Talk:Football (word)/Archive 2

Rugby league as football in England
Whilst it is true that rugby league is sometimes called "football" in England, I'm not sure that this trend is increasing or that is an Australian influence. This needs to be referenced.GordyB 17:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Will attempt to cite sources through internet, although common knowledge. Will gain sources, however no reason to remove in mean time. Londo06 18:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm also not convinced that 'football', 'footy' or 'footballers' is commonly used to describe rugby union.GordyB 15:17, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Footy is just rugby league. I heard quite a few commentators such as Brian Moore use football and 'footballer' to describe skill. It is commonplace in league, but as a player of both I hear it used on the field and in the changing rooms for both codes. Article probably wants to keep the two codes apart. Londo06 16:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Brian Moore is from West Yorkshire and not unfamiliar with rugby league either. nIf you say you've heard football=union then I'll leave things as they are but I have never heard it myself. Maybe it's a London thing.GordyB 18:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes the term football is used in union. Typically the reference would be to something like "He has a good footballing brain is quick to take find a tactical advantage". But it is not an import from the southern hemisphere and this usage is IMHO adequately touched upon in the first paragraph of the section. The OED under rugger has this citation "1937 F. SMYTHE Camp Six v. 65 The football was also very popular and Nursang did his best to form the Sherpas into a rugger scrum." So if the claim is that it is an introduction from the southern hemisphere then I think it needs a cited source, before it is added to the section.--Philip Baird Shearer 22:21, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

User:CorleoneSerpicoMontana please see the Verifiability policy:
 * This page in a nutshell: Articles should only contain material that has been published by reliable sources. Editors adding or restoring material that has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, or quotations, must provide a reliable published source, or the material may be removed.

Before reinserting the text I deleted:
 * Rugby league is sometimes described as "football" in rugby league circles, whereas rugby union is more commonly known simply as "rugby". However, both games are increasingly referred to as "football" in Britain, as a result of the influence of Australian English, in the forms of television and the movement of players between countries. [citation needed] This can be seen in the common use of terms like "footy" and "footballer", in rugby league and union circles.[citation needed]

Please find a reliable source to back up the claim --Philip Baird Shearer 09:00, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. I saw had seen it being highly unlikely to be challenged, being a player of both codes and a fan of both codes. The removal was unwarranted even if it was for the benefit of those who would only have a passing interest in the one type of football. CorleoneSerpicoMontana 20:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Those references had nothing to do with the disputed passage, they were simply stories about rugby league. Dibo T 00:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

That us proof that we use the terms to describe rugby league in terms of attacking plays and skill, using the terms such as football, footy, and footballer. CorleoneSerpicoMontana 00:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Forget Dibo's objections, Dibo has a long record of anti-football, pro soccer trolling, which he gets away with because he is protected by user:Chuq. This conversation should go ahead without Dibo's influence, one way or the other. --Tosserandmasterdebater 09:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Once again a brand new account joins the debate, knowing a lot about Dibo and Chuq. I guess I can add Tosserandmasterdebater to the endless list of single use accounts a certain sockmaster runs.Tancred 09:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the text:
 * Rugby league is sometimes described as "football" in rugby league circles, whereas rugby union is more commonly known simply as "rugby". However, both games are increasingly referred to as "football" in Britain, as a result of the influence of Australian English, in the forms of television and the movement of players between countries.

because it is a synthesis of published material serving to advance a position. The sources do not state that the use is on the increase or that it is a result of the influence of Australian English.

The first paragraph already states that the term football may be used for both codes of Rugby in the UK. The first source given for the new paragraph supports this when it states "I am not saying it is on that scale of an England international footballer in the limelight 24/7" Clearly the person speaking calls soccer football as well (as the first paragraph says is the case). The other souces only confirm what is said in the first paragraph of the section. Also using articles with quotes in them from Australians (like Tony Smith) does not really show that the use of football is increasing in RL circles because it is like using an article from the LA Times quoting David Beckham using the word football to show that soccer in the US is now being called football. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Here is another Australian using the term "Footballer" in an interview for the BBC, but he qualifies it:
 * "It is a difficult position to play but I think he has made a very good fist of it. He is a very astute footballer and I am using the term 'footballer' in the sense of union and league."

Here is a qualified use of footballer in Rugy Union --Philip Baird Shearer 11:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Reverted edits. Looking through it is only rugby league that is expected to explain itself. I could quite happily cite everything. An editor has cited that the terms are common usage. Londo06 14:55, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no citation that an unqualified used of football is in common usage for either code of Rugby. There is no citation that "both games are increasingly referred to as "football" in Britain". There is no citation that this is because of an Australian English influence. So if you (Londo06) have sources to cover this please produce them. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Often, not unqualified. My statement is largely for rugby league. Rugby union commentators use it in the same context, but with much less regularity. Londo06 17:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You still have not produced any sources to back up the assertion that "Rugby league has become increasingly referred to as "football" in Britain. It has become more prevalent over recent years, and this is often seen as a result of the influence of Australian English, in the forms of television and the movement of players between the countries." As I said above you are using a couple of web pages to create a "synthesis of published material serving to advance a position ". You need a reliable source that specifically says that what you are asserting. --Philip Baird Shearer 18:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

also Londo06 with regards to comment in the history of this edit "rv vandalism" please read Vandalism. Good faith edits are not vendalism --Philip Baird Shearer 18:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I have no need to advance a position. Londo06 18:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

If you have no need to advance a position then you will be able to produce a verifiable source which supports the assertion that : "Rugby league is often described as "football" in rugby league circles. Rugby league has become increasingly referred to as "football" in Britain. It has become more prevalent over recent years, and this is attributed as a result of the influence of Australian English, in the forms of television and the movement of players between the countries". You have not cited the page number in the book (""Rugby League in Twentieth Century Britain"") that is quoted. What is the exact quotation in the book that supports what you have written? Piling up rugby leage articles that use the word football are not realiable sources to support you assertion, if anything they are a "synthesis of published material serving to advance a position" --Philip Baird Shearer 21:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * it's just yet another incarnation of The Never Ending Rugby League Sockfarm That Will Not DieTM. Dibo T 12:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Uncalled for. There is no reason to think that Londo06 is a sock puppet. If you meant that he is an incarnation of Lucinus, I would find that unlikely. Lucinus was Australian and didn't edit UK rugby league pages.GordyB 14:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I dunno, Londo06 seems to know alot about NRL through Channel 9 and Fox Sports. NRL on Fox, NRL teams. according to his/her edit summaries. I reckon it's a sock that has basically lain 'dormant' as far as edit warring is concerned but then has leapt pretty hard into this one. It might be unreasonable, but it's near impossible to assume good faith when similar sorts of POV pushing come from so many different sources. If Londo06 is not a sock, then he/she has the licinius sockmaster to blame for my suspicion. Dibo T 01:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * That's not so unusual. Australian rugby league is popular in the UK, a lot of people watch it and even British based discussion forums will discuss Aussie-only topics. A lot of the members of British forums are Australian.GordyB 09:16, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * You have absolutely no evidence of anything Dibo. You want to disrupt the conservation to pursue a pro-soccer bias. You and Tancred have done this on numerous occasions, and I see one of them concluded that there was some evidence that you were using sockpuppets for this agenda. Even if it were a reincarnation of User:Licinius(which I doubt, as there is no evidence of it, and a POVer will always make accusations that cant be proven), you would still have no cause for wiki-stalking unless you believe the sockpuppets are being used to be disruptive or to rig content admission. There is no evidence for disruption(beyond a few reverts here and there) and even less for sockpuppets to be used to rig content admission. The simple fact of the matter is that Licinius rested after being wrongfully convicted by a biased network of POV pushing afl administrators, until provoked out of retirement due to the bias on the Marconi page being pushed by yourself and User:Tancred, before being wrongfully banned as a sockpuppet. Now if I were to guess, I would reckon this person in question to be User:NSWelshman, who was never User:Licinius and had nothing to do with User:Licinius despite the conduct of the AFL illuminati, but I am just spitballing there in that opinion. --Tragicdecider 14:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Please check the IP address. We have had NRL rugby league on English telly for several years. I also am not a Roman Emperor - licinius Londo06 09:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * This User:Licinius.GordyB 09:38, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * See also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Community ban for Licinius. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

What are the relevent page numbers for the three books cited: --Philip Baird Shearer 13:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Rugby Football League: "Know the Game: Rugby League (Know the Game)", A & C Black Publishers Ltd, 2004
 * Hannan, Tony: "Seasons in the Sun: A Rugby Revolution", Impress Sport Limited, 2005
 * Collins, Tony: "Rugby League in Twentieth Century Britain", Routledge, 2006

Londo06, you have added p232 to your citation of "Collins, Tony: "Rugby League in Twentieth Century Britain", Routledge, p232, 2006 What does the reference say that is relevent to "It has become more prevalent over recent years, and this is attributed as a result of the influence of Australian English, in the forms of television and the movement of players between the countries." the sentence for which it is cited? --Philip Baird Shearer 10:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * please read the book Londo06 11:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

What are the page numbers for the other two books you have cited? and what do those pages say on this issue? --Philip Baird Shearer 12:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * You seem to have alot of interest in the subject. Please read the books themselves, they would elucidate you upon the commonly held position. I am not promoting a position, for I have no need to promote a position, it is the commonly held view that is also backed up by scholars. Londo06 12:38, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

To be a verifiable source a book needs a page number. What are the the page numbers for the other two books you have cited? What do they say about the assertions made in the paragraph? I ask because not one of the online citations you have given support the assertions made in the paragraph that you have reverted to more than once. As you think that the online articles do support you assertions please select the best one (of the two given) and indicate which paragrah supports the assertion "This can be seen in the common use of terms like "footy" and "footballer", in rugby league circles."? (my empasis is on the word common) --Philip Baird Shearer 10:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Pages added. They correlate the influx of super league overseas signings with language used. Londo06 18:47, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Is that your analysis or do they say specifically that? I ask because none of the online sources you have given support the assertions that you are presenting in the paragraph for which the sources are being given. --Philip Baird Shearer 07:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

You do not seem to have added a page number to "Hannan, Tony: "Seasons in the Sun: A Rugby Revolution", Impress Sport Limited, 2005" or to "Hickey, Julia: "Understanding Rugby League", Coachwise Limited, Glossary, 2006". Also as I said above: As you think that the online articles do support you assertions please select the best one (of the two given) and indicate which paragrah supports the assertion "This can be seen in the common use of terms like "footy" and "footballer", in rugby league circles."? (my empasis is on the word common) --Philip Baird Shearer 07:49, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Well this discussion looks familiar - see Talk:Rugby_league_in_France... Dibo T 01:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Making these sockpuppet allegations is really not helpful. You have no reason to connect these two editors other than they are both involved in referencing disputes on rugby league topics. This is really not enough to be throwing accusations around.GordyB 08:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I've checked some of the book references given on this and AFAICT they do not substantiate the synthesis of published material serving to advance a position. If they do then please give all the page numbers because it is very hard to read a book and try to guess what the reference is supposed to be. To help those who do not have the books please put the quotes from those books on this page so that they can judge if the book references support your hypothesis. In the mean time please do not reinsert the paragraph until there is a consensus to do so.--Philip Baird Shearer 10:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


 * It is not a hypothesis. What team to you support, what team do you play for, which magazines and books do you read? It simply is not a position to advance. Londo06 16:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Put in page numbers for the books cited (Hannan, Tony carries no page number) and for those who do not have all the books you cite (some of the editions are no longer in print) please provide on this page the text which you think is relevant for the synthesis of published material serving to advance a position. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Once again I put it to the defence which team to you support, what rugby league team do you play for, which rugby league magazines and rugby league books do you read? The fact that a book is out of print does not really help your case. Londo06 17:40, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

You are including an assertion that "Rugby league has become increasingly referred to as "football" in Britain.". What is you reliable source for that assertion? If I were to write "Polo has become increasingly popular in Germany" it would not be unreasonable of you to ask what is the source for that assertion and listing several books or articles that mention polo in Germany might prove that polo was played in Germany but it would not prove that it was more popular than previously. --Philip Baird Shearer 18:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Someone is removing text. Then attempting to justify it with a circular argument. I myself would be interested to know what team Philip Baird Shearer follows, what league TV shows he watches, what league books he has read, which league teams he has played for and why he refuses to accept that the term is more frequently used than it used to, and that Television has a large part to play in this. This has been written down along with the increased non-British players coming over. It seems to be a lone battle to deny that the last 15 years has ever happened. 86.152.117.60 15:03, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

There is no circular argument involved. Please read Verifiability and No original research and in particular the section synthesis of published material serving to advance a position. It does not matter what you, I or the cat next door thinks we know, what matters is that if the assertion that "Rugby league has become increasingly referred to as "football" in Britain." then it needs a reliable source to back up the assertion. It may be that the use of football to describe league is less common today than it was before the First World War, but again such an assertion would need to be backed up with a reliable source before it is published by Wkipedia. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Pointless article
This article is just a pointless rejig of the United States "football" or "soccer" debate. To the rest of the world, the game that the United States play doesn't matter at all... if the USA somehow disolved tomorrow, gridiron would dissapear. Why are we focusing so much on one little sport in this article when the game that has been played in England since the Middle Ages is the one that is important to the rest of the world?

