 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

We had to call it soccer. We already had a sport called competitive diving.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

When I get asked if I watch soccer as a hockey fan I have the same feelings. The Women's version of soccer is much tougher and I would rather watch that. They take a beating and get bloodied but keep playing unlike the men falling over including the coaches from being brushed by a piece of paper.

This video does a good job capturing the differences between coaches: https://youtu.be/9HxzLEqI-qE?si=VPWHKI081v80eA3k

This one does a great job highlighting the competition diving angle. I think ~~artist~~ *artistic diving might be more applicable though: https://youtu.be/_OXdfJgCmLc?si=7n-tIrOIsxznm49W

[–] MrNesser 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Isn't American football just rugby with padding /jk

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Hey, that’s not fair! It’s actually just rugby with commercial breaks every 5 minutes!

[–] irish_link 47 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You do realize the word Soccer for the actual game originated in England right?

It just so happened that “Rugby football” got shortened to Rugby and this “Associa toon (Socker) football” got shortened to Football.

Since since an American sport came around the same time called “Football” they kept the name “Soccer” for Association Football.

Just letting you know a little back story.

A small article about it can be found here. https://www.britannica.com/story/why-do-some-people-call-football-soccer And there are plenty more info out there about it.

[–] mysoulishome 28 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I’m going to call them soccer football and American football from now on

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

I'm going to be an insufferable pedant and reply, "Do you mean association football or rugby football?" whenever anyone uses either :P

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

I refer to Soccer the football played with your foot and then the American version as " Egg-ball" played with your hands.

That said I'm also Canadian and for many years in our small "hand egg-ball" league we had 2 teams with very similar club names called the Rough Riders and the Roughriders so I shouldn't be throwing so many stones...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

For a while, the governing body in the US was the United State Soccer Football Association, so you're good, and it's also some good trolling of the zealots on either side of the "debate."

[–] irish_link 1 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

It would require more research than I'm willing to do, but the only part of that article that set off my sports-history-nerd Spidey Sense was this:

In full, it was known as gridiron football, but most people never bothered with the first word.

I don't know that anyone actually involved in playing or codifying the game ever used "gridiron football" in anything like the same official way that Association football or Rugby football were used. It feels much more like outside observers trying to impose logical categories from afar, British exceptionalism at its finest. AFAIK, gridiron was always used as a nickname for the field, and the sport itself was only ever widely referred to as "football," American exceptionalism at its finest.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I work in professional sports (in a tangentially related field, at least) and with NFL in particular for almost 25 years and I don't think I've ever encountered "gridiron football" as a turn of phrase.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

you see terms like 'gridiron' for football, 'grapplers' for wrestlers, and 'harriers' for (cross country) runners frequently (or overused) in small town newspapers covering local high schools.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Agreed, and I'm not sure it was EVER used that way. I've only ever seen it written, and in places where someone wanted to distinguish it from the other codes without giving the impression they were excluding Canadian football. It's a useful term in the right context, but it's not "the full name". Contrast to soccer, where many teams have "Association Football Club" right there in their names as "AFC."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I’ve been pissed that the Ravens didn’t incorporate the Maryland flag which literally has elements designed to emulate the “gridiron bars of a fortress” since the day their uniforms were unveiled because of that relationship.

I’ve heard it for sure

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

American football is (semi-)frequently called gridiron in Australia. I’d say most people would know what sport you meant if you called it that.

We usually call soccer, soccer but soccer nerds and those with close English heritage will call it football to feel superior.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I'd have to say American Exceptionalism at its finest when it comes to sports is the World Series.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Do English people know that they originated “soccer” as Oxford slang for “association football?” Nothing hits like the English ignorantly shitting on their colonies for adopting the stupid English practices forced upon them by the English at the time.

[–] MrNesser 31 points 11 months ago (2 children)

English shitting on our colonies is our favourite past time. You should come along sometime.

[–] duffkiligan 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

America isn’t a British colony, we won a whole war about that.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

Isn't now, but it was a colony, and that's more than enough for us to shit on it

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

"English (simplified)"

[–] SCB 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

One reason it's dangerous for me to drink in the UK is that everyone from the UK sounds like a small child to an American.

So yeah, big language differences. Some soccer hooligan would get all mad at the telly about his footy and I'd end up being stabbed for laughing.

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

…and you wouldn’t have your gun to drunkenly shoot a bystander while ‘defending yourself.’

It’s tough to be an American abroad.

[–] SCB 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Right? So many unique challenges lol

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

At least you don’t need to know geography to get on a plane.

[–] SCB 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I am amazing at geography, so that's not an issue.

The real problem is getting around once you land, and I can say with absolute confidence that is universal.

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart 2 points 11 months ago

Me too, show me a map of the US and I can show you which one is Texas.