News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:New 31-km-long International Linear Collider ready for co... by csense on Thursday June 13, 2013 @05:05AM (#5872981)
You can tell the graphic's written by someone not from the US, since their layman's measurement is a soccer field, not a football field.

There'll probably soon be confused replies to this comment from Europeans: "But that is a football field!"

As to why we have two games,

(a) A game where you occasionally kick the ball, but mostly you toss the ball and carry it around,

(b) A game where you occasionally hit the ball with your head, knee or chest, but mostly kick the ball around, and touching the ball with your hands is not allowed,

Why (a) is called "football," and (b) is not, I don't know. Historical accident, maybe?

Sports is definitely not my strong point. I would probably have been better at gym class if it'd been about things like the etymology of the word "football" and the history of the sport, but alas, these facts were lacking from my formal education and aren't important enough for me to Google.

Re:New 31-km-long International Linear Collider ready for co... by JonnieCache on Thursday June 13, 2013 @07:23AM (#5873418)
Historically, football was closer to (a)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_football

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_football

"By some accounts, any means could be used to move the ball to a goal, as long as it did not lead to manslaughter or murder."

Re:New 31-km-long International Linear Collider ready for co... by lmm on Thursday June 13, 2013 @07:28AM (#5873443)
I've seen a suggestion to disambiguate by referring to the American game as "handegg".
Re:New 31-km-long International Linear Collider ready for co... by HelpfulBot on Thursday June 13, 2013 @07:42AM (#5873490)
The word "Soccer" comes from "Association football".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football

Re:New 31-km-long International Linear Collider ready for co... by Zardoz84 on Thursday June 13, 2013 @07:41AM (#5873482)
Here in Spain B is called Football and A is called American Football or Rugby