12月12日午間英語新聞：足球叫“soccer”還是“football”？

> “Football won” the Dutch Prime Minister’s jocular shot at U.S. President Joe Biden 

足球叫“soccer”還是“football”？拜登和荷蘭首相較上勁了……

Right-back Denzel Dumfries gave a stunning performance as the Netherlands became the first team to qualify for the quarterfinals of the World Cup with a 3-1 win over the USA on Saturday. “Sorry Joe, football won”. That was Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s jocular shot at U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday night.

當?shù)貢r間12月3日，荷蘭隊在卡塔爾世界杯八分之一決賽中以3:1擊敗美國隊，鄧弗里斯的出色發(fā)揮使他們成為第一支晉級八強的球隊。在荷蘭隊贏得比賽后，荷蘭首相馬克·呂特在推特上轉發(fā)了美國總統(tǒng)拜登的一條推文，并寫道：“對不起，喬（拜登），football贏了。”

Rutte was pulling Biden’s leg after the U.S. leader filmed a pre-match clip on Twitter. In a video posted on Twitter before the game, USA star Tyler Adams is seen doing keepie uppies. “Hey Mr President, heads up!” the Leeds man says from a stadium in Doha, before “kicking” the ball to Biden, who appears with a ball between his hands in the White House gardens. “It’s called soccer!” Biden says to the camera with the ball between his he hands. “Go USA. You guys can do it”.

呂特開玩笑轉發(fā)的內容，是拜登在賽前錄制的一條給美國隊加油的視頻。視頻開頭，美國隊球星泰勒·亞當斯正在顛球。他說道：“嗨，總統(tǒng)先生，注意啦！”然后，身在多哈訓練場地的他一個大腳，將球“踢”給了遠在白宮的拜登。鏡頭一轉，雙手接球的拜登出現(xiàn)了，他隨即說道：“這叫soccer！”并給美國隊加油助威。

Whether to call it “football” or “soccer” has stoked transatlantic divisions for decades — even though the word soccer actually originated in 19th-century England. According to a 2014 paper by University of Michigan professor Stefan Szymanski, in the early 1800s, a bunch of British universities took "football" — a medieval game — and started playing their own versions of it, all under different rules. In the early 1800s in England, football and rugby existed as different variations of the same game. One variant of the game you played with your hands became "rugby football."

到底是football還是soccer，幾十年來令大西洋兩邊爭論不休，然而在美國常用的soccer一詞，實際上源于19世紀的英格蘭。根據(jù)2014年密歇根大學教授斯?jié)陕够恼撐慕榻B，19世紀初，英格蘭的大學開始興起football這項運動，并開始玩他們自己的版本，所有的規(guī)則都不同。彼時rugby football的名字也同時存在，只不過可以用手來比賽，被視為相同運動的不同變體。

But in 1863, the Football Association was formed to codify the rules. In 1871, the Rugby Football Union followed suit. "From this point onwards the two versions of football were distinguished by reference to their longer titles, Rugby Football and Association Football (named after the Football Association)," Szymanski writes. "The rugby football game was shortened to 'rugger,'" while "the association football game was, plausibly, shortened to 'soccer’”.

1863年，“英格蘭足球總會（簡稱 the FA）”成立了，并編纂了足球規(guī)則。到了1871年，另一個名為橄欖球足球聯(lián)盟的組織也成立了。希曼斯基寫道：“從此以后，這兩種形式的足球被用較長的兩個名字‘拉格比足球’和‘協(xié)會足球’加以區(qū)別?！癖茸闱颉髞肀缓喕癁椤畆ugger’（英式橄欖球），而‘協(xié)會足球’則按association讀音被簡化為‘soccer’。”

After these two sports spread across the Atlantic, Americans invented their own variant of the game that they simply called "football" in the early 1900s. The World Cup is drawing to a close, but the argument over the name of the sport it celebrates certainly won’t.

而當20世紀初，這兩種運動漂洋過海到美國后，美國人再次自己做出了發(fā)明改造，形成了自己的“football運動”。世界杯的比賽臨近尾聲，但是顯然對于足球運動英文名字的爭論，遠不會停歇。    

重點單詞：

jocular

英/?d??kj?l?(r)/  美/?d?ɑ?kj?l?r/

adj.愛開玩笑的；打趣的；滑稽的

keepie uppies

不著地控球