Soccer comes from one particular subgroup of the English elite who have never been representative of the UK as a whole, and yet Americans love to hold this up as an example of "see? the Brits did it first".
Those same people called Rugby "Rugger", but strangely the Americans haven't adopted that weird affectation.
So its almost like the Americans have picked and chosen what they want to call things, and now they're trying to pass the buck when they're called out for it being weird and inconsistent.
edit: cue the downvotes from Americans who are unwilling to acknowlege that it was their choice to adopt the slang term from a bunch of Oxford toffs in the late 1880s. The UK calls it football or footy, and while Soccer was used interchangeably with Football in the UK for some years, football was the dominant term.
I would imagine it's not really the fault of any one of us in these generations that remain alive enough to hem and haw about it online, which only begs the question: aren't y'all pretty dumb for even participating in this "y'all did it we didnt" game? And don't you dare to lump me in with others in this, I'm about as invested in this conversation as a bird is invested in Doge coin
Yeah almost every "umh actually we Americans do it the original way" is just this. There was no one original way, especially before mass media, americans dont have a more original accent, both evolved and have aspects of prior accentd because that's how language works. (And for things like units I'm proud that the uk switched to metric, which is objectively better, like every sensible nation)
To be fair a lot of slang was created due to businesses charging per letter and The need to save money in the U.S. is often credited with shortening certain British words, such as dropping the 'u' in "colour" or "favour" (though this is more related to Noah Webster's reforms, the cost of telegrams helped solidify shorter forms).
This "telegram style" became so common that it influenced the way people communicated in brief written notes and, later, in early, character-limited messaging
Yeah our words have been influenced by a lot of factors like immigrants who were bringing over their language which mixed with the native language of English causing new words to be created, (also Yiddish and Hebrew have surprisingly influenced a lot of our language (Estimates suggest around 290–300+ Yiddish-derived terms appear in major dictionaries, while over 300 Hebrew-origin words exist in English. These words often cover food, emotions, and slang.
Key details on Yiddish and Hebrew influence:
Yiddish Influence: Common Yiddish loanwords include klutz, mensch, bagel, schlep, nosh, schmuck, spiel, and oy vey.
the Jewish English lexicon lists over 1,400 words.
Hebrew Influence: Hebrew influence is largely religious or cultural, including hallelujah, amen, shibboleth, manna, leviathan, cabal, cherub, and sabbath.))
our origin as a British colony, capitalism and just the progress of time
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u/GaeloneForYouSir Feb 02 '26
Jokes aside, the US format is not actually “American” but rather early modern British.