Football (as in association football) is the most commonly used by numbers of English speakers in the world, read List of countries where English is an official language. Note, India, Pakistan and Nigeria where English is an official language call association football, football and don't care about the US game at all. So the claim in the lead is at least dubious, at most a total fabrication. - Soprani 13:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Here is proof that India (with a population of over a billion) and others call association football as football.


 * Indian Football Association
 * Pakistan Football Federation
 * Nigeria Football Association - Soprani 13:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
 * With rare exception, Indians, Pakistanis and Nigerians aren't native speakers of English. I think the sentence about Yanks and gridiron is reasonable.GordyB 13:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems that Soprani hasn't even read the article or he/she would know that "gridiron" is merely one of several sports that are referred to as football. Q.E.D., I think. Grant  |  Talk  11:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The first "code" of the game mentioned in the opening if the least significant one; gridiron. When nobody else in the world cares about it, why should it be mentioned first? It makes about as much sense as mentioning gaelic football first. - Soprani 17:44, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Why does it matter so much which sport is mentioned first?GordyB 19:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why would anyone say that gridiron is insignificant. As the article says, it is probable that most people who speak English as a first language mean gridiron when they say "football". It also probably has the second largest number or supporters.


 * Anyway, even if gridiron did not exist, there are all the other codes of football. Grant  |  Talk  04:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Football, Fussball, Voetball. The world knows soccer as football. You could turn around and say how many Americans speak English, and would they automatically call American Football, Football. It should be soccer mentioned first, but the article does appear to riddled with issues. CorleoneSerpicoMontana 08:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * More than 215 million Americans speak English as a first language (see List of countries by English-speaking population). The other countries that prefer the word soccer: Canada = 17 million native speakers; Australia = 15 million; South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand = 3 million each.


 * The major "it's not soccer, it's football" countries are the UK = 58 million native speakers; Nigeria = 4 million; Trinidad = 1 million; all the others (including India) are < one million.


 * That suggests that an absolute majority of native speakers reserve use of the word "football" for gridiron. An overwhelming majority use the word for sports other than soccer.


 * The article is "riddled with issues" because there are so many points of view on what football is; we will never please everyone with the form of expression, but that doesn't make it a "pointless article" (a point of view which suggests to me that the problem is cognitive dissonance). If anything, it makes it more significant. I have changed my own prejudices and misconceptions by writing this article and I have enjoyed seeing the same thing happen to other people.


 * Soprani, you need to do more to explain why you have placed the POV tag at the top of the article. The reasons you have provided so far are insufficient to indict the whole article. Grant  |  Talk  11:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I fail to see why the United States large population should mean that a small world sport should be mentioned before the worlds game, and what the word knows as football. English is not only spoken in a few countries, American football however is. It is normally the case to go for alphabetical order in these cases, regardless of seniority or supposed importance within one nation. If anything AFL should be mentioned before the NFL sport. I would also point anyone who fails to see the limitations of this article towards its sister article Names for football (soccer). Football is largely the round ball game, but it also means the egg shaped ball. That is a truism for the world, we write for the world, then the article breaks it down. Londo06 08:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It's not true that American football "goes first". North American usage is first, the USA is world's biggest Anglophone country by a long way. Together with Canada, it has about six times the population of the UK so it's not unreasonable to discuss their usage before British usage.GordyB 08:35, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * 'Because of the large population of the United States, relative to other English-speaking countries, American football is the game most commonly called "football", by native speakers of English' It is a very odd piece that would normally be picked up on by a wikipedia administrator. English is the world's language, the world knows the round ball game as football, whether through that word or its loanword. My gripe is that it is a bad sentence to have up top, its fine to have it buried in the paragraph as a counterpoint to show that there are indeed other very important sports such as American Football, both codes of Rugby and Aussie Rules that use the term as their own. It however should not be one of the first things that you are introduced to as either someone wishing to explore the terms, or someone who wishes to understand further the various usages of the word Football. Londo06 08:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * This is English as used by native speakers rather than English as used by foreign learners though. We aren't discussing what Brazilian learners of English understand by the word "football"; at least we aren't in the introduction. What we are discussing is what "football" means in various different Anglophone countries.GordyB 09:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Londo, I am an admin. There isn't really anything "odd" about this, it's quite logical. A lot of people seem to have trouble grasping the massive scale of Anglo-North America, its population and culture (including sport), which dwarfs the rest of us native English speakers put together. Grant |  Talk  09:55, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * In India, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc the English language has an official status just like in England, USA and others. Technically the native languages of the USA are ones such as the Monachi language. - Soprani 13:03, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * You are deliberately misusing the word "native" here and also ignoring the fact that official language means very little. Irish is an official language of Ireland but the vast majority of people don't speak it. German is an official language of Belgium but most Belgians don't speak it. How many Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians are actually native speakers of English?GordyB 13:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * To think that for so many years, I've been labouring under a terrible misapprehension that the USA is predominantly an English speaking country. Thank you for clearing that up, Soprani.
 * Grant |  Talk  13:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I think Soprani and others have a point. The introduction should summarise what is in the rest of the article. The rest of the article says that an unqualified use of the word in any particular English speaking country tends to be for the most popular code of football played in that country with the exception of Australia where there are regional variations. I don't think that the the sentence "American football is the game most commonly called "football", by native speakers of English." should be in the article because it is a synthasis of facts "Most English speaking people live in the USA therefore it follows that gridiron is the game most commonly called "football"" is needed because it can be seen as a sentence that can bring to mind Shakespeare's Hamlet: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" and is only included to score points in the football/soccer debate. Would the article be weaker if the paragraph which contains it was replaced with just a summary of the rest of the article? --Philip Baird Shearer 14:03, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes. Grant  |  Talk  14:20, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Next someone will be complaining that Americans don't speak the Queen's English... As I've said to you elsewhere Phil, and will never tire of saying to you, simple logic is not a "synthesis of facts"; it is tantamount to a fact in itself. Or (with apologies to George Orwell), if truth is not the ability to say that two plus two equals four, then what is it? We are not accountable for the ignorance and sensitivities of some soccer fans. Grant  |  Talk  14:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Think of it this way, for a balanced POV should we also say "Because of the small population of the Ireland, relative to other English-speaking countries, Gaelic football is the game least likely to be called "football", by native speakers of English." as is just as accurate and informative as the current sentence? I personally do not think we need either sentence in this article. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you might have a point with that. I think it is probably sufficient to say that in North America football means American football and not worry about whether this is a majority of native Anglophones or not. Does it really matter? It's just fact for the sake of a fact. Though I think the rest of the article should be largely unchanged.GordyB 18:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

If there were Gaelic football fans coming here and whingeing about the lack of prominence accorded to their sport and/or tampering with the article's wording to that effect, then such a wording might be useful.

The reason why for the present wording is that soccer fans don't get that their usage of "football" is a minority one among native speakers of English (or are in denial about it) and can't understand why that is the case. Exhibit A: Soprani's first post in this debate:
 * ''This article is just a pointless rejig of the United States "football" or "soccer" debate. To the rest of the world, the game that the United States play doesn't matter at all... if the USA somehow disolved tomorrow, gridiron would dissapear. Why are we focusing so much on one little sport in this article when the game that has been played in England since the Middle Ages is the one that is important to the rest of the world?


 * ''Football (as in association football) is the most commonly used by numbers of English speakers in the world, read List of countries where English is an official language. Note, India, Pakistan and Nigeria where English is an official language call association football, football and don't care about the US game at all. So the claim in the lead is at least dubious, at most a total fabrication. - Soprani 13:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

There are so many things wrong with the above, that I hardly know where to begin. Grant |  Talk  02:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The reason why Soprani bought it to the talk page is because it is in the introduction and it is unnecessary as the facts in the article speak for themselves on this issue. He is not suggesting that a counter argument about soccer be added to the introduction. If we were to place the sentence about "Gaelic football" -- or should it be "Ausi rules football? -- in the introduction then the edit would soon draw comments on the talk page. If it is an issue for editors, it should be mentioned on this talk page, (put in a box at the top with a red background if you like), but it does not need to be in the article that ought to be optermised for readers over editors. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Who says it's unnecessary? Soprani is actually saying that the whole article is unnecessary and he/she therefore has no understanding of its rationale and contents (and/or does not want to). His/her comments speak volumes to me about why it is necessary. Or are now going to remove every factual comment from Wikipedia that offends the sensitivities of every ignorant person who happens to wander by? Grant  |  Talk  14:57, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I mean FFS, what could be more relevant to this article than the identity of the game most often called "football"? Grant  |  Talk  15:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The point is that there is no solid fact to prove that gridiron (a game restricted to parts of North America) is the most common sport dubbed "football" in the world. Its a highly dubious claim.

You're marginalising countries which too have English as an official language by presuming for some reason (I don't know why) that nobody there speaks the language... I can't speak for Nigeria and the like, because I've never been to that country, but in Malta for example; a country with their own language (Maltese) but English as an "official language" too everbody I spoke to used the English language in reply.
 * No, you are simply refusing to make a distinction between "native speaker" and "non-native speaker". Realistically far fewer Indians speak English and at a lower level than say people in Scandinavia or the Netherlands. You cannot equate India with the USA.GordyB 18:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Aside from that fact that countries with an official language as English refer to association football as "football" most commonly. Across the world there are even more football federations, simply carrying the English language term football in their title (refering to association football), covering their population. (Fédération Française de Football in France, Chinese Football Association in China, etc)

The word "football" is most commonly used on this earth to refer to men playing a game with 45 minutes each half, that entails using their foot to kick a ball, with two goals that have nets on at either end of the pitch. - Soprani 15:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * This is English wikipedia not Chinese wikipedia or French wikipedia. What "football" means in different languages is not relevant for what it means in English.GordyB 18:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

This is an English language article, on the use of the English language word. Football is an English word, saying it in China or France doesn't suddenly mean it is a "Chinese word" or a "foreign word".. it just means that they use the English football (word) (what this article is about) there too. In French foot is pied and ball is boule, however they use the unaltered English language for the term "football".

Unless you're suggesting that the "en" in the website address refers to the nation England, and not the English language as a whole and its use all over the world, then it is valid. If that wasn't the case we could discard what is spoken in the US, etc anyway.

Over the course of the following week, I will start up a full research on the matter discussed in this section. - Soprani 19:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you agree then that the Italian wikipedia should include how Italian is spoken by countries other than Italy and part of Switzerland? Presumably you would agree that "il football" should be preferred over "il calcio" if that's the word that Russians who speak Italian use.
 * English is the world's lingua franca but it is also the native language of hundreds of millions of people. The two uses should be kept separate. Many foreign language learners think that "manifestation" means "demonstration"; a common mistake does not become correct English just because lots of non-natives think that this is correct.GordyB 21:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Soprani, you seem to be too immersed in the attitude that "everyone except Americans calls it football" to see out. The Chinese federation, in fact, is actually called Zhōngguó Zúqiú Xiéhuì and its game is called Zúqiú, the Korean federation calls the game chook gu and both of these names are derivations of the older Chinese word and game cuju. It is interesting to note that the Japanese federation is Nihon Sakkā Kyōkai, with Sakkā being a corruption of "soccer".

