If I’m talking to an English speaker from outside of the US, is there any confusion if I say “soccer”?

For example, when I was in college a friend asked for a “torch”. I was confused for quite some time, because I didn’t know it was another word for “flashlight”. Does the same thing happen with the word “soccer”? Should I clarify by saying, “…or football”?

Thank you!

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          11 months ago

          Yeah, soccer is actually an English term that they created to refer to association football, as opposed to rugby football or the hundreds of other forms of football.

        • CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net
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          11 months ago

          If an Englishman uses ‘soccer’ he’s almost certainly from the upper class.

          As “soccer” was played by the elite (such as the Oxford lad who is said to have coined “soccer”), it soon spread to the working classes, and became “football”.

      • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Canada is in North America the continent, which the US (sometimes referred to as America) is also in - saying Canada is America is like saying Great Britain is Europe

        Edit: NA is a sub-continent, not the continent

        Edit 2: Scratch Edit 1

          • pewter@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            People in the USA would probably reword that sentence as “And North America is in the Americas.”

            It’s similar to how North and South Dakota are called “The Dakotas,” not “Dakota.”

          • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            Yes, but I don’t think the person I was replying to was referring to America the landmass given the context and wording - plus even in the context given, it would still be more accurate to say North America, as Southern/Latin America doesn’t share the same cultural identity with North America

            • Taalen@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              I debated whether I should say NA or American, but I figured I don’t know what Canadians use, so there we go. Anyway, nice to see that debate is still alive and healthy. I gave up on it ~20 or so years ago. Writing unitedstatesman was exhausting after a while :)

            • BigilusDickilus@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              I think I have seen Central America referred to as a sub continent, but that doesn’t really make sense other than to create a formal differentiation between them and USA/Canada.

      • Otter@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        But it’s not called ‘soccer’ in mexico or central / south america, so ‘america’ in that context wouldn’t make sense