[Ads-l] Further Antedating of American Sense of the Word "Football"

Mon Mar 21 18:34:55 UTC 2022

Thanks, Bill, for these great citations and for correcting my error in describing the OED sense being antedated.

Fred Shapiro

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Bill Mullins <amcombill at HOTMAIL.COM>
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2022 1:45 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Further Antedating of American Sense of the Word "Football"

1880 New York Times 15 Oct.  2/1
CHANGING FOOT-BALL RULES.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Oct. 14. -- The Foot-ball Convention was held here yesterday.  Yale, Harvard and Princeton have been hitherto the only colleges represented, although Columbia and Amherst have both applied for two years to be admitted.

1880 Boston Daily Globe 17 Oct.  5/2
Yale, Harvard and Princeton held their annual football convention at Springfield, Mass., on Wednesday last.

1880 Boston Daily Globe 17 Oct. 9/4
While the cricket game was in progress, two foot-ball elevens from Harvard college, the one captained by George P. Keith and the other by W. H. Manning, played a very interesting and exciting match, the side of the former gentlemen winning by two goals, and a touch down to one goal for Mr. Manning's eleven.

[this cite is especially relevant in that one of the rules that was codified was that teams would have eleven players as opposed to fifteen; thus this game was played under the "new" rules]

[and the sense being antedated is OED, 2.d., 1881, not OED, 2.b., 1881.]

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2022 6:34 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject:  Further Antedating of American Sense of the Word "Football"

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football (OED, 2.b., 1881)

1880 _Yale Daily News_ 1 Nov. 4/1 (Yale Daily News Historical Archive)  The foot ball team did not go to Amherst Saturday.

NOTE:  See below for delineation of this sense in the OED.

Fred Shapiro

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From: Shapiro, Fred
Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2022 7:21 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Antedating of American Sense of the Word "Football"

football (OED, 2.b., 1881)

1880 _Sun_ (N.Y.) 14 Nov. 5/5 (Newspapers.com)  The American Association game, under the new rules of 1880, was exemplified yesterday afternoon on the field of the Manhattan Polo Association ... It was the first match of the series for the championship of the College Football Association.

NOTE: There are earlier uses of the word "football" in the context of U.S. intercollegiate games, but the OED clearly is restricting this sense to the sport subsequent to the rules changes that were completed on 12 Oct. 1880.

Fred Shapiro

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Bill Mullins <amcombill at HOTMAIL.COM>
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2022 1:45 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Further Antedating of American Sense of the Word "Football"