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Thanks for your understanding.
Chris -- 2018-04-11
The game of soccer gets its name from the Oxford/English public school tradition of shortening names and adding “-er†(e.g., “brekkers†for breakfast, “rugger†for rugby, “preggers†for pregnant, etc. See the interesting article on the “Oxford -er†in Wikipedia). In the late 1880 the name of Association Football was abbreviated, initially to “socca†and then, within a few years, to “soccer.â€
Even before the first recorded instance of “soccer†(1895) people were spelling the name of the game as “socker†(OED: “1891 Lock to Lock Times 24 Oct. 13/2 “A sterling player, and has the best interest of the ‘socker’ game at heart.â€; 1894 Westm. Gaz. 11 Jan. 7/1 “The rival attractions of ‘rugger’ and ‘socker’. “)
Presumably the “socker†spelling is an eggcorn based on the principal action in the game: socking the ball with feet and heads. The prominent knee-length socks worn by players may also contribute to the re-imaging.
“Socker†continues to be a popular spelling. A Google search (http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22play+socker%22+-pong) for “play socker†turns up at least a hundred unique examples of the error. At this frequency, chances are good that some of these instances are more than phonetic misspellings.
A typical one citation:
Post on a Q&A site “ I play socker all year round and I also run track and cross country. â€
Last edited by kem (2014-09-06 12:24:06)
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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