Anyway, I find it a dubious, unverifiable and highly speculative proposition that millions of non-native speakers who read English are going to come to the English language Wikipedia seeking information on soccer. Better to stick with what we know, which is how native speakers use the word "football". Grant |  Talk  01:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Before we get fully derailed on the side issue of people in countries who don't have English as an official language calling the world game football, I will just say this on that topic.


 * To say the 64 million French using the English language word "football" to refer to the exact same thing as the English people do, instead of "piedboule" counts for nothing, seems like borderline discrimination.


 * In your opinion (GordyB) it somehow doesn't count towards use of the word "football" across the world (which this article pertains to) and magically when a Frenchman from the extremely obscure World Cup winning nation refers to association football as "football", he is saying something entirely different? Even more magically and mystically, if he went 20 miles across the Channel tunnel, and said the exact same word as he was using in France, it would suddenly "count"? BS. If Russians call football "il football" instead of "calcio", then that would go towards the use of the word "football" around the globe and not the use of the word calcio; so on the Italian Wikipedia it would go in a "football (parola)" article rather than "calcio (parola)", its not too difficult to grasp. This article is about a word and its use, which the French, against French language conventions use the English language word "football" on this earth.


 * As for China, the clubs' official website, based in China (.cn) is hosted at http://www.fa.org.cn/ ... it has CFA on its official logo (worn on their shirts when they take the field) meaning "Chinese Football Federation" and uses those words on its official website. Whether you like it or not, that is use of the "football (word)" across the globe. If there is evidence of the Japanese using the "English language" term "s**cer" (rather than a modified version sakkā, unless you're ok with fußball, futebol, futbol being counted as "football" useage) in a similar way to the Chinese use of football, then mark it up under use of "s**cer (word)". However after a small amount of effort, I can reveal the Japanese have the JFA on their official logo (guess what the F stands for?) Their Japanese hosted official website (.jp) is located at http://www.jfa.or.jp/eng/ and in the English language part of the site "Football" is used and not "S**cer".


 * Besides that is just a side issue, there is still a higher majority of people in countries where English is an official language calling the world game "football" and not caring about the obscure USA game. You have not provided research to disprove this, as it is imposible to disprove, as I said; I will do indepth research on the whole issue this week. (until that time please leave the correct tag on the article)


 * Also, the countries which have English as an official language that you are trying to marginalise do have many Wikipedians reading and contributing, such as Indian Wikipedians, these are just the ones who announce it. Besides what that has to do in defining facts for an encyclopedia is beyond me? A fact doesn't change depending on the nationality of somebody reading it. - Soprani 11:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * "Marginalising" in your book equates to calling people "native speakers" when they aren't native speakers. If Indians do refer to soccer as "football" then that it is notable but it does not mean that the majority of native speakers of English do because very few of them are native speakers. Even fewer French people are native speakers of English so bringing them up in a point about what the majority of native speakers of English understand by "football" is absurd.
 * The vast majority of people on the planet have never heard of "calcio" but should this fact be allowed to dominate calcio (parola)?
 * You keep counting apples as oranges when they are totally different things.GordyB 12:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Soprani, you can try to ignore the issue of native speakers (or mother tongue, or first language or whatever your preferred term is) as much as you like, but there is no logical reason why native speakers of French, Hindi, Tamil, Chinese or any other language, who happen to read English, would come to this article in the English-language Wikipedia in greater numbers than Americans. You will have to do better than this.


 * By the way, don't put "dubious" tags on simple statements of fact, with references. It is inflammatory and against Wikipedia policy. Grant  |  Talk  21:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


 * BTW(2) Mandarin language speakers call the game Zúqiú in everyday conversation among themselves, so it's irrelevant how ZZX (the Chinese association) markets itself internationally. The situation is totally different in India and France, where "football" is a loanword, adopted by the local languages. There are few cases where it is a loanword.  Grant  |  Talk  21:30, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

It's original research, and is not informative. So there's more americans who speak english as a first language than there all the others put together who refer to american football as football. what's encyclopaedic about this? it means nothing! it certainly doesn't mean that more people in the world know 'football' as 'american football' - just more native english speakers (which is pertinent to nothing, surely). just get rid of that opening section and leave the etymology, please. --80.169.130.30 10:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Last revert
The references show the number of native speakers of English and the number of native speakers in the USA. It's clear from the figures that the majority of native speakers do live in the USA. You labelled this dubious because "It doesn't show the use of football round the world" - but then it doesn't claim to. It references exactly what it claims to do. This was vandalism pure and simple.GordyB 21:07, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Try reading sometime, the source clearly states "United States Census 2000". It shows use of the English language, in guess which country? The United States of America. It is not a World Census and no where in the source does it suggest more people call football "soccer" and refer to gridiron as just "football"... if you can't be bothered to read then perhaps you should just edit rugby articles instead of vandalising tags on football ones?
 * Besides, the tag identifiying the "dubious" piece of information is not next to the source, its next to this claim in an entirely different sentence "American football is the game most commonly called "football", by native speakers of English." which is unsources. Again, if you're investing the energy into contributing to this article, atleast learn how to read it. - Soprani 21:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)- Soprani 21:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Correct but the other source states the total number of native speakers. Obviously you did not read it. If you had you would see that the US total was more than half the world total.GordyB 21:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Read the second part of the message I've added. It has been proven in the above research that more countries who hold English as an official language call the game football, this outnumbers the USA. Look up the numbers of populations in the world. - Soprani 21:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Now you are just trolling. You know very well that most people in those countries don't speak English at all and that the statement in the article doesn't refer to anything but native speakers and yet you continue this. If you continue to add tags to the article then I will take steps towards getting you banned.GordyB 21:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

You are the one who is trolling the article, Mr. Rugby and you're doing so on baseless opinion. You're seriously suggesting that countries who have English as an offical language (which has its own sourced article dedicated to it in itself) don't even speak the language? They just have it as an official language for a laugh? You expect me to even respond to an idea so ridiculous? Just because you're so incredibly ignorant in regards to which languages are spoken where on this earth, doesn't give you the right to bring your ignorance into article content.

It is a fact that out of the 52 countries which hold the English language as their official language that over 45 of them call the world game "football", while a minority of countries who have English as an official language, call it something else; ie-"soccer". This is fact, just because you don't like it, doesn't change the facts of the matter.

You've been provided with the facts above, yet you persist in trolling the article in an unconstructive manner. If you continue to troll it and attack users in the edit summary then I will take steps to get you banned from articles that don't pertain to rugby. - Soprani 11:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


 * What football means - speakers of the English language. Only including countries where it has official status and the parts of the population who are proven for sure to speak it.

Football (World game) (there are many more countries but this is enough to prove the point) American football Canadian football Aussie rules football
 * India = 100,000,000
 * Nigeria = 79,000,000
 * UK = 59,600,000
 * Philippines = 45,900,000
 * Pakistan = 17,000,000
 * Cameroon = 7,700,000
 * Malaysia = 7,400,000
 * Total = 316,000,000
 * USA = 251,388,301
 * Canada = 25,246,220
 * Australia = 17,357,833


 * This does not even go so far as to include Republic of Ireland or South African under the "world game", even though in Ireland, the game is known most commonly and officially as football... but whatever, so we can have no margain for wormish arguments to get away from the stone cold facts, we'll leave that. We're also leaving out countries like France and China where the simple English language term is used to mean the world game, and also loan words in Spanish, Portugese, German, etc languages.


 * The above proves conclusively that where English is an official language, and the parts of the population which are known for a fact to speak the language that "football" most commonly means the world game. No way in hell does it mean gridiron most commonly, that is a plain and simple fraudulent lie. End of. - Soprani 11:47, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Congratulations. You managed to link to an article on TESOL India to defend the point that 100 million Indians speak English. Unfortunately for you the word TESOL means "Teaching English to speakers of other languages" and the word "native" isn't there in any shape or form. Your second source on India claims "It is, however, claimed as the mother tongue by only a small number of Indians".
 * Since you have decided to "warn" me about "vandalism" then you have left me with no choice other than to take this further.GordyB 13:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * As for "ignorant". You claim that "in Ireland, the game is known most commonly and officially as football". This is completely untrue. Gaelic football is known as "football" in Ireland, only unionists call soccer "football". Anybody with any knowledge of Ireland knows that.GordyB 13:30, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

What does "native" have to do with anything? There you go again with your racist marginalisation of populations who speak English because they call football a sport you're bitter about. The countries shown above hold English as an official language. Get it? The country in which those people live and speak the language, holds it at official status. The results above show only the people who are known to speak the language.

As for the Republic of Ireland, wrong answer. Their association is called the Football Association of Ireland all of their clubs are called football club (Cork City Football Club, Derry City Football Club, Bohemians Football Club, Drogheda United Football Club, Shamrock Rovers Football Club, Sligo Rovers Football Club, etc) and many people just call gaelic football "gaelic", but as I said, some people do call football, "soccer" so that wasn't counted under use of the world game, cause I knew you'd use it try worm out of it. I like how you decided to witter on about this little side point though, instead of the mountain of evidence before your eyes which disproves what you were saying.

Take it further? What on earth could you possibly do to change the simple facts of the matter presented here, prey tell? Are you going to call Pratibha Patil, beg her to remove English as an official language of India, or at the very least stop Football in India, the countries second most popular sport; rename the All India Football Federation, rename the National Football League (India), tear down Kingfisher East Bengal FC's 120,000 capacity Salt Lake Stadium... on top of that, the second most populous country on earth, under the orders of GordyB must call that game "soccer" and instead take up gridiron, a sport they've never heard of and call that football. They must do all of this, why? So that GordyB isn't wrong in a debate as he is very, very, very mad at Alex Ferguson... good luck with that. - Soprani 05:06, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * If you are going to add your comments it would help if you actually read the article first. Gaelic football is called "football" in the Republic of Ireland and raving about it won't help. Club names are a historical feature and many, many rugby clubs are "Football Club" in England e.g. Hull FC and most soccer clubs in Yorkshire are AFC such as Leeds United AFC, Hull City AFC, Bradford City AFC. On this "evidence", one might say that in Yorkshire football means rugby league.
 * If China adopted Italian as an official language would I billion people suddenly become native speakers of Italian? The fact that India has English as an official language means nothing whatsoever in terms of it being the native language of more than a small minority. Even your own source say so?GordyB 12:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Why are you so hung up on the term "native"? There is no law that declares only people who claim to be "native speakers of the English language" count. These countries which I've brought up, with research/proof have officially accepted the English language as one of the languages of their country. They don't do it just for some piss about or a laugh, their government have officially adopted them... you wanting to push an anti-football agenda on the internet does not overide that.

The United States of America did not spawn the English language, neither did India... but both have considerably large populations who speak it (over 100,000,000), who are you to just discount that? Your stance in the argument ads up to no more than "I don't like football, so I'll ignore all evidence which does not support my baseless, POV opinion".

If the Chinese government officially named the Italian language amongst the official ones of their country and there was evidence to suggest that those people could speak it (as I have proven above with sources in regards to India, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc) then why wouldn't it count? They'd still be a country with the Italian language at official status, so how would it be acceptable to marginalise them in articles on the use of Italian language words? Anyway, these strawman arguments aren't getting you anyway, we both know your interest here is you own personal agenda, not the truth; as evident by you magically and mystically pretending the sourced information I've provided above in regards to official English language speaking countries and the people who are known to speak it, isn't there.

By the way, Cork City Football Club was founded in the 1980s, recent times; if you had read this or actually bothered to do any research on the internet in regards to Irish football, then you would be able to see that a lot of Irish people just call football, football.. and their own code "gaelic". However, they don't use the term "football" most commonly to refer to gridiron, so its a moot point in regards to the results shown earlier in the section. You're getting off subject as a way to try and weasel away from the main point. - Soprani 12:03, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * If you had even read the first few lines of the Wiki article on Cork City then you would know that this Cork City Football Club was in fact a refounding of the original club of the same name.GordyB 09:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * With reference to the preliminary question in your above post, I might ask: why are you so keen to assert that the rights of non-native speakers are equal to those of native speakers? But neither is a serious question. The same goes for this one: "why do you want to deprive non-native speakers of the information that that their usage of football is a minority one among native speakers?" Grant  |  Talk  12:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

South Africa
I think the entry for South Africa needs expanding. The most popular game of football in South Africa is association football, but do the majority of English speaking South Africans play and watch rugger or soccer? (also do any of them play or follow any other code of football) Do they call rugby union "rugby", and association football, or do they call it soccer? --Philip Baird Shearer 14:03, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Link to wiktionary page
Can someone include a link to the wiktionary definition page by adding to this article? 84.68.51.68 19:10, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Done --Philip Baird Shearer 19:51, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Common usage of the word football in English
See the sections above: and.

