Gears of War 3

Teach Giznap a history of sport...the fact proper football was around years before the rugby for softies was even around...


...and I don't even like football!

Footballers give the game of football a bad name. I've got nothing against the sport, just the stars of them

That's cute that you guys still call that Football.

Yeah...I mean, we actually play ours with our feet...

And we use our feet to run with ours.

I honestly think they both have equal technical claim to feet.

By that logic you could call tennis football as you use your feet to run in order to hit the ball. Soccer is the only game that should properly be called "football". American 'football' is a corruption of rugby, and is a much later invention. It's claim to the name is as weak as that made game the Aussies play.

Mike, it's called Football...as is the foot connects with the ball. Not Runnyball!

Whenever I walk I use my feet. Does that mean whenever I'm walking, I'm playing football?

Well, a semi-common synonym for "running" is sometimes "footing it.", as far as I know.

Anyway, all that aside, alls i'm saying is that we usually learn about the sport as soon we're old enough to be in school, and it just seems naturally silly for us Americans to call it anything else.

I'm fighting hard the desire the be even-handed and fair here, but I'm afraid that after considering this a bit more, I'm going to have to now, and add something which is actually on Mike's side of the argument.

As we know, American Football is basically a corruption of rugby, but one original older name for rugby, as used at the time, was "rugby football" to indicate that it was a version of football originating from Rugby school. In fact, the official websites of both Rugby League and Rugby Union still use the term Rugby Football.

So, in fairness, an Americanised version of the game does have the right to be called American football, and I supposed from that its logical that Americans shortern it to football, in the same way that we in the UK shortern "Association Football" to just be called football.

However, that in no way whatsoever excuses Americans referring to it as "soccer" simply because they believe they have the right to own the name football.

I just can't fathom why Americans think their game has more of a claim to the name than ours. Hahaha, but then "I could care less" is also an Americanism...

Americans tend to believe their country is the epi-centre of the universe. I give you the "world series" of baseball which is just a national championship of a game only they and a few Japanese give a crap about in the first place.

Hahahaha, isn't it like a more masculine version of rounders?



Do any other countries play American football besides America? And does America have a rugby team?

julius seizure wrote:

I just can't fathom why Americans think their game has more of a claim to the name than ours. Hahaha, but then "I could care less" is also an Americanism...

We don't say that in general.

Only the stupid and uneducated ones among us say that. Which is still a general 40%, but still technically the statistical minority share (though for how much longer, I can't say)

The rest of us, however, that managed to get all the way through grade school, at the very least, still say "I couldn't possibly care less."

Mjolnir wrote:

Americans tend to believe their country is the epi-centre of the universe.

You say that like it's not.






seriously though, i'm kidding. sort of.

Yes, other countries do play American football. Canada has the CFL, there are various minor European leagues, and I think there may even be a small league in Japan.

Its got a following here of course, hence the NFL games that are played at Wembley. But I prefer to think that people go along to watch it out of amused interest - sort of a "freakshow from the colonies" - rather than because of genuine sporting interest.

Y'know, not only is the NFL popular over here, it's almost like a fucking religon.

You have no idea how many people actually paint their cars and even their whole houses up for their favorite team colors, endlessly chatter about it, hold cookouts and treat the entire fall season like a national holiday.

It's insane. It really is.

People over are just as crazy for our version of football. Except the British enthusiasm seems to be less of house painting and barbeques and more like bar fighting and loutish aggeression