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"? - eviltoast

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!

  • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    11 months ago

    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.