Lesson 2: Soccer vs. Football

I've been reading Time Magazine's feature story on the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and although I haven't really paid attention to soccer since 1994 when it was the US hosted the World Cup, I'm planning on catching some of the games this year.

In between the inspiring story of Samuel Eto'o and the recounting of Christiano Ronaldo's status as the (gorgeous--striking*) 2006 villain was an account about how Americans are just now catching on to a sport that has been exploding worldwide for decades. The first line in the article: Please stop lecturing us. We know it's called football everywhere else and that it's the global game, the beautiful game. Americans call it soccer because there's a perfectly great sport here already called football, one that is not inclined to surrender its moniker any time soon.

Ever since I was in middle school, I've been aware that everyone else around the world called soccer football and they called our football American football. But I never knew why until today.

Thanks to snehalmehta921 and this article from Slate I now know that the word "soccer" originated from the "soc" in "association football."

How's that for reaching my GOOOOOOOOOOAL of learning something new everyday?

*I know he's not a striker. I'm just trying to be punny.