[Tagging] football or soccer ?

[John Smith]

On 28 June 2010 17:30, pavithran <pavithran.s at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28 June 2010 12:43, Vincent Pottier <vpottier at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Just a thought :
>> Aks people throughout the wordl : "What sort of sport is play d actualy in
>> South Africa" for the "Mundial".
>> I'm quite shure the dominant answer would be "football".

According to wikipedia "Soccer is also a common name for the sport in
Ireland, Canada, USA, South Africa, Japan, Korea, Australia, New
Zealand and Zimbabwe."

So it would depend where you asked, although it might matter also,
depending how long they've, or their ancestors, have been in those
countries.

> Well I am prejudiced because in India we dont even play american
> football or rugby . And the term football always means football .
> Soccer is least understood . Many dont know what it is !

I liked definitions 6 and 7 on dictionary.com:

6. any person or thing treated roughly or tossed about: They're making
a political football of this issue.
7. ( initial capital letter ) U.S. Government Slang . a briefcase
containing the codes and options the president would use to launch a
nuclear attack, carried by a military aide and kept available to the
president at all times.

And just for kicks, from wikipedia we get:

"While it is widely assumed that the word "football" (or "foot ball")
references the action of the foot kicking a ball, there is a
historical explanation, which is that football originally referred to
a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played on foot.[2]
These games were usually played by peasants, as opposed to the
horse-riding sports (such as polo) often played by aristocrats. There
is no conclusive evidence for either explanation, and the word
football has always implied a variety of games played on foot, not
just those that involved kicking a ball. In some cases, the word
football has even been applied to games which have specifically
outlawed kicking the ball."

Regardless of any of that, it seems soccer is the predominantly the
term used in OSM, the term is non-ambiguous regardless of where you
are, so why and try to change what the majority have already ruled on?