From the New York Times archive: Origins of the word “socker”
It’s an argument that tires all of us: the name of the game—is it called “football” or “soccer”?
Those who call it soccer think that those who call it football are Eurosnobs. Those who call it football believe that those who call it soccer are ignorant (and American; but they also believe those two qualifiers are indistinguishable).
Truth is, the argument has been going on for a long time. See, for instance, this letter to the editor of the New York Times in December of 1905. A fella named Francis Tabor calls it “a thousand pities” that the paper referred to the sport as “socker.”
Tabor also recites the commonly-agreed-upon history of the word “soccer”:
As a matter of fact, it was a fad at Oxford and Cambridge to use “er” at the end of many words, such as foot er, sport er, and as Association did not take an “er” easily, it was, and is, sometimes spoken of as Soccer.
6 comments
Thats a cool find Josh.
thanks
Excellent piece of research.
[...] Football, soccer, or socker? (ThroughBall) [...]
Notice that the writer refers to the game as Association Football. Pity that the same respect isn’t shown.
[...] Socker in the New York Times archives circa 1905 (Through Ball) [...]
[...] On November 24, 1901, the New York Times published an article (with the mysterious byline: “From Cassell’s Little Folks”) claiming that a version of football “very different from ‘Rugger’ or ‘Socker‘” existed in 17th-century Japan. [...]
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