Origins of the Word "Soccer"

[victor steinbok]

Additional 1890 citations for "soccer/socker"; some notes on "footer"

proggins 1890 --> 1888
toggins 1891 --> 1890


I would consider adding the following reference important (after finding
the 1885 reference already mentioned in the letter).

http://goo.gl/NpmyxI
A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant: Embracing English, American &
Anglo-Saxon Slang, Pidgin English, Tinkers' Jargon and Other Irregular
Phraseology Volume 2. Edited by Albert Barrère, Charles Godfrey Leland.
London, 1890
> Socker (public schools), football played according to the Association
Roles.


The December 1885 Oldhallan reference is here http://goo.gl/Fc4VOp

Another 1890 citation is useful in another way.

http://goo.gl/l5dqaQ
Aubyn Battye. Oxford the Upper River. Longman's Magazine. Vol. 16:93. July
1890. p. 325
> The average man, however, is not many-sided, and, were he to be asked
what was his most pleasant recollection of Oxford life, would reply, if he
belonged to the later development, ' footer,' or ' socker,' or ' the togger
' (names he would trace to obsolete derivations), or, if he were a wag,
'the proggins'.

Now, the OED has "footer" dating back to 1781. But there is a slight
problem.

 3. Football.

 a. A kick at a football. ? Obs.
 b. slang. The game itself.

1781   J. Hutton Tour to Caves (ed. 2) Gloss. 89/2   Footer, a stroke at a
football.
1863   Boy's Own Vol. July 36   A peculiar fashion of their own [at Harrow]
which prompts them to call football 'footer'.
1896   Westm. Gaz. 12 Dec. 1/3   Who'd have thought of finding the old smug
at a footer match?
1925   W. Deeping Sorrell & Son xvi. 155   To perform on the footer field
with a lot of young louts.
1945   E. Waugh Brideshead Revisited i. i. 30,   I had to change for
F-f-footer.

Looking at the listing, it seems obvious that the first example belongs
under 3.a., not 3.b.

One other thing is the current trend to refer to "watching footie on the
tellie". I've heard it from a couple of Brits (one from London exurbs, one
from Liverpool) plus a Scot. No idea how old this is. "Footie" is not in
OED.

More for 3.a.: William Holloway's A General Dictionary of Provincialisms,
1840, defines "footer" as "A stroke or kick at a foot ball." I'm assuming
"North." is Northumbria. http://goo.gl/EW9Ri1

"Toggins" is a reference to rowing and this is an antedating by a year.
"Proggins" already has this citation as the earliest example in the OED.

Antedating of proggins 1888, then 1884.

http://goo.gl/gsy4Z1
A Day of His Life at Oxford. By "An Undergraduate". Murray's Magazine. Vol.
3, No. 17. May 1888. p. 676
> He goes on till he comes to our old friend, Cato, who, on the first alarm
of "Proggins," had laid down his cue, taken up the rest (there was no
Marker in the room), and was now standing at attention, in his best
professional manner, by the markingboard. The Proctor, weary of his
inquisitorial formula, thinks it enough to look up interrogatively at Cato,
who replies with great alacrity, "Red upon white, sir. Yellow your player."
> "Oh, beg pardon," says Proggins; and bidding the rest of us call on him
at nine to-morrow, leaves us between mirth and sorrow. We admire Cato's
cleverness and cheek immensely, but we hate him because they were superior
to our own.

http://goo.gl/J1UJsx
Norman Pearson. Undergraduate Life at Oxford. Lippincott's Monthly
Magazine. Jan. 1884. p. 71
> To undergraduates the proctor in some respects resembles the mediaeval
devil. In the lighter moods of irreverence he is termed "Proggins;" but
this familiarity does not altogether imply contempt. Like the mediaeval
devil, he is accredited with a good deal of clumsy stupidity, and many
tales are told of how he has been outwitted by the superior intelligence of
the undergraduate. But, like the mediaeval devil also, he is the bugbear of
the darkness.

VS-)


On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 7:35 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
wrote:
>
> Today's New York Times has a letter to the editor by me about the origins
o=
> f the word "soccer."  The citations in question were not discovered by
me, =
> but rather by Evan Kirshenbaum.
>
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/sports/letters-to-the-sports-editor.html?=
> ref=3Dtodayspaper&_r=3D0
>
> Fred Shapiro
> Editor
> Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University Press)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org