Does the rest of the English speaking world generally understand what an American means when they say "soccer", or does it help to clarify by adding "football"?

If I’m talking to an English speaker from outside of the US, is there any confusion if I say “soccer”?

For example, when I was in college a friend asked for a “torch”. I was confused for quite some time, because I didn’t know it was another word for “flashlight”. Does the same thing happen with the word “soccer”? Should I clarify by saying, “…or football”?

Thank you!

Th4tGuyII, (edited )
Th4tGuyII avatar

While it will absolutely out you as a US American, we will understand - same as when you say "Candy" and similar common Americanisms

Edit: Also, while mostly used to refer to flashlights as you guys call them, torch can also refer to other non-lantern light-emitting instruments

tigeruppercut,

I don’t think all the people saying soccer in an Australian accent would appreciate being identified as an American.

Th4tGuyII,
Th4tGuyII avatar

True - I had forgotten you guys call it footy and soccer. Though I suspect the Aussie accent would give you guys away before we got to the topic of footy

Geobloke,

We’re just happy that you mostly leave us alone

drcouzelis,
@drcouzelis@lemmy.zip avatar

Thank you, I didn’t know!

Xariphon,

... wtf else do you call candy?

ivanafterall,
ivanafterall avatar

Wee Confectionary Yum Yums

RickyRigatoni,
@RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml avatar

Sugary Goobery Toothery Hurties

DirigibleProtein,

Lollies, or a lolly.

Skrewzem,
Skrewzem avatar

Sweets?

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I’ve actually heard people call candy “sweets” here in the midwestern US quite a lot

We use both

Xariphon,

Goddammit... I've watched enough Bake-Off, I should've known that.

BolexForSoup,
BolexForSoup avatar

I think they call them “sweets”

kindenough,
kindenough avatar

Confectionery...sweets

Th4tGuyII,
Th4tGuyII avatar

As others have said, sweets

guyrocket,
guyrocket avatar

Wait...I think you're saying that Brits call candy sweets...maybe...

Th4tGuyII,
Th4tGuyII avatar

Definitely Brits, but not just Brits - Sweets is the preferred term in much of the English speaking world, with Candy being very distinctly associated with the US.

otp,

Interesting. I’ve used candy to refer to non-chocolate sweets. Sweets refers to sweet candy, and chocolate.

On that note, for a long time, I’d thought “candy bar” was called as such because they tend to not contain any actual chocolate.

Devi,

Chocolate isn't sweets.

otp,

It sure as heck ain’t sour

Devi,

Sweets are a specific thing. Sweet is the flavour that you're thinking of, but if someone is using sweet as a noun, they're never referring to chocolate.

otp,

Sometimes I use “sweets” to include chocolate

Th4tGuyII,
Th4tGuyII avatar

How people refer between different types of sweets varies even within Britain, nevermind other countries... but at least in my experience chocolate sweets get referred to as chocolates, and non-chocolate sweets as just sweets (though I have heard the terms sugar sweets and confectioneries thrown about for those too)

hactar42,

I’m an American who lived in England for a couple of years. Due to American media the majority of everyone understood what I meant when I said things like soccer, trunk or hood of a car, fries, etc. Words with different meanings between the two could get confusing like biscuit, chips, or pissed.

Since soccer doesn’t have another meaning I never ran into someone who didn’t know what I was talking about. However, when saying football in an American accent some thought I was referring to American Football by default.

I can only remember one instant where someone did not know what I was talking about. That was when I asked someone at work where the dumpster was and I got a blank stare. I explained, the big metal thing outside for trash and they were like, “oh the skip”

Ilflish,

There’s more problems that occur when you talk about American Football as just football solely because people will attempt to follow along before getting blindsided by something that doesn’t make sense. At least when Americans talk about Soccer, everyone knows what’s going on. Seems like there’s often miscommunication that people are getting annoyed Americans refer to Football as soccer and not that your refer to American Football as football. Makes sense when you talk to people in your own country.

This isn’t American Centric. Whenever I’ve talked to people about Gaelic Football, it’s discussed as Gaelic football, not football.

