Some types of football had long involved use of the hands — "football" originally meant an array of ball games played on foot rather than horseback, and didn't necessarily refer to kicking. In 1871, a group of clubs met in London to form the Rugby Football Union, and from then on the two versions of football were distinguished as Rugby Football and Association Football. The latter is a mouthful, especially compared to "rugby," so it clearly needed a nickname.

football一词最初是指在地上而非马背上进行的球类运动。在那时，"football"并不一定要靠踢的，一些"football"长期以来都用手玩。1871年，一些俱乐部在伦敦组建了橄榄球联盟，随后两种不同版本的"football"被分别称为橄榄球（rugby football）和英式足球（association football）以示区别。和前者比起来，后者的名字很拗口，需要一个昵称。

But how did "association" become "soccer"? For one, it was common at the time in England to form slang by adding -er, like "rugger" from Rugby. Plus, as the Online Etymology Dictionary points out, "those who did it perhaps shied away from making a name out of the first three letters of Assoc."

但"association" 是如何演变成"soccer"的？一来在当时的英语中通过添加-er后缀组成俚语很平常，例如橄榄球运动员"rugger"就演变自Rugby。另外根据在线词源词典所指出的，“引导单词变化的人，可能是为了避免单纯地取源单词‘association’ 的前三个字母。”

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