足球叫“soccer”还是“football”？拜登和荷兰首相较上劲了……

The perennial question of whether it's "soccer" (as Americans call it) or "football" prompted Twitter wisecracks between US President Joe Biden and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte this weekend, as the Netherlands sent the United States crashing out of the World Cup. 

那么，究竟是为什么会有soccer和football两种不同的称呼？人们常说的英式足球和美式足球又有什么区别呢？

Football, or soccer, has been around for centuries with its roots dating back over 2,000 years ago, but it was not until 1863 that England’s Football Association (the FA) cemented the sport’s full name of Association Football when they established the game’s first rules.

据称，当时镇上一所学校的一位名叫韦伯·埃利斯（Webb Ellis）的小男孩在一次踢球时突然抱起球狂奔，这个看似无厘头的动作，却意外地被其他人接受，逐渐演变成了足球的另一种玩法，于是后人以这种小镇的名字命名了这项运动。

希曼斯基写道：“从此以后，这两种形式的足球被用较长的两个名字‘拉格比足球’和‘协会足球’加以区别。‘拉格比足球’后来被简化为‘rugger’（英式橄榄球），而‘协会足球’则按association读音被简化为‘soccer’。”

"From this point onwards the two versions of football were distinguished by reference to their longer titles, Rugby Football and Association Football (named after the Football Association)," Szymanski writes. "The rugby football game was shortened to 'rugger,'" while "the association football game was, plausibly, shortened to 'soccer.'"

In the first half of the 20th century, soccer was a recognized term in Britain but it wasn’t widely used in publications there until after World War II, he found. In Britain, the term peaked between 1960 and 1980, when it was used almost interchangeably with football.

In recent decades, "The penetration of the game into American culture, measured by the use of the name 'soccer,' has led to backlash against the use of the word in Britain, where it was once considered an innocuous alternative to the word 'football,'" Szymanski explains.

推 荐 阅 读

最新！多地调整！