Delphia,

In Australia we have Soccer, Aussie rules football (AFL), Rugby Union (Union) and Rugby league (Usually referred to as “League” or “NRL”) all of them also known as “Football”

I have a pretty deep burning hatred for people who insist on correcting people when they say Soccer. It honestly just makes you look like a twat “yOu mEaN wHaT tHe rEsT oF thE WoRld CalLs foOTbALl!?!” Like you fucking understood well enough to know this was your moment to open your cockholster and needlessly add that little tidbit like anyone else was confused.

lando55,

Heh “cockholster”. I’m going to work that into as many Christmas conversations as I can.

yum_burnt_toast,
@yum_burnt_toast@reddthat.com avatar

senseless pedantry in general is one of the things that annoy me most. i first started realizing my hatred for reddit when someone replied to a comment where i said ‘bury the lead’ with ‘lede*’ and i was annoyed enough to not comment for a long time after that. im not a 19th century newspaper columnist so unless youre trying to save the barely literate farmers on computer science subreddits from a minor misunderstanding, thats a comment better left unmade.

set_secret,

Australia and nz say soccer too

Blubber28,

As a non-native English speaker I fully understand what it means and will happily correct it to football for you :P

quackers,

It’s ok, we know you guys are weird.

BananaTrifleViolin,

The word Soccer is actually British - it’s short for Association as in Association Football, although it’s slang from Oxford University of all places, and is late Victorian.

Irony is a surprising number of “Americanisms” turn out to be old British terms that died out in Britain but reached and continued in the US.

DeltaTangoLima, (edited )
@DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com avatar

It’s soccer here in Australia too. Like the US, we have our own local football code too.

AA5B,

I’ve been kind of wondering that as well. A few months ago, I was in a call with a colleague in UK and we were chatting about our kids’ playing the same sport . Then his kid wandered into the picture and asked what “soccer” was and we had to translate American English to UK English

GentlemanLoser,

I’ve heard gridiron. Just not “gridiron football” together.

BigDanishGuy,

Everyone understands, most gringe.

cosmicrookie,
@cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

Most won’t be confused at all. They might be surprised but pretty simple logic would result in a fast realisation of what you actually mean. I am surprised though, that you, as an English speaking person couldn’t figure out that a torch might refer to a flash light.

drcouzelis,
@drcouzelis@lemmy.zip avatar

Haha it’s true! When my Malaysian friend asked me for a torch, I was running around for five minutes looking for a lighter, like this one.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aKrxd1q3Mw&t=8

It’s all I could picture, no one ever asked me for a TORCH before. Like in Indiana Jones?? 😅

Until I stopped and asked, “Wait, what do you need it for?”

“To look at my car, something is wrong with the engine.”

…and that’s when I realized. We had a good laugh.

Anticorp,

Because we have actual torches too. You guys don’t have actual soccers to get confused by. Given the right context we can figure out when you mean flashlight, but said torch.

cosmicrookie,
@cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

I understand this, but still one should be able to figure out that a person wouldn’t ask you for a flaming torch, in a dark place, especially when there isn’t one around, but there instead is a flashlight near by that they originally meant.

Anticorp,

Right, with modern context we can figure it out pretty quickly, after we learn that the term torch is used for flashlight. The first time I saw it i thought they were talking about a cigarette lighter

otp,

I’d have just chalked it up to good ol’ British humour.

Baahb,

Torch is a ligher

morphballganon,

Torch has another common meaning though. Does soccer?

cosmicrookie,
@cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

I’m not comparing them as it is not relevant.

I’m simply stating that it should be pretty straight forward to figure out that they don’t mean the other kind of torch and if not, it should at least be deducible

morphballganon,

I disagree, because in American english, the object you’re talking about has a word (flashlight), and it is expected that people use the accepted words if they want to be understood.

How would you like if someone was asking you for a pair of scissors but they called them a knife, and got incredulous when you handed them a knife? You’d expect them to call them scissors, not a knife.

Muun,

Before he hit the end of that sentence, I thought torch was going to turn out to mean a lighter. :(

drcouzelis,
@drcouzelis@lemmy.zip avatar

That’s exactly right! I wrote about it in another response. :)

markr,

From now on I’m calling it Foot Football. That other game is Hand Football.

SkyNTP,

Jokes aside, for those who don’t know, the real nomenclature is association football (origin of the word soccer) and gridiron football, respectively. Many more types and subtypes of football too!

ivanafterall,
ivanafterall avatar

Football and handegg.

Peppycito,

Footsphere and Handprolatesphereoid.

kindenough,
kindenough avatar

Ah yes no worries, we even heard about them Soccer moms here in Europe.

Treczoks,

It is just football all over the world, in contrast to American “football”.

schnurrito,

It is “Fußball” in German which is what I speak natively. But I still usually say “soccer” when I speak English because that is unambiguous.

IWantToFuckSpez,

Australians also call it soccer.

DeltaTangoLima,
@DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com avatar

Not sure why you got a downvote on this - it’s entirely accurate. We have our own local football code that we call, you know, football.

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