——足球到底是soccer还是football？
作者：lindsey
来源：《时代英语·高二》2015年第04期
        As you watched the 2014 FIFA World Cup over the few weeks， you heard a lot of people call the sport “football”.
        If you’re American， however， there’s a good chance you call it “soccer”. And despite what British fans may tell you， there’s a good reason you call it that. They should know—“soccer” is a British word.
        The word “soccer” dates back to the 19th-century birth of modern football. It has a more precise meaning than the broader term “football”， points out University of Michigan professor Stefan Szymanski in a new paper.
        2014年观看世界杯的时候，你听到很多人管足球叫“football”。
        但如果你是美国人，很可能你管它叫“soccer”。不管英国球迷怎么说，你这么叫其实很有
道理。那些英国球迷得要知道，“soccer”其实是个英国词。
        “soccer”这个词可以追溯到19世纪现代足球刚刚诞生的时候。密歇根大学的教授斯蒂芬·西曼斯基在最新发布的研究中指出，“soccer”的词义更为精准，而“football”的词义更宽泛。
        People have been playing football-like sports for centuries， from the ancient Chinese cuju to the Mayan game pok ta pok， which used a rubber ball. Yet football as it’s played in the World Cup was born more recently in Britain.
        “Football” originally meant an array of ball games played on foot rather than horseback. At that time football didn’t necessarily refer to kicking and some types of football had long involved use of the hands. In 1871， a group of clubs met in London to form the Rugby Football Union， and from then on the two versions of football were distinguished as Rugby Football and Association Football. The latter is a mouthful， especially compared to “rugby”. So it clearly needed a nickname.
        从中国古代的蹴鞠到玛雅的橡胶球“波塔波”，人们玩类似足球的运动已经有几个世纪的历史了。然而在世界杯上踢的足球却是英国人在近代发明的。
        “football”一词最初是指在地上而非马背上进行的球类运动。在那时，足球并不一定要靠踢的，一些足球长期以来都用手玩。1871年，一些俱乐部在伦敦组建了橄榄球联盟，随后两种不同版本的足球被分别称为橄榄球和英式足球以示区别。和前者比起来，后者的名字很拗口，所以后者显然需要一个昵称。
        But how did “association” become “soccer”？soccer ball For one， it was common at the time in England to form slang by adding -er， like “rugger” from “Rugby”. Plus， as the Online Etymology Dictionary points out， “those who did it perhaps shied away from making a name out of the first three letters of Association.”
        但“association”是如何演变成“soccer”的？其一是，在当时的英国通过添加-er后缀组成俚语很平常，例如橄榄球运动员“rugger”就演变自橄榄球“Rugby”。另外，根据《在线词源词典》所指出的：“引导单词变化的人，可能是为了回避单纯地取源单词‘association’的前三个字母。”
        The popularity of football in North America required another name for association football， so Americans used the British nickname “soccer”. The word “soccer” wasn’t used widely in publications until World War II. It then peaked in popularity among the British from 1960 to 1980， when soccer and football were used almost interchangeably.

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