Soccer-speak

[Dan Goncharoff]

Is it the prestige of the language, or just that, when you watch English
soccer, you tend to hear British English announcers.

DanG


On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 5:33 PM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Soccer-speak
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Those who have been following Olympics women's soccer may have noticed
> that, over the course of the USA's games, the NBC commentator Brandi
> Chastain--perhaps influenced by her associate announcer, a Brit--has
> increasing employed plural verbs with nation/team names:  “North Korea have
> . . .”; “New Zealand do not . . .”; "The United States are now . . ."; and
> the like.
>
> I believe British English has always some enjoyed prestige among American
> soccer coaches, players, and enthusiasts, probably because of the
> comparative recency of soccer's import as a serious sport.
>
> --Charlie
>
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