I have protected this page for two weeks and put in a RfC, to see if a compromise can be worked out on this talk page and end this edit war. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:56, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Good work feller! I don't mind countries that have English as an official language having their own section or being included the main section. What I object to is trying to highjack the article to claim that football=soccer in the opinion of the majority of native speakers. This clearly isn't the case as even articles cited by Soprani as defence of his position don't include the phrase "native speaker" and even contradict what he is saying. I prefered the compromise that you suggested earlier that the sentence regarding which sport is most commonly called "football" by Anglophones be removed. I don't think that it is particularly important whether North America does have a majority of native speakers or not.GordyB 14:02, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I do think something needed to be done to stop GordyB's defacement, but you forgot to revert his blanking before semi-protecting.
 * See the wrong version --Philip Baird Shearer 06:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * hahaha. - Soprani 12:12, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Why should "native" take priority, over "official"? This is racist marginalisation. As I have proven conclusively above with research, when the word "football" is spoken by people who's country holds the English language as official it most commonly means the world game, not the obscure USA sport of gridiron. The article is not located at Meaning of football (word) by native speaking populations or Meaning of football (word) in the USA, other official language status countries don't count, it is located at Football (word).

This article is about the word football, when one of the 100,000,000 English speaking people in India, a country who hold the English language as official, says the English language word "football", they are speaking of the world game. As is the situation for many other such countries; over 45 out of the official 52 who hold the language at that level. Meaning countries like USA, Canada, Australia, who instead use the word "football" to refer to their own national form, are English speaking countries in the minority on the issue. Just because you (GordyB) do not like Indian, Pakistani, Nigerian, etc people, does not give you a right to somehow downgrade the status their governments have officially given the English language and the recognised people there who speak it.

There is no way on earth that this fact should be purged from the opening overview of the article, with GordyB trollishly claiming the addition of such information is "vandalism" (when it has actually been proven on this page with research). He has offered no research which disproves the information I added to the article, he just resents the facts it would seem, because he doesn't like football, and is openly bitter about FIFA, the Premiership, Champions League, Alex Ferguson, etc as per his userpage. - Soprani 05:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Just because you (GordyB) do not like Indian, Pakistani, Nigerian, etc people, does not give you a right to somehow downgrade the status their governments have officially given the English language and the recognised people there who speak it.
 * And you claim you aren't trolling? When did I say that I don't like them?
 * As for my user page, it is true that I don't like Fergie or the Champions League but if you had paid rather more attention you'd see that I am a Leeds United supporter.GordyB 12:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Can we draw a line under the accusations and try to resolve the specific dissagreement in the article please?
 * I'd love to but I'm not the one throwing terms like "ignorant" and "racist" around.GordyB 12:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Soprani your write As I have proven conclusively above with research, but AFAICT the conclusion that you draw from you research is the similar type of WP:SYN to that which is currently in the article and about which wrote above "... as is a synthasis of facts "Most English speaking people live in the USA therefore it follows that gridiron is the game most commonly called "football"" ..." It seems to me that both are only to be included to score points in the football/soccer debate. Would the article be weaker if the paragraph which contains it was replaced with just a summary of the rest of the article? --Philip Baird Shearer 12:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Specifically you have ignored figures for the number of native speakers and relied on your own definition and figures which aren't backed up by any references and secondly you argue that "football" is used in such-and-such a country and the proof is the name of the sports federation. Both of these are original research and this is why I have reverted.GordyB 13:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't dispute the figures. Wikipedia is about fact. However the way it is written is appalling, and deliberately inflammatory towards those who use football to refer to association football. As someone who is on the "it's football, not soccer" side of the debate, an acceptable solution to me would be a grammatically improved version of:


 * "42 of the 45 FIFA members using English as their official language refer to association football simply as "football". However, of the estimated 390 million native English speakers worldwide,[source saying that] 215 million live in the USA, whose Football Association uses the word "soccer"[source confirming that]."


 * I would make the edit myself but the page is protected :) 82.13.151.148 02:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Forgot to add the obligatory afterthought:


 * "It should also be noted that an association's adoption of "soccer" or "football" to refer to the sport does not necessarily mean this term is unanimously used by the respective country's population." I object to specific examples being given on the basis that there's no reliable source, and that "soccer" fans in "soccer" using countries might refer to the sport as "football". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.13.151.148 (talk) 02:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

A simple statement of fact is "deliberately inflammatory"? Grant |  Talk  09:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It can be, it depends on the context and the fact. E.g. I would not add to the start of the French language article particularly the article in French the fact that French has less words than any other major language in Western Europe, and the English has the most. That is one of the reasons for the WP:NPOV policy and why I think in this case the lead into this article is better off without these "facts" of mine is bigger than yours. This article is useful for someone who wishes to speak to (or correspond) with another person in another English speaking region because it informs people that the word football might cause confusion -- as this is something which will come as a surprise to many English speaking people --  but the numbers of people who call a particular code football, extrapolated from population data with no third party source is OR and of little practical use to anyone as it can not be cited because it is Wikipedia speculation. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I think Grant's point is that anybody who takes offence that what they call "football" is called "soccer" should reflect on the fact that other sports are also called "football" by people who follow them. In order to remove any "offence" to themselves they propose to cause offence to other people. Not that they care about that.GordyB 10:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Exactly.

Also Phil, as I said above, what could be more relevant to this article than the identity of the game that is most often often called "football"?

Do you really believe that the number of native English speakers who call the game "soccer" is smaller than the number who call it "football"? Or is it just that you too are also offended by this truism? Grant |  Talk  14:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm disappointed that people care enough about a hypothetical count, for which no third party source has been found, that they are willing to support putting into this article information obtained through OR and Synthesis of data. It is a synthesis because both sides are assuming that everyone in a population (man woman and child) uses the word "football" and use it to describe one specific code, this is an assumption that may or may not be true. Further it is assumed that all the individuals in all populations have the same frequency of usage, this may or may not be true. We have no way of proving it unless someone can come up with a third party source. "The inclusion of a view that is held only by a tiny minority may constitute original research. Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder, has said of this: If your viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;"


 * The logic that you are putting forward here Grant would suggest that for words like gasoline/petrol lift/elevator some sort of tally should be kept as to which is the most common usage, because "what could be more relevant to an article than the identity of the word most often often used to describe the item?". What is much more useful is to know what an item like a box cutter it is called in different English speaking countries, not what is the most common word used by summing the usage together using WP:SYN to do it. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * What the real issue is that some people want all articles with "football" in their title to be about soccer with maybe a link to a disambiguation page for other "football" sports if we are lucky. There are also a few Americans who want this article to be about American football and have a link to soccer.
 * I agree with your points and would rather the whole sentence about primacy of use was removed. We should not give in to either group of fanatics but if there absolutely has to be a reference to primacy of use then it should be accurate and sourced appropriately.GordyB 17:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

My suggestions above (I was the anonymous editor) were intended to incorporate that point Gordy. If we reach the conclusion that the statistics are worthy of inclusion, they should be presented in a way that enables the reader to interpret them for themselves. This discussion itself would suggest that primacy of use matters to some, and there would be no problem finding sources to verify that this debate exists. I think what's important is that the issue is covered in a balanced way. Equally, I'm opposed to excessive counterstatements so as to appease both "sides".

An example of this article being POV is this sentence; "American football is the game most commonly called "football", by native speakers of English". I'll tackle "native" separately, but my major gripe is that the expression is derived from assumptions. I acknowledge that 215 million out of the 318-380 million native English speakers live in a country which primarily uses "football" to refer to American football, but it's merely indicative; it doesn't amount to proof of usage. The phrase should thus be worded as such. BeL1EveR 23:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC) --

(I want these to be treated as two seperate posts; consensus on one point would be a good start. Too often opportunities for potential agreement on wikipedia are missed because there is another point that causes disagreement. Feel free to agree and disagree)

Is "native" an appropriate term in this debate? My feeling is that anyone who is classified as being fluent (N.B. not simply proficient) in a language should be taken into consideration here. I've reached this conclusion on the basis that it's assuming bad faith to suggest a non-native fluent speaker is, for want of a better expression, less qualified to use the word "correctly". I see little reason to distinguish. For that matter, define "native". First language? Language spoken in country of birth, or of parental origin? It's needlessly ambiguous, and serves no purpose in the discussion over primacy of use. BeL1EveR 23:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * We do not define "native" that is original research, we go on the definition used by the source quoted. For instance it is original research to include Indians as native speakers unless your source does so. "Fluent" speakers is a slightly different matter but there is very little research done on how many fluent users of English there are. Whilst there are very few native speakers of English in India there are a lot of fluent users but the figures available are at best approximations.GordyB 07:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyone who doesn't understand the significance of/difference between native and fluent speakers should find out about this, before venturing an opinion. But I should not be surprised at this; the debate began with Soprani stating that the whole article was "pointless" because only Americanoid barbarians say "soccer"...it is hard to know how to to begin to address such profound misapprehensions.

No-one here is willing to say that the number of native English speakers who call the game "soccer" is smaller than the number who call it "football". That is the bottom line. To insist that references be provided for a matter of simple logic/common sense is not in the spirit of good faith editing, WP:OR or WP:NPOV. It is a legalistic attempt to use policy to pursue an ideological objective (possibly a dislike of normal usage in varieties of English other than one's own).

Phil, the articles on gasoline/petrol lift/elevator are not about the words, they are about the things. This article is specifically about a word, specifically variations in its usage from one country/region to another. Grant |  Talk  10:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I just hit the random article button and up came 2006 Lebanon War. The last part of the first sentence is unreferenced: "The 2006 Lebanon War...was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon and northern Israel." This is clearly a "synthesis" of the start date and the end date. Is it original research? No, of course it isn't. Grant  |  Talk  12:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The points I've made in regards to the English language, the countries who hold the language at official and what the fact that the majority of them call the world game football, is not unsourced. I have provided indepth research on this very talkpage; here and here. Over 20 idependent sources in regards to use of the English language is supposedly "no research"? Very interesting. GordyB is unable to provide counter evidence to disprove my research, because it would be impossible.. you can't disprove something which evidence shows is correct.


 * Anyway, the very valid point of "Why should "native" take priority, over "official"?" has not been answered. No anti-football propagandist has offered an excuse for dismissing these countries. It is POV to marginalise the countries who for a reason, have officially recognised English as one for their countries languages. Why should GordyB's dislike for football overide the Indian government or the 100,000,000 people who speak the language there? Its not as if the English language was created in the United States anyway, they themselves happen to have adopted it at one point, even though the "native people" of the land still exist and to this day have their own languages. - Soprani 12:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Your 20 idenpendent sources are a joke. The ones I checked even contradict your statements. Try getting proper evidence and we will discuss it.
 * Again in slinging mud, you ignore what I have said. I actually like soccer. I am a Leeds United supporter.GordyB 12:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Non of the sources contradict the statements at all, we have another lie from you. They're here and here for all to see. Anyone can feel free to see check them out. Yourself on the other hand, you provided no counter-sources to disprove them.


 * This is one of the sources that you quoted in support of the 100 million Indians speak English. It is, however, claimed as the mother tongue by only a small number of Indians and is spoken fluently by less than 5 percent of the population..
 * If you don't think that contradicts rather than supports your position then you ought not to be editing.GordyB 13:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The first part of your userpage is dedicated to anti-football propaganda of "I hate the Premiership, FIFA, Champions League, etc". So don't give me this "I like football really" when the only time you're editing on Wikipedia in regards to them is POV opposition to the sport... like on this very article, where you're trying to cover up the fact that most countries where English is recognised as an official language call the world game football. You even claim the adition of this information to the article is "vandalism" or "trolling"? Your bias intentions against this poor sport is clear to me. - Soprani 13:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't like the Champions League etc because it is against the essence of the sport that I grew up playing and following.GordyB 13:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Soprani, when you put native in quotation marks, it suggests to me that you don't understand this usage, just as your emphasis on the geographical origins of English, suggests to me that you are not aware that usage within England has not dictated usage elsewhere for centuries. By the way, the USA never "adopted" English, it has been the majority language as long as the USA has existed, just as it was the majority language of the preceding British colonial societies and their predominantly English settlers. Are there any other historical issues you would like me to clear up for you?

