Listening to David Beckham’s press conferences in the wake of his recent lucrative move to LA Galaxy, I was struck by the precision and sheer quantity of occasions in which he said ‘Soccer’. Here is a man who has in the past been criticised for his propensity for ‘You know…’’s in post match interviews, and yet at the end of what must have been an extremely stressful few days, he was able to remember to call it ‘Soccer’ throughout. Why should this matter you may ask; The game is, after all, called by both names? The Americanisation of the English language has been a feature of the past few centuries, a fact that has been accentuated by Microsoft Spellcheck on our computers and the daily doses of popular American programmes on our televisions, particularly in the most recent decades. Words such as color, Mom and center are frequently seen in children’s work, something that I noticed when recently doing some English marking whilst undertaking a PGCE. Whilst I can perhaps understand the desire for a National identity for the relatively infantile American nation, what I cannot fathom is how something that is known worldwide as football – think here of the German ‘futbol’ or any other example – can be apprehended and turned into soccer. Beckham is a pawn in this conspiracy. His press conference, and the corresponding reporting of it, has done more damage to Britain’s worldwide position than can possibly be imagined. Even on Radio 5 Live, esteemed football reporters were finding themselves calling the sport ‘soccer’, and so the slide towards further American control of the English language continues. This is a covert factor, barely noticeable to the naked eye. Indeed, a less than scientific experiment on google shows 230 million links for ’football’, 156 million for ‘soccer’, declining to 2.5 million for UK sites only. And yet, along comes Beckham and I can almost guarantee that before we know it the kids in the school playground will be playing 'soccer' at break.
I cant stand it aswell. American language is taking over, well slowly anyway. I cant stand it on "Sesame Street" when they say pronounce the letter "z" like "zee", which is fair enough, but its making kids in Australia call it "zee" aswell. It should be pronounced "Zed" like the proper English way. And those damn americans better catch up with the rest of the world and stop calling it fucking "soccer." Australia has stopped, now its America's turn. Bloody yanks...
No, it's football, quite simple. We invented it, it's called FOOTBALL. David Beckham is just a stupid ponce in my opinion. And if any kids starts saying soccer i will shoot him! Gets on my nerves so much.
the language is called ENGLISH for goodness sake, i hate it how the usa's adjustments are being used in this country
