But I do. And I get suckered into defending its use. And that--even more than most of my arguments about soccer as a sport--is a waste of my time. So I'm going to post this rebuttal once, in a dedicated blog, so that I can simply paste the link as required. I encourage others to do the same.
I don't claim that any of my arguments are original. People have made them elsewhere. Often. But apparently not often enough. So, here's my contribution.
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There are two main objections to the word "soccer." One comes from the British Isles, especially England. The other comes from much of the rest of the world, especially Latin America. They are both misguided.
1) A wrongheaded objection from our English brothers and sisters: "Soccer" is just a word that ignorant Americans use because they're too stupid to say "football," much less understand it.
Indeed not.
The easiest way to point out how silly a claim this is simply to point out that "soccer" is is in fact of English origin.
The use of "soccer" dates back to at least the 1880s, and it was first used in England. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "soccer" thus: "The game of football as played under Association rules."* The Association in question is of course the English Football Association. So if you are English and don't like the word, your complaint lies with your forebears for inventing it.
*--This was to distinguish "soccer football" from the other football, i.e., "rugby football" (a modified version of which we Americans still call "football.")
2) A wrongheaded objection from our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world (especially Latin America): "Soccer" is a word that people from the US use because they are too culturally imperialist to use the proper word.
Alas, no. Like "soccer," "football" is an English word. So it doesn't make much sense to claim that "football" and its derivatives--fútbol, futebol, le football, etc.--are somehow anti-imperialist whereas "soccer" is somehow imperialist.
Indeed, the fact that both of the dominant choices here--"soccer" and "football"-- come from England is suggestive. Specifically, it suggests that if this question of nomenclature has anything to do with imperialism (and I kinda doubt it), that connection involves the historical reach and depth of English imperialism.
So "soccer" is an English word, and the use of both "soccer" and "football" result from England's influence on the game (and, if you like, from its imperialist history). Consequently, it makes no sense whatsoever to argue that people from the US (and Canada and Australia) should give up the English word that their history encouraged them to adopt because they should replace it with the English word that other countries' histories encouraged them to adopt. (If anything, our cruelly oppressed brothers and sisters in Wales should begin to throw off their English overlords by adopting the term "soccer.)
Indeed, the call for people from US (and Canada and Australia) to abandon their long-established diction and habits to conform to dominant norms actually sounds a lot like cultural imperialism, no?
