Much like Feudalism, football is a total non-term. In terms of specificity and being actually usable.
Well, that's fair enough... so long as you always remember to include the word "Association" in reference to "Association Football" (which you did not in your prior posts), and never truncate it to just "Football", then we're golden.
I think you might be missing the point. Assuming you've realised by now that I'm neither American or Canadian.... let me explain ... because there seems to be some culture differences.
Where I'm from we simply call it football. It's only ever called soccer when someone from america or Canada thinks its American football and theres a need to tell them no ... this here is what you guys call soccer over there.
Assuming the rest of the majority of the world who simply called it football are similar to this I can safely assume that at least half the population of the world ... being extremrly generous here ... simply call it football.
Now I'm not arguing history here and I agree that just about everything you've said on that front is 100% correct. However most of the games referred to as football back then are no longer around. The ones that are ... have all been classed with official names and standardized and whatnot.
Aside from rugby and American football which I cant say with any kind of authority are the same as I dont watch follow or have researched either (though I've played rugby before) theres no other that i know of is referred to as plain football anymore. I could simply be ignorant as I havent actually researched that but I've just never come across it.
So it's not really a matter of history or classification for me. It's simply fact that at least half the world recognizes this game as simply football. Theres nothing to argue about there.
Most of the people I talk about or watch games with have either started out calling it football before moving away or have spent enough time in countries that call it football. Either way ... the terms are simply interchangeable to them depending on their company. In my experience everyone who has spent any amount of time living outside their home country and is exposed to the sport ends up like this.
I too am the same. I honestly dont really care what it's called as long as everyone speaking understands what the conversation is about. What I
am curious about is why someone finds it cringeworthy to call it a name that half of the world does.
