Sorry to have been silent so long, guys! Things have been busy around here while we prepare for the communication skills course this weekend and next weekend. In the meantime, here's one for you Barcelona FC fans...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/feb/16/pep-guardiola-barcelona-arsenal
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
2.16.2011
6.12.2010
The last World Cup post for today (I promise).
This video has no educational purpose at all. It's just a fun dance tune from the 2006 World Cup, and it's easy to understand the lyrics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOZp6rgDedo
I just want to make it clear, by the way, that I'm not a really huge football fan or anything; English teachers have a nasty habit of focusing vocabulary on a particular season or event - it's simply a way of using current events (=news) to introduce new concepts. (Teacher stuff. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOZp6rgDedo
I just want to make it clear, by the way, that I'm not a really huge football fan or anything; English teachers have a nasty habit of focusing vocabulary on a particular season or event - it's simply a way of using current events (=news) to introduce new concepts. (Teacher stuff. :)
...and why do Americans call it soccer?
I confess: I had to look this one up.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/), the word soccer is a shorter form of "association", from the name of the Football Association. Speakers took "assoc", turned it into "soc", and added the informal "-er" suffix (you can also hear this in the way some people will call rubgy "rugger").
Football (which dates back to the early 15th century) is fairly obvious: you have a foot, you have a ball. Games like these date back to the Roman times; I like how the Online Etymology Dictionary points out that "[b]all-kicking games date back to the Roman legions, at least, but the sport seems to have risen to a national obsession in England, c.1630." (Some things never change.)
Hooligan dates back more than one hundred years:
...of unknown origin, first found in British newspaper police-court reports in the summer of 1898, almost certainly from the surname "Houlihan", supposedly from a lively family of that name in London (who figured in music hall songs of the decade). Internationalized 20c. in communist rhetoric as Rusian khuligan, opprobrium [=criticism] for "scofflaws, political dissenters, etc."
For more information on word origins connection with football/soccer/whatever you call it, look here: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=soccer&searchmode=none.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/), the word soccer is a shorter form of "association", from the name of the Football Association. Speakers took "assoc", turned it into "soc", and added the informal "-er" suffix (you can also hear this in the way some people will call rubgy "rugger").
Football (which dates back to the early 15th century) is fairly obvious: you have a foot, you have a ball. Games like these date back to the Roman times; I like how the Online Etymology Dictionary points out that "[b]all-kicking games date back to the Roman legions, at least, but the sport seems to have risen to a national obsession in England, c.1630." (Some things never change.)
Hooligan dates back more than one hundred years:
...of unknown origin, first found in British newspaper police-court reports in the summer of 1898, almost certainly from the surname "Houlihan", supposedly from a lively family of that name in London (who figured in music hall songs of the decade). Internationalized 20c. in communist rhetoric as Rusian khuligan, opprobrium [=criticism] for "scofflaws, political dissenters, etc."
For more information on word origins connection with football/soccer/whatever you call it, look here: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=soccer&searchmode=none.
5.27.2010
Football English
World Cup time is almost here!!
Want an easy way to practice your English listening? BBC Five Live Radio is going to be broadcasting EVERY (yup, all of them!) match of the World Cup, live from South Africa.
You can hear the games for free (in English) by clicking on:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/fivelive
Want an easy way to practice your English listening? BBC Five Live Radio is going to be broadcasting EVERY (yup, all of them!) match of the World Cup, live from South Africa.
You can hear the games for free (in English) by clicking on:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/fivelive
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