Why do Americans call the game soccer instead of football?

With the World Cup taking place in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, American soccer fandom will be on display for the rest of the world.

That inevitably means American fans will hear plenty of condescending remarks about the name they give the beautiful game.

Almost the entire soccer-playing world calls the game “football” instead of “soccer.” England fans especially look down on American fans for saying “soccer” as if it’s an act of American exceptionalism. Yet, the U.S. isn’t the only country that uses soccer as a name. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa also address it as soccer instead of football.

But ironically, the origin of the name is placed with England. Via britannica.com:

Linguistically creative students at the University of Oxford in the 1880s distinguished between the sports of “rugger” (rugby football) and “assoccer” (association football). The latter term was further shortened to “soccer” (sometimes spelled “socker”), and the name quickly spread beyond the campus. However, “soccer” never became much more than a nickname in Great Britain. By the 20th century, rugby football was more commonly called rugby, while association football had earned the right to be known as just plain football.

Linguistically creative students at the University of Oxford in the 1880s distinguished between the sports of “rugger” (rugby football) and “assoccer” (association football). The latter term was further shortened to “soccer” (sometimes spelled “socker”), and the name quickly spread beyond the campus. However, “soccer” never became much more than a nickname in Great Britain. By the 20th century, rugby football was more commonly called rugby, while association football had earned the right to be known as just plain football.

Americans adopted soccer as their preferred name because American football was already around in the late 19th century. It avoided the confusion of having two different versions of football — the same could be said with Australia and Aussie rules football.

Not to mention that Sky Sports had a show called “Soccer Saturday” air in the UK for nearly a decade. The U.S. didn’t invent the word.