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Do you know what is football, soccer or rugby?
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As a girl who hates sports, it is really awkward when someone asks what kinds of sports do you like, which is, however, a frequently asked question, especially in English exams, right? I think some reason for this is the different education system. In China, students spend most of their time on study while the western education requires students to do various sports and sports stars are usually much more brilliant than study ones.
I seldom do sports, especially running, which makes me sweat. I know how to swim just because I swim a long distance to show my persistent spirit.
Several days ago, I participated in a volunteer activity. The foreign professor I received asked me that question naturally because the hottest topic these days is the World Cup. He said many Americans loved to play soccer and asked what my hobby was. I told him I never played soccer and swimming was the only sport that could be counted as my favourite. After that, I am suddenly confused by the noun “soccer”, why isn’t it “football”. Searching for some information, I realised “soccer” in the US means “football”.
In most of English-speaking countries, people call Zuqiu in Chinese as football while soccer means rugby. Soccer is originated form British and is weirdly used as modern football in America. This has even been testified by a research done by Stefan Szymanski in Michigan University. In England, there were two kinds of football: one was association football and another was rugby football, which were actually the modern football and rugby. When “soccer” was introduced to America, it has already had a kind of sport called football, which was actually the modern rugby, and then Americans called modern football soccer and still called their rugby football. And because Americans used soccer, Englishmen replaced it by football to describe this kind sport to reject American culture.
(Opinions of the writer in this blog don't represent those of China Daily.)
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