Ian Harrington England, Great Britain Why can’t you guy’s call it football? I am concerned at the steady erosion of the word football. I even heard [the BBC’s] Des Lynam call it soccer recently! What’s going on? The world was playing football way before the USA, and the world was playing football way before you even began to put girly pads on rugby players and called it American Football. This has got to stop. Mike Woitalla: Ian, America invented the elevator and weÆre sick and tired of you Brits calling it a lift! Actually, we donÆt mind, because we understand that there is a British English language and a U.S. English language, and they each work in their respective lands. You call gasoline ôpetrolö and a sidewalk ôpavementö and a pedestrian underpass a ôsubway.ö If Americans had the audacity to ask you to adopt our terms — or vice versa — there would be a lot of confusion. In fact, soccer is a perfect term when it comes to avoiding confusion. I suppose a BBC commentator would use the term soccer so that international listeners in countries with other versions of football — like the USA, Australia, Ireland — arenÆt confused. And if itÆs any consolation to you, soccer is a term invented by the British to distinguish between different types of football, i.e. Rugby Football and Association Football. ôSoccerö evolved out of the ôsocö in association. And in the United States, the term soccer distinguishes that game from ôAmerican footballö — or what I believe Brits also call gridiron football. In fact, many soccer fans in the United States are also American football fans and are quite comfortable with the terms as they are. American football is the more established game in the USA and asking its proponents to change their gameÆs name would be preposterous. By the way, are you up in arms about the Italians calling it Calcio? (If you have a question for a Soccer America Magazine editor, click “Q&A with SA Editors” in the left column of the home page under “Interactive.”)