Icon Sez It All

[bloodyrosemccoy]

sunshine_shaman: Stupid word confusion. Why did we decide to call American football “football,” anyway? It just winds up confounding the World Cup.

ME: Because calling it “Homoerotic Man-Pile” just doesn’t sound quite like what they’re going for.

MOM: And we wonder how come your dad gets depressed when your brother isn’t home.

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FAMILY: Blah blah blah comments about Shakespeare blah blah.

AMELIA: I just realized something! Shakespeare would mess with grammar and make up words with wild abandon, right? He was the Elizabethan version of Strong Bad!

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These have been your Deep Thoughts for today. Thank you and good night!

Comments

[sriti.livejournal.com]

I wonder too, why do you call it "football"? Isn't the ball carried around in the hand? I don't know much about American football, but from movies and stuff, I saw that the only time the foot actually touched the ball was during kick-off. So why?

Homoerotic Man-Pile does sound kinda interesting, though!

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Because it used to involve kicking the ball a lot more. The snap used to be a kick, for one thing.

It's really a mutant form of rugby.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

My only argument against calling it that would have to be that if someone told me that they were taking me to watch "Homoerotic Man-Pile" and they were taking me to watch football, I'd probably be somewhat let down.

[tay421.livejournal.com]

Haha! I second your comment.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

True, but it does add an extremely entertaining subtext to the sport.

[chairman-wow.livejournal.com]

I saw a very appropriate macro for this post earlier...

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

...that makes so much more sense!

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I was just about to go looking for that!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

... That does it. From now on I will be referring to it as "handegg." Because I certainly haven't given my brother enough grief ALREADY.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

win!

[narnian-dreamer.livejournal.com]

I read somewhere that there's actually some debate about which sport took the "football" name first. Sports history is always really tough because the games start at the amateur level with no one writing them down, but there's some evidence implying that American football was being called "football" before soccer was being called "football." But I think soccer was the first to call itself "football" at the professional level...? Maybe?

[narnian-dreamer.livejournal.com]

Just got back from Wikipedia...

Apparently, "foot ball" originally described a whole class of different "peasant" games that were played with balls on foot, as distinguished from games played by aristocrats on horseback. It had nothing to do with any contact the foot and the ball might have had during the game.

One of the quotes from the 1800s describes a game in which kicking the ball is against the rules and calls it "football."

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

I like your Deep Thoughts :)