Speaking of "very valid points", you might like to explain why usage in overwhelmingly non-English-speaking countries, which happen to have English as an official, minority language deserves to be treated as equal in importance to that in countries where the vast majority of the population use English to buy bus tickets and exchange terms of endearment. Grant |  Talk  13:07, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As I said before, there is no law or rule that says it is fine to marginalise 100,000,000 Indian people who speak English, a country who holds the English language as official. They're using the English language and English language words regardless of where they're from, the colour of their skin, their preference of sport, their religion or whatever else. And they're doing so in countries where their governments have recognised the officiality of the language.


 * Wikipedia is seperated by language, this is the "English Language" Wikipedia, not "United States Nationalism" Wikipedia. No country should have "importance" over an other as that is POV and bias, a word doesn't carry more value if it comes from the direction of the United States over Malta or India, that is POV.


 * When the majority of the official English language countries (over 45 out of 52) are speaking the language, what do you suggest they are really speaking, so that it wouldn't count towards the use of English words on this globe? Does it only count if the original native populations are "replaced" with Western-Europeans first? The fact that the goverments and law officially state that English is one of their official language, carries optimal significance in this debate. You cant ignore that or pretend it doesn't exist and the numbers don't lie. The only people who seem to think this "doesn't count" have vested interests in other derivative codes such as rugby, strange that. - Soprani 13:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * "...there is no law or rule that says it is fine to marginalise 100,000,000 Indian people..." Actually there is: it's called the tail does not wag the dog. Good luck trying to persuade me, Gordy and the rest of the editors who have worked on the Football article for years, that the article is usurping the content currently occupying football (soccer). The 100 million Indians are innately "marginal" to this issue because they do not rely on English, in the way that native English speaking Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans and Irish people do. Your denigration of non-English usage and speakers is so archaic as to be an oddity.


 * "No country should have "importance" over an other as that is POV and bias..." Give it a rest mate. As you know, "soccer" is not the common name in one country, it is the common name in most countries which have native English speaking majorities. As in, not people who use it simply to read newspapers, converse with speakers of third languages, etc. - Grant  |  Talk  15:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

My first point has been blissfully ignored. At least I tried to be optimistic :)


 * While I agree that Soprani is going too far here, there's nevertheless a valid point to be made. The USA accounts for slightly over 50% of "native" speakers. Does that mean we should always point out that there are more Americans than other native speakers?
 * ~5% of 1.1 billion is still ~55,000,000 people who, according to Soprani's source and as verified by Gordy, have a good understanding of the language. Canada's population is less than that, should we therefore ignore them? Especially bearing in mind that the "native" language could be considered to be French? 55 million is "small" relative to the Indian population, but is comparable to the population of Great Britain. It's certainly not an insignificant number.
 * It isn't. Nobody is suggesting that, but 5% of people speaking the language "fluently" is far below many European countries (e.g. the Netherlands and Scandinavia) and probably on a par with France. Is the way that the French speak English notable?
 * In addition there is absolutely no evidence of actual Indian usage, Soprani merely assumes that Indians consistantly say "football" because of the name of the governing body. If you applied the same logic to Ireland, Australia and the UK then you would assume that everybody in those countries said "football" but if you look at the entries by country then that just isn't true.GordyB 09:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Suddenly we've gone from "native English speakers" to "countries with native English speaking majorities". There is a big difference. "Native" ~= "first language/ mother tongue". Why the sudden change?
 * Nobody has suggested native English speaking majorities, South Africa doesn't have have a native speaking majority but it does have native speakers.GordyB 09:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Nobody has addressed my concerns. I'm not disputing the figures quoted. I'm disputing the tone used to cover the subject, and inconsistency in coverage of the "views".

Where English is a first language, the word "football" generally means the most popular form of football in that region.

I think this sentence is fundamental to a lot of the debate here. Moving on, I propose that the next sentence be worded as follows ({ } indicates my additions)

"{There are} 215 million native speakers of English in the United States,[1] {where American football is normally referred to as football} relative to an estimated 309-380 million native speakers worldwide.[2][3] This suggests that American football is the game most commonly called "football" by native speakers of English."

Worded like this, I have no dispute. It's well sourced, it provides the same information that the previous revision does, and presents the case without drawing conclusions. This in contrast to the current form:

"Because of the 215 million native speakers of English in the United States,[1] relative to the 309-380 million native speakers worldwide,[2][3] American football is the game most commonly called "football", by native speakers of English."

Notwithstanding complete disagreement with the word native, assumptions are made here that are contradicted when covering the other side of the debate:

"Also, use of the word football by the other 42 affiliates does not necessarily reflect popular usage of the word "football" in their countries."

Whilst I'm not disputing this sentence per-se, it makes assumptions not made when deriving that American use of "soccer" is universal. Consistency should be applied here, and wording the former sentences as I've suggested, coupled with the example below, would achieve this.

"For example, controversy has arisen in both Australia and New Zealand, because — while the majority of people in both countries use the word "soccer" — the national governing bodies in both countries, in the early 21st century, decided to rename themselves, using the word "football" instead of "soccer", and to insist on unqualified use of the word "football" for their code."

"and to insist of unqualified use"? Surely "and now refer to the code as football instead of soccer" would be the NPOV expression. If I'm wrong please correct me, but my understanding is that the FA's have taken the decision to refer to the sport as "football", and fans who predominately follow the code are following suit. Indeed, the team is still popularly referred to as The Socceroos. It's not used as a disparaging term, it's simply a nickname that followers of multiple codes still like to use.

"controversy"? Perhaps there was, perhaps there wasn't. If there was uproar this wouldn't be too hard to source. I'm not exposed to regular media sports coverage from the area. What I do know is that "football" is more often than not, but certainly not always, used for Aussie rules football. I don't know about New Zealand, but I understand that some Australians use "Aussie/Australian rules football" and "football", some use "football" and "soccer", and perhaps some use "Aussie rules" and "soccer" so as to avoid ambiguity, although the latter admittedly is a guess.

This is because many countries, with relatively small populations of native English speakers, nevertheless have English as an official or main language, and favour British English usage, thus using "football" for Association football.

I thought there was consensus here that gridiron, soccer, Canadian football, Gaelic football and Australian rules football are referred to as "football" depending on which code is prominent, and that in regions where two or more codes are popular there is some ambiguity. Of these 42 countries, how many have a minority of native English speakers, and in those countries which code of football is most popular? These facts are required to make this a valid argument; the implication is that the associations merely use "football" so as to appease FIFA, whereas with the possible exception of Australia where is this actually the case?


 * The official name of soccer is Association football, FIFA stands for International federation of Assocaition football. There's no point "appeasing" FIFA by refering to the sport by a name other than their official name for it.GordyB 09:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The other point to be made is competence in the language. A fluent speaker is capable of manipulating the language for themselves. Take, for instance, the Netherlands. A large number are fluent English speakers. A minority perhaps, a majority perhaps, but certainly a signficant proportion. My question is do these people call soccer "football" purely because of British English? More likely they call it football due to a combination of it being the dutch equivalent, ("voet" "bal" translated are "foot" "ball") and because soccer is the prevelant code. BeL1EveR 20:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * BeL1EveR, to cut a long story short, I agree with your latest suggestions regarding wording, minus the brackets i.e.:


 * ''There are 215 million native speakers of English in the United States,[1] where American football is normally referred to as football, relative to an estimated 309-380 million native speakers worldwide.[2][3] This suggests that American football is the game most commonly called "football" by native speakers of English.


 * Grant |  Talk  02:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * See my comments above, because the sentence that starts "this is ..." is WP:SYN. If it is not then provide a source that supports the hypothesis. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * You appear to have missed my comment to you above about the nature of "synthesis". Grant  |  Talk  09:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I saw your comment. I do not see the similarity between your two comparisons. I can verify the number of months with the use of one source and simple subtraction that anyone who can name the months of the year in English in the right order could do. I do not know how many of the 215 million native speakers of English in the United States use the word football to mean American football and I don't know how often on average an individual in that population uses the term football. Neither do I know the numbers in any other English speaking population that use the term football and how often on average they use it, or which code they mean when they use it. Therefore I do not see how it can be asserted that American football is the game most commonly called "football" by native speakers of English, as it is based on several suppositions that are not supported by sources. If this is a commonly know fact then it should be easy to find a source to support the statement. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Come off it. There are plenty of perfectly logical statements which cannot be referenced, such as "Winston Churchill was a British subject for his whole life." Grant |  Talk  10:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * And if it was stated in a Wikipedia that "Winston Churchill was a British subject for his whole life." without a source then under WP:PROVEIT "any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation" if anyone queried Churchill's status a source would have to be provided as "Any edit lacking a source may be removed". Grant you are being given as chance to provide references to support the hypothesis you are presenting which is what is recommended in the same policy section "but editors may object if you remove material without giving them a chance to provide references." If you can not find one then the unsourced sentence can be removed under the same policy. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Even FIFA refers to it as soccer in American related articles. http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/clubfootball/news/newsid=109596.html
 * That is an AFP article that the website has put up without editing. British news papers sometimes do the same when using new agency copy. It does not really prove anything about FIFA usage. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Nobody's disputing that use of soccer is widespead in America, they're disputing that it's absolutely universal, and whether more than half of all English speakers use it is a topic of contention. My opinion is that it's equally likely that "soccer" and "football" are in wider use globally, and in the absense of a verifiable answer we shouldn't come to a conclusion. The "native" statement is very likely to be true, but again, by no means certain, hence my compromise which seems to have been agreed. Can we provide a source that in American English the correct term is soccer? Yes. The American-English dictionary.com has the following definitions. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/football
 * 82.13.151.148 11:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I find what you have written above confusing. I have been talking about the use of football not the use of soccer, and what is " hence [your] compromise which seems to have been agreed" --Philip Baird Shearer 13:40, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I have now provided another reference. The fact that it is from a German publication ("Germans, Fawlty?!) also serves to underline the relevant point that even non-native speakers in Europe often prefer American usage when speaking English, such as "soccer". (A practical rather than ideological choice, since "football" is normally used for American football in Germany, e.g. German Football League. As opposed to fussball. )


 * What kind of argument is this? Why should we use the english word of football for the German word of "Fußball" when we speak german. Of course do we relate the english word of football to american footbal but only when it is used in a german kontext. But when we speak english no matter if with an native or non native speaker we generally associate football with the world game of footbal. Spaniards call soccer futbol, Portuguese cale it Futebal, the British call it Football, Germans Fussball, the French call it Football, the Dutch Voetbal, the Swedisch Fotball,... why should any european refer to american football when he uses the word football either in his native language or in English when this sport is almost not existant in Europe? If you would add up all the speakers of the languages who use the word football (in their native language as a connection of the word foot and ball) for the world game of football you would find out that the amount of native american english speakers and their use of football for american football is negligible. [User: ???] 02:10, 25. 10. 2007 (CET) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.121.26.132 (talk) 00:12, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * What the sport is known in various different European languages is not the point. English words derive their meaning from their usage in English not from how a similar word is used in different European languages. In any case why is Europe so important?GordyB 08:55, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

My point above was that no-one would ask for a reference for Churchill's citizenship, because no-one is ignorant of it. This matter is more difficult, because of the abundant ignorance about (a) usage of the word football and (b) the "correct" use of English, as demonstrated by Soprani, et al.

PS IF Soprani thinks that ESL/EFL usage is significant, he/she should take a look at http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

"Wikipedia.org users come from these countries:

United States 16.1% Japan 5.0% Germany 4.3% Poland 3.9% France 3.4% Mexico 3.3% United Kingdom 3.3% Chile 3.1% Brazil 2.7% Philippines 2.5% Canada 2.5% India 1.9% [...]"

