What is the origin of the American word football for a game that involves, barring the initial and final kick, primarily carrying a ball on a field? In the very orderly world of mine all concepts would have words that most closely reflect their properties, in a way that minimizes the occurrence of conflicts (such as the problem of giving a name to a game that involves a ball actually being led on a field by foot). Of course, the popularity of each game would be an input in this kind of naming convention (it would be silly for words for obscure concepts to displace words used for widely known ones).

I would give American football a slightly more apt name; perhaps rugby 2. Or parabolic ball. Or pushball, shoveball or tackleball. I do realize the futility of such a complaint (unless, of course, the U.S. at some point (sadly not this year) does very well in the World Cup at which point soccer may gain in popularity and be a first-grade sport here as well).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 at 06:48 and is filed under The Daily Badness, whatis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.