It's called football, except when it's called soccer

The World Cup did something really cool. For 39 glorious days, I think it is, billions of people around the world all stared at the same beautiful ball.

Unfortunately, we couldn't agree on what to call it. Most of the world watched football, but America watched soccer.

Ever so often, we come back to this argument where the rest of the world asks, why Americans call football, soccer. Americans reply saying its because that's what it's called. Then everyone spends a few minutes explaining and arguing before going back to actually watching the game.

To make matters even funnier, the American sport called football is a game where the ball spends an impressive amount of time not being kicked by feet. The actual sport where the foot kicks the ball for 90 minutes is called "soccer." That is one of America's plot twists.

Please, imagine naming swimming, "running", because a person runs to the pool before jumping in.

America is not entirely alone, though. Australia also commonly calls the game soccer, even though its national governing body is officially called Football Australia.

This means that Australia has decided not to choose sides. Officially, it is football, but in ordinary conversation, it may still be soccer. It joined this argument, agreed with both teams and decided to move to a safe distance (probably afraid of sanctions). Australia being Australia it decided to call it football in the office, soccer at the barbecue, then hope and pray nobody asks a follow-up question.

Picture the confusion the World Cup. Peter Drury the British commentator says, "Football is the beautiful game." An American hears that and immediately imagines quarterbacks, helmets, shoulder pads, explosive halftime shows, and rough plays. Meanwhile, Peter Drury is admiring a perfect pass.

The British insist it's called football because you play it with your feet. Americans nod confidently and say, "yes, exactly. That's why we have football... and soccer." The rest of the world blinks, looks at each other, then decides life is too short, and orders another drink.

The thing is, language (and Americans) like to do their own thing. Boxing rings are square, pineapples are neither pines nor apples, and the sport played mostly with feet became football almost everywhere... except in the country where another sport, played mostly with hands, had already claimed the name.

So whether you call it football or soccer does not say much about the sport than about where you learned to speak. Besides, once the match starts, nobody really cares what it's called, because everyone understands the universal language of screaming at the referee.