That is Wikipedia as a whole, not the en.wikipedia. Grant |  Talk  15:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd add that the figures for Japan, Germany, Poland etc are only slightly higher than the figures for Wikipedia in their language. The obvious conclusion is that, amazingly, most people use Wikipedia in their native language.GordyB 15:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Wording
Okay, after much deliberation, and at least some of it constructive, I'd like to see if this revision would be acceptable to everyone? strike indicates removed text, bold indicates a new addition:


 * "Where English is a first language, the word "football" generally means the most popular form of football in that region. Because of the There are 215 million native speakers of English in the United States,[1] relative to the 309-380 million native speakers worldwide.[2][3] American-English usage of "football" to refer to American football[dictionary.com reference] suggests that this is the game most commonly called "football", by native speakers of English.


 * ''However, of the 45 national FIFA affiliates in which English is the main or official language, only the federations of Canada, Samoa and the United States have "soccer" in their names. {This is because} Many countries, with relatively small populations of native English speakers, nevertheless have English as an official or main language and favour British English usage, thus officially using "football" for Association football. Also, Therefore use of the word football by the other 42 affiliates does not necessarily reflect popular usage of the word "football" in their countries[see note below, and citation needed]. For example, controversy confusion about use of the word has arisen in both Australia and New Zealand. While the majority of people in both countries use the word "soccer", the national governing bodies in both countries, in the early 21st century, decided to rename themselves using the word "football" instead of "soccer", and to insist on unqualified use of the word "football" for their code. now favour use of the word "football" to refer to the code."

''

In case that is difficult to follow, the new revision would read:

"Where English is a first language, the word "football" generally means the most popular form of football in that region. There are 215 million native speakers of English in the United States,[1] relative to the 309-380 million native speakers worldwide.[2][3] American-English usage of "football" to refer to American football[dictionary.com reference] suggests that this is the game most commonly called "football", by native speakers of English.fact -- Philip Baird Shearer

''However, of the 45 national FIFA affiliates in which English is the main or official language, only the federations of Canada, Samoa and the United States have "soccer" in their names. Many countries, with relatively small populations of native English speakers, nevertheless have English as an official or main language and favour British English usage, thus officially using "football" for Association football. Therefore use of the word football by the other 42 affiliates does not necessarily reflect popular usage of the word "football" in their countries. For example, confusion about use of the word has arisen in both Australia and New Zealand. While the majority of people in both countries use the word "soccer", the national governing bodies in both countries, in the early 21st century, decided to rename themselves using the word "football" instead of "soccer", and now favour use of the word "football" to refer to the code."''

Note: I still don't agree with the sentence labelled "see note". At the very least a source is required indicating that Australia and New Zealand are examples as opposed to exceptions. Otherwise I would challenge its inclusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BeL1EveR (talk • contribs) 13:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The "suggests that this is the game most commonly called "football", by native speakers of English." is WP:SYN. "examples" is better than "exceptions" because the latter involves OR as with the latter one would have to investigate all countries usage. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I like most of the new version, however I have some nitpicks Many countries, with relatively small populations of native English speakers, nevertheless have English as an official or main first language and favour British English usage prefer the term "football",

For me "first" is better than "main", it scans better. British English usage is not as clear cut as some people like to make it out to be. The Victorians used "football" to refer to a vareity of sports that weren't really distinguised from each other. The Australians are the people who follow historic British usage most closely as they use it for a vereity of sports. The instance that football alone refers to soccer is a comparitively recent thing and isn't universal. My local rugby club has a "Director of Football" instead of a "Director of Rugby" and their website uses "football" to mean "rugby league".

 Therefore use of the word football by the other 42 affiliates does not necessarily reflect popular usage of the word "football" in their countries.

I don't think that it is good grammar to start a sentence with therefore, just start with Use.GordyB 13:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see what the relevance of "Football Association" having Football in its name so does the Rugby Football Union neither usage dictates the common usage of the word football in England. What is it that the second paragraph trying to say? Why is it relevant what any code of football calls its self in an article about the use of the word football in various English speaking countries? --Philip Baird Shearer 13:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be written from an American perspective i.e. "soccer" is used in some countries where "football" is taken to mean "American football". I agree with you that it doesn't make sense in England where the RFU, RFL and probably some minor sports put it in their title. I can't think of an improvement though.GordyB 14:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the fact that they don't have the alternate name of the sport in is significant. RFU and RFL contain "rugby league" and "rugby union" respectively. In a similar fashion to nobody calling it "association football". Additionally, whilst recognising that it's the best indication we have, we're also expressly saying that the association's useage does not automatically reflect popular usage. In the absense of consensus on whether it belongs here at all, we should at least work to improve what we've got. Remember, wikipedia is a work in progress. Consensus on a new revision is not an endorsement of leaving it that way forever. If it were then surely we would fully protect all featured articles, as there would be consensus that the article is fine?


 * My aim is merely to reach agreement on a change that will reduce edit warring- to find some degree of common ground, to form some sort of mutual understanding even if we must agree to disagree on some of our opinions. You've protected the article because there's edit warring. If we don't discuss and agree changes, the logical conclusion is that edit warring will resume at some point after unprotection, which nobody wants. I'd rather accept a small step forwards than be reluctant to budge because it wasn't the whole nine yards.


 * As for Gordy's nitpicks, I agree with both revisions.


 * However, I question the idea that British usage of "football" for "soccer" isn't universal. In Britain unqualified use of the word "football" always means association football. Even in the North West. When clearly used in context, it can be taken to mean rugby league or gaelic football (and occasionally rugby union or American football). It's used that way in Britain to the same extent as "football" is used for American football in the USA. BeL1EveR 00:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

There isn't an automatic right to put your point of view onto Wikipedia. Although we wdit by consensus, this isn't a democracy. My point being that although we are trying to find a better version of the text, we are not seeking consensus for the sake of consensus. If Soprani wants his views incorporated into the article then he'd better find some proper sources otherwise his edits will be reverted and he'll find himself banned.

I'll grant you that "football" meaning "rugby league" is only used in a specific context in the UK, but that to mind means that "football" meaning "soccer" isn't universal. Here are some examples , ,. The three teams concerned are rugby league sides and don't play any other sport but have a "Director of Football" instead of the more obvious title of "Diretor of Rugby".GordyB 02:28, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * "I think the fact that they don't have the alternate name of the sport in is significant" there is, it is "association" shorted to "soccer" because it is easier to say.--Philip Baird Shearer 10:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * * Draws a deep breath* OK, here's my attempt to deal with the concerns raised above and to include the new phrase I have just included in the main text (with reference), i.e. "...most people who speak English as a first language refer to Association football as "soccer".


 * ''Where English is a first language, the word "football" generally means the most popular form of football in that region. There are 215 million native speakers of English in the United States,[1] an absolute majority of the 309-380 million native speakers worldwide.[2][3] In American English usage, "football" refers to American football.[X] Most people worldwide who speak English as a first language refer to Association football as "soccer".[4]


 * However, of the 45 national FIFA affiliates in which English is the main or official language, only the national bodies for Association football in Canada, Samoa and the United States have "soccer" in their names. Many countries, with relatively small populations of native English speakers, nevertheless have English as an official or first language, and favour British English usage, thus using "football" for Association football. Use of the word football by the other 42 affiliates does not necessarily reflect popular usage of the word "football" in their countries. Such is the case in Australia and New Zealand, where &mdash; although the majority of people use the word "soccer" &mdash; the national bodies for Association football in both countries, in the early 21st century, renamed themselves using the word "football", and now favour use of the word "football" to refer to the code.


 * Grant |  Talk  12:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Well done Grant. --Philip Baird Shearer 15:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It would seem that User:Soprani has been blocked indefinitely. Apparently it was a sock puppet account. No need to have the page protected anymore.GordyB 17:15, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Unprotected --Philip Baird Shearer 21:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the idea is to remove the trace of the arguement, not put IF WE WORK IT OUT WE WIN!! If it was acceptable you wouldnt be figuring your population in defence and if it was fair you couldnt include native unless you all go home. ThisMunkey (talk) 19:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Non-native speakers
If I were you I also would describe the meaning of the word football when it is used by non-native speakers, where the description of the world game of football dominates by far. User: strahli82 22:12, 29 October 2007 (CET) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.121.53.210 (talk)
 * I agree that this is a fit topic for inclusion. The problem is how to do it without it being "original research". From my own experience football=soccer is the norm among foreign language learners but I don't know of any studies that would confirm this (and I have looked). It's such a pointless area to research that I doubt that it will ever get funded.
 * The only thing I could suggest is that English-language news channels aimed at a global audience use football=soccer even if the newsreader is North American. Even CNN do this (the CNN channel I get, I very much doubt that they do this in the US).GordyB 11:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, the international version of CNN does refer to "football" and not soccer. I guess it is intended mainly for Brits and other Europeans. But there are also prominent European news media in English which follow American usage.


 * I have looked for literature on US v British usage among ESL/EFL speakers but have not found much. Grant  |  Talk  18:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think "football" is probably an exception to the general trend of a preference for American English. Just because somebody says "elevator" rather than "lift" doesn't mean much in terms of "football" versus "soccer".GordyB 20:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Not really:
 * 73 English language news articles from Germany using the word soccer Note that some are using "football (soccer)", but the highly credible Deutsche Welle and Spiegel prefer plain "soccer".
 * France 24 prefers "soccer" (France 24, "an international news and current affairs television channel... Funded by the French government...")
 * ANSA prefers soccer in English language articles ("...è la principale agenzia di stampa italiana...")

Grant |  Talk  14:29, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Al Jazeera English uses "football" though. Perhaps a sentence or two about international media being divided might be a good compromise.GordyB 14:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Section on Africa
Why are editors removing the well-sourced section on Africa without discussion? -- roundhouse0 (talk) 13:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Because, agenda pushing has been going on, breeches of the 3RR rule and several of Wikiquette. Now that we are discussing things we might be able to get somewhere.GordyB (talk) 13:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no reason, PBS just "doesn't like" what is says so he decided to vandalise hours of hard work. - S.Azzopardi (talk) 13:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

For a start it seems to assume that Africa starts south of the Sarah. But to go through the first few sentences: I could go on but the first three sentences are enough to start with.--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The English language has a large official presence in Africa with numerous nations holding it as their official language.  -- Not sourced
 * This goes back to the famous Scramble for Africa, a colonisation in which Britain along with France took the largest chunks of the continent -- no source that this is the cause of the first sentence. Further the scramble involved other nations like Germany and Belgium and other nations were already in Africa such as the Spanish and Portuguese.
 * Of these countries, the most popular footballing code in the west and east especially is association football, though in the southern part of the continent rugby union is highly popular also, there is also a small rugby league presence. No source to back up what is being said here (White south Africa my play Rugby but the popular sport is Soccer) and even if true it has little or nothing to do with the use of the word Football in English.


 * For a start I suggest you study the English language! North Africa does not have English languages as official in its nations, take Morrocco, Tunisia, Libya.. Arabic is their official language, not English. Unlike Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, etc which has English as their official language. This is on the English language site not the Arabic. West, East, South has many nations with the English language as official, but in the North only Sudan (if you can count them as north) does. Information on them could easily be added.


 * If you wanted sources for those things then you could easily but a "cite" tag on it or just say on my talk section, instead of vandalising the section entirely. Instead you decided to blank it when that section alone has 25 sources, because it seems from your language you're an American and don't like what is says, that is not right behaviour. I will find the sources for those things which you have requested and insert them (along with the text you blanked) tomorrow. Unless somebody else, like Roundhouse0, wishes to revert now and I'll find the sources for you this morning. - S.Azzopardi (talk) 13:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

This is not remotely relevant. This is an article on what people mean when they say "football" not the history of the world. This needs to go. PBS isn't American either.GordyB (talk) 13:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * This goes back to the famous Scramble for Africa, a colonisation in which Britain along with France took the largest chunks of the continent


 * The sentence is related to use of language, because it explains to the reader (who may not be aware, there are many ignorant people on the earth) how the English language (in this case) got to be widely present in many parts of Africa in the first place and its distribution. After that very brief lead sentence, the section of Africa then goes on to present what these English speaking African nations mean when they say "football" (what this article is about), backed up by many sources and even states the dialects of English in which it relates to, which is also sourced. It also explains the difference between the usage of "football" in the West and East and that in the South, again, all sourced.


