‘football’ as a name has been around for centuries with no confusion, until American exceptionalism led to them inventing their own version of the game. The only confusion today is coming from the US. Your proposed change however, is the equivalent of this:
It would not do anything except make the situation even more complicated.
And I’m not proposing a new standard, I’m continuing use of a standard introduced by working class Brits in the early 20th century, so that xkcd really doesn’t apply at all.
It means something specific TODAY. You’re suggesting to have it mean something new and different. It doesn’t matter if that meaning was used a century ago, that’s not what the comic is referencing.
~100% of English speakers will recognize the ambiguity
Everybody outside of said countries will consider ‘football’ to refer to, well, football, without any ambiguity. They may be aware Americans are idiots about it but it’s not something that comes up in daily conversation.
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‘football’ as a name has been around for centuries with no confusion, until American exceptionalism led to them inventing their own version of the game. The only confusion today is coming from the US. Your proposed change however, is the equivalent of this:
It would not do anything except make the situation even more complicated.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(word)
It’s been around for almost a millennia.
It means something specific TODAY. You’re suggesting to have it mean something new and different. It doesn’t matter if that meaning was used a century ago, that’s not what the comic is referencing.
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‘we’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, considering that’s like 5% of the world population that would refer to it that way.
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Everybody outside of said countries will consider ‘football’ to refer to, well, football, without any ambiguity. They may be aware Americans are idiots about it but it’s not something that comes up in daily conversation.
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