Why we call Football Soccer

Lionel Messi (Argentina) scores in opener of the World Cup

I don't know about you, but I have been enjoying the World Cup.  Soccer isn't a sport I usually watch, but this is a major event.  Everyone else in the world calls it Football or Futbol, but Americans and Canadians call it Soccer.  I thought I should find out.

Even in other languages, the sport is referred to in some variation of Football.  The Spanish for foot is not fut, but pie.  So the sport must have begun in the English speaking world.  In fact, the modern game began in England during the 1860's (The origin of football in England is quite ironic as they royally suck during the World Cup).  They called it football for the obvious reasons.  Actually, the real name is Association Football.  FIFA is the  Fédération Internationale de Football Association.  The association part was meant to distinguish the sport from Rugby Football.  So where does soccer come from?

Since the 1880's, Oxford students had a habit of adding -er to common words.  Bonners for bonefires, Congratters for congratulations, even Eccer for exercise, and my favorite Brekkers for breakfast.  People got the -er treatment as well - Beckers for David Beckham, Cammers for David Cameron and Britters for Britney Spears.  Apparently Oxford students are a bit pretentious.

Remember that football is officially called Association Football.  That was abbreviated Assoc. Football, which then received the Oxford -er.  The -er added to the end of Assoc-er and then dropped the first As- to become Soccer.  In fact, they started by spelling it socker to get the hard cc sound which does not appear in association.  So lets recap:

FOOTBALL (Futbol)

Association Football

Assoc. Football

Assoc-cer

SOCCER

The name soccer really comes from the 3rd, 4th, and 5th letters from association.  While incredibly convoluted, the name soccer actually makes a little bit of sense.  Not really.