 * How a problem with that sentence would justify the absolute destruction of my work on the article in relation to the use of the word "football" in countries where English is the language, is a bit far fetched. As you could have just removed that sentence or sent to me a message on it. You have other motives and agendas it would seem. - S.Azzopardi (talk) 14:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

If you want to make progress then I suggest you stop making accusations. I think it more appropriate to link to an article on British colonialism in Africa than to explain it in the text.

I have restored the Africa section with the deletion of a couple of sentences (as per above). If we do a section at a time then I think most of your text can be incorporated. The Africa section is now very good but I think there are still some issues with the other sections.GordyB (talk) 14:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree mostly with Azzo (and with GordyB re Scramble). The sections on New Zealand and South Africa have no sources at all and are not being deleted. (I am not intending to revert anyone or place "cite" tags anywhere.) I would suggest that Azzo inserts a section on Africa (omitting the Scramble bit) - it should be easy to establish that football is often used in Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana etc to mean 'association football' (eg there is Football Association of Malawi, and CAF). (There is no source for the first sentence - 'football generally means the most popular form of football in that region'. Anyway, how do we decide what is meant by 'most popular'? Press coverage? Relative numbers of players?) -- roundhouse0 (talk) 14:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Excellent. A section at a time is a laudable approach. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 14:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

From my (PBS) talk page
 * You do realise, South Africa is in Africa right? Your edit makes no sense. - S.Azzopardi (talk) 14:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I had already fixed that problem Revision as of 14:41, 25 February 2008! --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

From my talk page
 * Again, you're causing a trail of destruction. In this edit you blank a section which is sourced and then request a source for it! The website of rugby in Namibia: NamibianRugby.com uses language in which the sport is refered to as "rugby". So you just blanked a source, while at the same time asking for one. - S.Azzopardi (talk) 14:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I have not deleted either of the two sources, that you supplied. But they do not show that the locals use rugby and football as you have written any more than the official website of the Football Federation Australia indicates usage in Australia. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The latter arguement clearly does not apply to Namibia. It is well documented that the Australia federation recently changed their name from "Soccer" to "Football" as did New Zealand, that is specific to those two countries and an oddity in the footballing world. It is not the situation with Namibia who haven't changed their name and all of that. NamibiaRugby.com is the official website for that sport in the country, throughout the site that sport is just called "rugby" and the association football website that sport is called "football". There is no information to show any different (I researched strenuously first) and the official websites of the organisation of footballing codes in that country is perfectly applicable as a source. Really you seem to be grasping at straws with absoutely nothing to justify the overt vandalism you have done to my work. - S.Azzopardi (talk) 15:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's my opinion on this matter. I have no problem with people changing things up and adding new stuff, in fact I think most people, including myself, welcome it, but as long as there is discussion and compromise for controversial edits. There's no need for any edit warring or bullying. And all editors should keep in mind the goal of this article and what it's about: the use of the word football in English; it's not specifically about any one code of football, and it's not a page to promote any codes over the other. It's fine to point out which code is most popular where, but in the new Africa section for example, it seems excessively repeated that association football is the most popular code. And it's even made a point to say it's the most popular sport, not just football code. If you look at the other sections, they don't make any big efforts to point out what is the most popular sport, they just stick to explaining what the word football means.

This is one reason some people have accused you of bias, this isn't the article to assert association football's popularity, you should do that in a more appropriate article. And sentences like this one: "but East African nations have had little success in any football code (including rugby union), unlike in athletics especially in Kenya." is just one example I saw of irrelevant information. This article is supposed to primarily be about words, not sports. And one more gripe since I'm at it: having a lot of footnotes does not necessarily waive the scrutiny of what is written. The source of the reference is a huge part of it, sources like this one seem a little flimsy to back up the statement it is asserting, " [association football] is by far the most popular sport on the continent". I'm not disagreeing with this information, I'm just saying farmradio.com doesn't seem like the best source if I'm going to nitpick. I didn't mean to sound preachy, I just wanted to get my opinion in because I'm going to be busy for awhile and I have a feeling a lot of edits might happen in the meantime.

Oh, one more thing, S.Azzopardi, please stop referring to people's disagreements and reverting of your edits as vandalism. It is NOT vandalism and repeatedly saying so as you have done comes off bad. LonelyMarble (talk) 15:43, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I was forced to go away for a month on travel and saw that this American troll LonelyMarble had simply removed all my work. I've put it back, DO NOT simply remove it all, this is against Wikipedia policy of laws. - S.Azzopardi (talk) 14:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Weaseling against the importance of the world? My neighborhoods better than your world?
An article about a universally familiar word used in many languages with a similar sound to a similar meaning should be described as such at the outset of a (word) article. Such as :- The word football is used in many different languages to describe various ball games.. Perhaps I am mistaken but as far as knowledge of football the word I would believe its most signifigant feature to be its most widespread nature and use. At very least the word english should not be required in the first line, the reason being that the ability to speak the language is prerequisite to using the wiki rather than its preoccupation hence in language would be much more appropriate and especially so for the word football. You should not start any articles "The english language understanding is " unless the english language understanding is obscure or requires clearly pointing out. Foot and ball need no introduction in this way AND the concensus of people born in America with English speaking parents compared to the rest of the world on the football pages is the start of the road at the top of the hill with the big bumps. See weasel words for a similar school of thought. Here is a similar debate -> where what people were suggesting was ignored for what was more appropriate ->. ThisMunkey (talk) 19:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't got the faintest idea what your point is.GordyB (talk) 19:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I am saying that the reference to the english language ought to be subtle and I'm suggesting that the information about the dispersion and popularity of the word world-wide being more prominent. The language is default. The american population statement is argumentative. The word of the day is actually interesting not one of these Sunday Times crossword rubbish. It has meaning opposed to translation and ownership. ThisMunkey (talk) 21:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you are forgetting that the origins of the word are in the English language, as described in the etymology section. So you could say it's technically an English language word. And it has spread throughout most of the world to describe various ball games, although I think in the majority of other languages football in their language is used to refer to association football thanks to the British Empire's spread and influence. This is also explained in the last paragraph of the lead with a link to the names for association football article. I'm not sure what other points he has. The Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say about it:
 * the open-air game, first recorded 1409; forbidden in a Scottish statute of 1424. The first reference to the ball itself is 1486. Figurative sense of "something idly kicked around" is first recorded 1532. Ball-kicking games date back to the Roman legions, at least, but the sport seems to have risen to a national obsession in England, c.1630. Rules first regularized at Cambridge, 1848; soccer (q.v.) split off in 1863. The U.S. style (known to some in England as "stop-start rugby with padding") evolved gradually 19c.; the first true collegiate game is considered to have been played Nov. 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers, at Rutgers, but the rules there were more like soccer. A rematch at Princeton Nov. 13, with the home team's rules, was true U.S. football. The earliest recorded application of the word football to this is from 1881. LonelyMarble (talk) 20:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The way you have worked down these histories. All that on the football page and the word football articled as how important it is world wide and why. It shouldnt say 'millions in the usa' without saying millions everywhere else or it is a textbook biased article. Not important?ThisMunkey (talk) 21:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

This is an article on the meaning of an English word in English. Doubtless that in most foreign languages, football or a close varient means soccer, however this article is not about the names of various football codes in every single language in the world. Nor in my view should it be. I think it sufficient to note that in most non-Anglo countries "football" means "soccer" if only because this is usually the only football code played.GordyB (talk) 21:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No Gordy, it is an article about the word football not the meaning of the word. The meaning of the word is inclusive in that but not alone. It should be a document of facts rather than restricted to translation. Also it should not be designed to resolve a dispute without first making the dispute clear. The part about who says what where is premature without the explaination of the dispute first. The history of the word is more impartial and important. Why does it not begin :- The origins of the word football... or :- According to sources the word football was first used... or :- The origins of the word football vary...? What ever is more suitable, not "If you want to use the word football this is how you should do it." That should be the last thing on the article and should be extremely well sourced if it were to appear. Guidance is included in information but information is not nessecarily included in guidance. Example :- Trained or instructed as a soldier... not nessecarily informed. The trainer or instructor is the base of information. The encyclopedia is hardly based upon instructing people. Even if it is argued that it should be I doubt that is going to be the concensus. ThisMunkey (talk) 14:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This is not a dictionary, we are not in the business of saying what is or is not correct usage. Nor are we in the business of resolving disputes. IMO it is fine to have a brief note on what is known about the word "football" but AFAIK there is nothing definite.GordyB (talk) 16:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

English as a minority language
I have no idea what football was called in the 11th century England, but whatever it was called it was not commonly called by its official language -- Norman French -- name for the game (assuming the Normans had a word for footall!). Just because a country has an official language it does not mean the the majority of the country uses it on a day to day basis. For this reason I think that the caption that reads "Children in English speaking African nation Ghana, playing association football." is trying hard to make a point ("The lady doth protest too much, methinks.")

Listing countries where only a minority of speakers use English day to day complicates the information that needed to describe the use of the English word football in that country. If we take South Africa as an example the national football nick name is "Bafana Bafana" (Zulu) not an English one, so the chances are that most conversations about football are in Zulu not English. Therefore finding out what English speakers call soccer in South Africa is much more complicated than in England where English is the dominant language. In England the attendance at association football matches can be taken a common usage as few of those who attend would use any other word but football to describe the sport. Now it may be that the majority of English speakers in SA follow Rugby and refer to Association Football as soccer or it may be that they call it football, or it may be that the majority of English speakers in SA follow Association Football and call it football or perhaps they call it soccer. Without a source we can only guess. This source from a government website --and no I am not claiming it is enough to make generalisations -- cites KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sibusiso Ndebele saying "Hosting the Soccer World Cup in 2010 presents KwaZulu-Natal ..." and the passive voice of the article calls it football and soccer and mentions that "KwaZulu-Natal is building a Soccer Academy" and also that "The province is pleased that the South African Football Association has...". With other countries where English is the official lingua franca it may be that football in English means soccer but it is not be at all clear that the usage is significant as the dominant sporting language may be something completely different and football is only used in official arenas like the court and Parliament. I suppose in these cases one would need to know if the commentaries of matches broadcast on TV and radio are listen to in English and if a significant proportion of the sporting print media is in English. But whatever it is not as simple as working out the usage in near monoglot English countries or areas.

Please don't misunderstand what I am saying. I would hypothesise that in many new Commonwealth countries football will be understood to be soccer even if the local usage in English is soccer, but that is speculation and without a source we can not say whether the local dialect uses soccer or football to describe "The Beautiful Game". To highlight what I mean, does Liberia a country with stronger connection to the States than other African countries call Association Football football or soccer and if they call it soccer do they associate football with the American code (excuse the pun). I have no idea and would suggest that in both cases we need reliable sources that state what are the facts before adding this sort of information to the page, as it is always best not to include something than place false information onto the page, because it is is a disservice to the reader to add misleading information and it is a gift for those who look for ammunition to criticise Wikipedia (and what better for a critic than a criticism of Wikipedia based on a really popular subject like football). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 20:40, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It shouldnt describe "the english language word football" without making it clear how wide spread the word is and that its origins are in the english language. IE: the english language word means the same as the international versions so the describing it as "the english language" version is misleading that the international version is of a different origin and meaning. The strongest argument seems to say that rugby and football came from the english language at around the same time in history or that more americans play american football but the normal football is a world wide culture. It should not be possible to diminish that should it? ThisMunkey (talk) 21:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * See Names for association football and Football (word).GordyB (talk) 21:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * On a related note, is anyone a fan of this table of statistics that was added to the Names for association football page? I'm not per what Philip said. It needlessly causes a "football" vs "soccer" debate where there doesn't have to be one. The page could simply mention, for example, under an India heading what the Hindu word for association football is and that English is an official language and used for certain official things and in Indian English association football is called football. And then the same could be done for Pakistan and so on. That table seems very unnecessary and misleading. Come to think of it I'm not a fan of the lead on that article at all either.LonelyMarble (talk) 21:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't like it either, football versus soccer isn't necessarily a binary option and a more detailed discussion wouldn't fit into the table.GordyB (talk) 21:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems from the comments above that people have misunderstood what I an saying. I am not suggesting that we make it a soccer verses football issue just that if we make a claim such as "In these nations football means association football and it is by far the most popular sport on the continent,[ 11 ]" then the sources should back up such a claim. Currently the source provided does not do so, all it says is "Football is the most popular sport in Africa." It says nothing about what African people across the continent would understand the English word football to mean, or what Association Football is usually called. For example if Association Football is usually referred to as soccer (or by another word from a local language), and if English radio and television carry US based channels (for example CNN), it may be that in English an unqualified use of football would mean American Football even if every person in the country plays Association Football. Without a source to assume that because Association Football is the most common sport in the country, one can not then conclude that an unqualified use of football in English in that country means Association Football, to do so without a source falls foul of WP:SYN.

