Soccer vs. Football (or, Arguments with Internal Communication)

Well, I just "lost" an argument with the Internal Communication folks at work, but I still stand by my original point, darn it.

As almost everyone knows, the Soccer World Cup is taking place right here, right now in Germany. Naturally, there's a ton of hype about it everywhere, including in our company intranet and internal mailings. The problem? In all Internal Communication, the word "football" is used instead of "soccer." Each time I read the word football, I cringe, as the World Cup is about soccer. Not that I care that much about the sport itself - it's the language and mis-translation that irks me. So, I decided to write a nice little note to Internal Communication.

Von: Mary Barber
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 8. Juni 2006 13:24
An: Intranet BenQMobile
Betreff: Recurring mistranslation regarding Soccer World Championship

To Whom it may concern,

As an American employee of BenQ, I've noticed that the word "football" is used for all internal communication in regards to the upcoming World Championship. The correct translation for the German word "Fußball", however, is "soccer." Football and soccer are two completely different sports, and the sport that will be played throughout Germany in the coming weeks is soccer.

As a native English speaker, I thought I'd make you aware of this recurring translation mistake. Hopefully someone can use the correct term ("soccer") in the future.

Thanks for your time.
Best Regards,

Mary Barber
BMG PHE SCM BA FE CO
BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co. OHG


And the response I received...


Von: Oliver Kahn*
Gesendet: Dienstag, 13. Juni 2006 16:53
An: Mary Barber
Betreff: AW: Recurring mistranslation regarding Soccer World Championship

Dear Mary**

thank you for your comment. However, it's only a strong minority - namely the United States - that use the word "soccer" instead of football. In Europe and the rest of the world, football is the most common name for the game.

Quote Wikipedia:
"The sport is known by many names throughout the English-speaking world, although football is the most common. Other names, such as association football and soccer, are often used to distinguish the game from other codes of football, since the word football may refer to several quite different games." See also the British "Football Association", "Asian Football Confederation"

Best regards,

Oliver Kahn
Internal Communication
BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co. OHG


Umm. *scratches her head*

First of all, he oughtn't call the US a "strong minority." Sure, the US might be the minority in the sense that it's the only country to refer to soccer as "soccer"... but there are more native English speakers in the US than in all other English-speaking countries combined. That's no minority, thankyouverymuch.

The US has a population of nearly 300 million... and other than the non-English-speaking Mexicans sneaking across the southern borders, I'd estimate that nearly every person in the US speaks English. Which means about 300 million people refer to soccer as "soccer."

Now let's look at other English-speaking countries. And I'm only going to inlude countries where English is the mother tongue and official language. English has quickly become the international language, which means it's the second language for people throughout the entire globe. But there's a difference between using a language as a communication tool and having that language as your mother tongue. There's a certain relationship between a person and their mother language that non-native speakers will never achieve.

Great Britain, for example, has a population of about 60 million. Which means that about 60 million people incorrectly refer to soccer as "football."

There's a population of about 32 million in Canada... and if we factor in the fact that French is the second official language, we have about 22 million people with English as their mother tongue.

Australia has a populuation of about 20 million. Sure, certain Australian Aboriginal languages are still spoken, but most speak Australian English.

English is also spoken to a certain extent in South Africa, which has a population of about 47 million. English isn't the only official language (Afrikaans, Zulu and a myriad of other African languages are also spoken)... so... let's make a rough and generous estimate and say that about 30 million people in South Africa incorrectly refer to soccer as "football."

English is also one of two (Maori being the second) primary languages of New Zealand... but with a population of only 4 million, eh, let's say there are 3 million English speakers.

Ok, now we have to add it all up:
60 million for Great Britain +
22 million for Canada +
20 million for Australia +
30 million for South Africa +
3 million for New Zealand =
135 million.

What does this number tell us? Approximately 135 million native English speakers throughout the globe refer to soccer as "football." Sure, that's a decent number, but it doesn't even come close to the 300 million people in the States referring to soccer as "soccer." Sure, there are more countries who use the word "football", but if you count the actual number of English speakers, the word "soccer" wins, hands-down. TAKE THAT, INTERNAL COMMUNICATION! MUAH!

And as for the "Asian Football Confederation"? Please. Don't even use that in your argument. I've read enough contracts, letters, claim reports, presentations and e-mails from Asians to know that they're notorious for butchering the language and even creating new non-English-yet-English-sounding words. That's a soapbox I'm going to avoid today.


Lyric of the day: "You say 'potato', I say 'patattah'; you say 'tomato', I say 'tomatah'... oh, let's call the whole thing off!" (Thanks to When Harry met Sally)


*name changed to protect privacy

**you can always tell when a non-German responds because a German would never call me by my first name; they'd say "Frau Barber"