Probably for the same reason there is a game called "cricket" which doesn't seem to involve noisy Ensifera.
I'm actually one of the rare straight US males who doesn't watch the Super Bowl, as I don't care for US football.
emc
Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world.
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Now you've got me curious :)
Being an Aussie, I am of course a huge cricket fan. I can't help it - it's bred into me :p
I'd never wondered before where the name of the game originated. And after having a (fairly quick) scout around it seems that nobody really knows for sure.
This reference seems to suggest that the word might be combination of the words "crook" and "wicket", as early versions of the game played by shepherds involved the use of both.
Although CricInfo has a fairly extensive section on the history of the game, it doesn't really give any clue as to where the name may have originated from.
Wikipedia also presents a few theories, but nothing conclusive.
Anyway, an interesting little diversion for a Monday morning.
Cheers,
Darren :)
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I'm actually one of the rare straight ...
You're so rare, you number in the tens of millions
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This would be American Football, yes?
I've always been curious about one thing - why do they call it football when they hardly ever seem to kick the ball?
Well, it's quite strange that it's me to answer, since I'm from Italy where we hardly know what american football is. Whatever, the latter is well known to be a rather deep modification of rugby union -brought in the US by immigrants from the UK- which in turn is a form of football. Indeed, although there's a legend around the birth of rugby football, before any form of football was codified matches took places with rules to be agreed on from time to time. Anyway, the most popular form of football in Italy and probably worldwide, which is association football a.k.a. soccer and is played (almost) exclusively with foots was codified only later than rugby. Incidentally, I'm about the only italian guy to have hardly ever seen more than two or three minutes of a match. I don't even follow those involving our national team: I plainly find it boring, no matter who is playing. OTOH, speaking of rugby, which I conversely find to be extremely entertaining and exciting notwithstanding the fact that it's not even minimally popular here, while in North America this super bowl thing is taking place, here in Europe the 6 Nations just started! So just to let you know. BTW: yes, "we" lost against France by 39 to 3. No, I'm not put particularly down by this. Just in case you wonder...
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blazar's explanation is about right as far as I know. Rugby was fairly popular in the US for much of the late 19th century, but over time some people, particularly teams at certain East Coast colleges, began to introduce variations on the game. The most comprehensive of these changes were those brought about by Walter Camp at Yale, who came up with concepts pretty foreign to any Rugby player such as the quarterback, the first down, and the forward pass. These changes fundamentally changed the game in a few key ways: the down/scrimmage system meant that play stopped much more frequently; the forward pass meant that kicking was no longer as useful; and blocking ahead of the runner in combination with relaxed tackling rules made the game much more physically aggressive - dangerously so in the early days. However, to the players and fans involved, it was still more or less the same game, whose name they had shortened from "Rugby Football" to just "Football", until the new rules were codified and it came to be accepted as a distinct sport. By then the name was ingrained and it stuck. | [reply] |