To illustrate what I mean with a different sport. There is a similar dichotomy with the word hockey, it means different sports in different English dialects. Tanzania has both field hockey and ice hockey teams that have competed in the Olympics. But without a source I do not see how it is possible to state that an unqualified use of the word hockey in English in Tanzania would be understood to be a particular code. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think that the article should go into massive details about which sport is the most popular in any particular part of the world but we do state in the intro that unqualified football usually means whatever code is most popular in that country. Hence, I think it is valid to mention (albeit briefly) the actual sport that falls into that category either that or the intro should be amended.
 * I agree with you though that the fact that a particular sport is the most popular is not proof of any particular usage.GordyB (talk) 11:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Qualified perhaps because up to now it has meant in a country or a region were English is the predominant common language and the text in the article has only been about such countries (with the exception of SA). For this reason I am not sure that including mention of countries where there is not a large community who speak English as their first language helps to illuminate the topic. Providing that we stick to countries with a relativity large group of English speakers (in comparison to the total population of the country), the sentence is a fair summary of the article. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk)

The word "unqualified"
Should not be used without clearing up who or what may be qualified first. I doubt you can make that clear up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThisMunkey (talk • contribs) 11:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Ireland

 * Ulster Unionists in Northern Ireland never refer to Gaelic football as "football".
 * This is basically restricted to fans of the sports respectively not the Ulster Unionists or anyone else.
 * The article doesn't say that Ulster Unionists call Gaelic football "football". In my experience (having lived in the ROI), Gaelic football is "football" whether you are a particular fan or not (Unionists exempted).00:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * In Ireland, "football" can mean association football, Gaelic football or  rugby union , depending on which code predominates within the speaker's community and political affiliation: Gaelic is called Gah.
 * There is a good reason this cites no references. It is called Gaelic by ANY ONE and reference to anything as "GAA" NEVER applies to football alone. There are THREE GAA games and TWO of which are distinct. GAA does NOT mean football. GAA means football AND hurling. Football is football and hurling is hurling. The article may say that GAA is used to describe Gaelic football and hurling (and handball) collectively. Anything else is "unqualified" and disrespectful. ThisMunkey (talk) 11:28, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Again, I would support this, hurling is always called hurling, handball is obscure and there are other GAA sports e.g. rounders. "Gah" means Gaelic football. I've never heard anybody refer to hurling or any other GAA sport that way.GordyB (talk) 00:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Telling you GAA refers to the GAA. Handball is not hugely popular. Hurling and football are thriving. There is a big debate about allowing the teams professionality (against tradition). I cannot say that "Gah" is not a spoken word but I can assure you that it's not very common. IE: I never remember hearing it personally or on the TV. I only really watch the local team but they are one of the most popular. GAA refers to (Gaelic) football and hurling (and in a sense handball) definitely. Ask any one from here. Check GAA and you will find hurling listed before football. I dont have an opinion on that but there you go. I like the hurling myself. There would be no harm saying "a part of the GAA games" for a bit of a plug. Hurling is a bit nore dangerous than football but it is a skilfull game. ThisMunkey (talk) 10:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * "Gah" is common enough to be worth noting and GAA isn't "Gah".GordyB (talk) 14:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The "Gah" is a Dublin expression and is quite common, i've also heard GAA to mean just football, people will say are you of the GAA match . Gah is GAA with a heavy Dublin accent  Gnevin (talk) 17:35, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I had assumed that "gah" could as easily be derived from "Gaelic" as "GAA". Do you think that the article should be changed to include "gah" being used to refer to other GAA sports or is the current statement accurate (as you see it)?GordyB (talk) 16:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know much of anything about naming conventions in Ireland but if someone who does could cite some sources in that section, like for this new information, we could get rid of that ugly tag at the top of it. LonelyMarble (talk) 20:31, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I am sure that GNevin has heard people saying "to the GAA game" but you can be sure that this is still not restricted to football. Any sources provided to suggest that GAA means one sport in particular will be faced with hundreds of sources (especially www.gaa.ie) saying GAA is different sports. In fact it is unlikely that any source will be found stating that GAA refers to only one sport. Football is refered to as a GAA game but GAA game does not refer to football (specifically). Try "as a GAA game" not "the GAA game". "The GAA game" would mean "The big match tomorrow", may be hurling. Also the Ulster Unionist remark is ridiculous :- most of them may never have heard of GAA.. the only name theyd know of it is football.. any other names theyd be calling it are hardly related to football. There are no sources for this bit. It may be sourced that awareness of Gaelic football is uncommon amongst the protestant community in Northern Ireland but even where it is it would be refered to as Gaelic football or just Gaelic. It may be sourced that association football is the polpular form amongst the protestant community in Northern Ireland. As it is it is innacurate, may not be sourced, and warrants removal, hence. To put it back I suggest you provide what they do call it.? ThisMunkey (talk) 12:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Who says that Ulster Unionists have never heard of GAA Sports? Just because it isn't "their" sport doesn't mean that they have never heard of them.
 * Dublin is a football county so discusion of Hurling wouldn't be that common with the people i'd be talking too. So in Dublin GAA,Gah would refer to football, however most of these are slang terms and are best left to the  Gaelic football article  Gnevin (talk) 18:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I suggest that we ask the GAA Wikiproject to comment on this issue.GordyB (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Just thought I'd throw this article: "Limerick football boss to coach rugby players" December 30, 2005; into the mix. Confused see also Mickey O'Sullivan --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

@Gnevin: Regarding the recent tidy-up, the problem I have with it is that it reflects usage in the Republic of Ireland and nationalists in NI's usage. I don't think that when unionists are discussing "football" that there is much ambiguity as to which sport they refer to.

Is it your intention to make the "Ireland" section into a "Republic of Ireland" section?GordyB (talk) 20:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Who is that directed at? Gnevin (talk) 21:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, should have made this clearer (edit and now have - bl**dy formatting error). I don't have a problem with your tidy-up other than it removed information on unionists' usage of "football". IMO either there should be some mention of them or the section be reclassified as "ROI".GordyB (talk) 21:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * If it can be cited then add it, i basicly removed all text which it appears a source would never be obtained for . Has their ever been a poll of unionist and what Football is football to them and whats not football, Please feel free to add a more NI information alot of what i added was from a discussion at Association football in the Republic of Ireland and may be slightly unbalanced at the momentGnevin (talk) 22:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll reference it tomorrow.GordyB (talk) 22:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC) Orange or not, they have a right to edit Wikiepdia and their usage is notable. The section needs a rewrite that is all.GordyB (talk) 09:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not saying you are stirring it on purpose or. I am not saying that whoever wrote the idea is stirring it on purpose, they are probably as orange as anything else, but you can be sure it's wrong. Maybe you are Dr Ian Paisley himself, but if you are, I can point out that when you do refer to Gaelic football (if ever), that "football" is the name you give it, as opposed to "never" refering to it as football, and probably dont care so much that your opinion on Gaelic football is noted in the encyclopedia (or maybe these days Dr Ian would insist that his opinion is relevant and that "football" it is, and why not? He was smuggling guns over the border a few months ago that the Irish prime minister gave him. He could be focal na gaelgie and everything!). I am not saying that whoever wrote it was Unionist or other, had any agenda or not, I certainly dont, but they had a big spoon, they stirred it, no ones hungry, merci. ThisMunkey (talk) 09:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ThisMunkey, why don't we let GordyB work on finding his reliable sources for the information he belives should be added once it's added we can make sure it WP:RS, WP:V and WP:NPOV Gnevin (talk) 09:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Idiom
WP:DICT says Wikipedia is not a guide to idiom. This means no bias toward what one language means over another. It is written in English, not written about English. This article is about the word football which is in the English language, Not about the English language that owns the word football. English only comes first where it is not alone. IE: "Where English is a first language..." and where else it is as well. ThisMunkey (talk) 17:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Wrong :
 * "Unqualified use of the word..."
 * "Where English is a first language..."
 * "My America's bigger than their America..."
 * Right :
 * "The word football first appeared in the English language..."

Asia and Africa
As I have pointed out above, (using hockey as a neutral example) there is a difference between the use of football as a word where English is a minority language and the most popular footballing sport in the region. Unlike where English is the common language and the popularity of a code of football and usage can be assumed to go together, this can not be done were English is a minority language as other factors such as to foreign media comes into play.

To give those who consider the Asia and Africa sections important a chance to come up with citations on the use of the word football (and not on the games played), in the countries and regions listed in the sections, I suggest that we leave it two weeks, before deleting text with citations requested. If on deletion of those sentences the resulting stubs do not provide any meaningful information then the whole section or sections should be removed. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Over a month later there are still no citations. Unless there are some soon I am going to remove the African and Asia sections and revert the ordering back to just the main English speaking countries. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:42, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Here we go (Rugby)
It is Rugby football as same as it was Gordy B reckoned it was rugby union. Isnt that right gordy? ThisMunkey (talk) 18:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I said nothing of the sort.GordyB (talk) 18:37, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * You altered Rugby football to rugby union describing it as caps. Rugby is a caps word. ie: Rugby. Queensbury rules. ThisMunkey (talk) 15:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not always capitalized, Merriam-Webster's entry on it has it in lowercase but also says it's usage is often capitalized. Most of Wikipedia has it in lowercase so it would make sense to just stick with that usage, it also helps distinguish it from the town which would always be capitalized. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rugby (By the way, if you want to be a stickler you didn't even capitalize Gordy's name in your response, I don't know if that was intential or not.) LonelyMarble (talk) 15:41, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Rugby football is not the same thing as rugby union and rugby is uncapitalised unless you are talking about Rugby the town, Rugby School or Rugby football as played at Rugby School. This is the agreed form in the Manual of Style of both rugby union and rugby league Wikiprojects.GordyB (talk) 18:43, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * See, Gordy has it here because if you refer to Rugby football, Rugby league, or Rugby union, just the same as American football or Australian football, you have a big capital R because you are refering to Rugby school. I will bet that most use of the word English is non capitals as well. Are they all criminals down in Rugby? Are they all some weird race or religion? The Millenium Stadium should be in Rugby. ThisMunkey (talk) 10:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

See Talk:Rugby union.GordyB (talk) 11:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh I see, the one where you argue that its capital letters? ThisMunkey (talk) 19:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you read mine and others posts. This has been argued over three times in the time that I have been editing. On each occasion there has been an overwhelming consensus that lower case is to be preferred. I don't see the point in having a fourth such debate. However, if you are genuinely interested in why it is correct to capitalise Australian rules football or Gaelic football but not rugby union then my explanation is on that talk page.GordyB (talk) 20:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

New edits by S.Azzopardi
S.Azzopardi has called me an "American troll" and has accused me of removing all of his edits, and it is simply not true. He refuses to compromise or discuss the article on this talk page whatsoever and blatantly reverts all edits back to his version of the article. All of the sections he added were indeed kept in, they were simply editted by other editors (what a wiki is) to reach a compromoise. And on top of that, this compromise was discussed thoroughly on this talk page. But this editor continuly reverts the article back to his exact wording and erases the compromise that is reached on this talk page. Much in his edits is good, but much in his edits is also bias and in non-neutral point of view and that is what other editors have changed, the non-neutral parts. And for the record, I was definitely not the only editor to do this, just read this discussion page. I never get personal on Wikipedia but S.Azzopardi has made it personal by calling me an "American troll" and also because he refuses to compromise and is a bully with his edits and reversions. Because I have been accused of being a troll and "removing all his work" (which is definitely not true), I am reluctant to make any changes to this article anymore because I do not want to get into an edit war. I hope some other editors can weigh on this matter because as it stands it seems like this article is no longer a wiki process because S.Azzopardi has taken it upon himself to own this article and that is not the way a Wikipedia page should work. LonelyMarble (talk) 17:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)