Football (pronounced foot-bawl)
(1) As Association Football (soccer), a game in which two
opposing teams of 11 players each defend goal-nets at opposite ends of a field,
points being scored by placing the ball in an opponent’s net.
(2) As American football, a game in which two opposing
teams of 11 players each defend goals at opposite ends of a field having goal
posts at each end, with points being scored either by carrying the ball across
the opponent's goal line or kicking it over the crossbar between the opponent's
goal posts.
(3) By association (sometimes officially and sometimes as
an alternative or informal name), any of various games played with spherical or
ellipsoid balls, based usually on two teams competing (variously) to kick,
head, carry, or otherwise propel the ball in the direction of each other's territory,
the mechanisms of scoring varying according to the rules of the code (Rugby
Union, Rugby League, Canadian Football, Australian Rules Football, Gaelic Football
et al).
(4) The inflated ball (of various sizes and either spherical
or ellipsoid in shape and historically made of leather but now often synthetic)
used in football, the Rugby codes etc.
(5) Any person, thing or abstraction treated roughly, tossed
about or a problem or (in the phrase “political football”) an issue repeatedly passed
from one group or person to another and treated as a pretext for argument (often
to gain political advantage) instead of being resolved.
(6) In slang (originally in the US military but now widely
used), a briefcase containing the codes and options the US president would use
to launch a nuclear attack, carried by a military aide and kept available to
the president at all times (also as nuclear football, atomic football, black
box or black bag) (by convention with an initial capital).
(7) As a modifier, football club, football ground, football
fanatic, football pitch, football hooligan, football fan, football match etc.
(8) In commercial use, something sold at a reduced or
special price.
1350-1400: From the Middle English fut ball, fotbal & footbal, the construct being foot + ball,
the name derived from the games which involved kicking the ball. Foot was from the Middle English fut, fot, fote & foot, from the Old English fōt, from the Proto-West Germanic fōt, from the Proto-Germanic fōts, from the primitive Indo-European pṓds. Ball was from the Middle English bal, ball & balle, from the (unattested) Old English beall & bealla (round
object, ball) or the Old Norse bǫllr (a ball), both from the Proto-Germanic
balluz & ballô (ball), from the primitive Indo-European boln- (bubble), from the primitive Indo-European bel- (to blow, inflate, swell). It was cognate with the Old Saxon ball, the Dutch bal, the Old High German bal &
ballo (from which Modern German gained
Ball (ball) & Ballen (bale)). The related forms in Romance languages are borrowings
from the Germanic.
Lindsay Lohan in “gridiron” gear, Life Size (2000).
Apparently in international use now less common than once
(“NFL” now preferred), the term "gridiron" remains frequently used in
the US describe American football including the NFL (National Football League).
The word refers to the marking
originally painted on the field: two intersecting series of parallel lines running
the length & breadth of the field which produced a cross-hatched effect
recalling the gridirons used on stoves. After
the 1919-1920 season, the grid was replaced with yard lines still in use today
but the name has stuck.
In Australia & New Zealand, “footy” is the common
slang used in all of the four major codes.
Slang terms for footballs include moleskin, pill, peanut, pigskin,
pillow & pineapple. The names are an
allusion to the shape and that so many start with the letter “p” is thought
mere coincidence. The figurative sense
of “something idly kicked around, something subject to hard use and many
vicissitudes” which is the ancestor of the “political football” was in use as
early as the 1530s while the US military slang referencing the portable device
with which a US president emerged in the 1960s.
Football (in the sense of soccer) is called “the world game”: and like
the game, forms of the word have spread to many languages including the Arabic كرة القدم (calque), the Czech fotbal,
the Dutch: voetbal (calque), the German
Fußball (Fussball) (calque), the Hebrew כדורגל (calque), the Japanese フットボール (futtobōru),
the Korean 풋볼 (putbol), the Maltese futbol,
the Portuguese futebol, the Romanian fotbal, the Russian футбо́л (futból), the Spanish fútbol, the Thai ฟุตบอล (fút-bɔn) and the Turkish futbol. Football is a noun &
verb, footballer & footballization are nouns, footballing is a verb &
adjective and footballed is a verb; the noun plural is footballs.
The Nuclear Football
US Navy Commander walking across the White House lawn, carrying the “Football” onto Marine One (the presidential helicopter).
The “Football” (also as nuclear football, atomic football, black box or black
bag) is a briefcase (reputedly made of a reinforced material with a black
leather skin) which a military aide to the US president carries so at all times
when the commander-in-chief is remote from designated command centres (such as
the White House Situation Room), orders to the military can be issued including
the command to authorize the launch of nuclear weapons. The Football contains lists of the codes
needed to transmit the launch order and the essential technical documentation
required to determine the form a nuclear attack should assume. Apparently, there’s also a check-list of the
domestic measures immediately to be executed in the event of an attack
including the imposition of martial law and the closing of US airspace to
civilian aviation. This was an outgrowth
of the “SIOP (Single Integrated Operational Plan) Execution Handbook which
codified in one publication all essential information needed in the
circumstances, something developed during the administration of John Kennedy
(JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) but in the way of things familiar to
those acquainted with bureaucratic inertia, the physical size (and thus the
weight) of the contents grew and there are reports the package now weights in
excess of 20 kg (45 lb). Of course, everything
could be contained on a single USB pen-drive (and the Football presumably
includes a number of these) but because it’s something of a doomsday device, everything
needs to be accessible in a WCS (worst case scenario) in which electronic
devices are for whatever reason unable to be used.
Set of the War Room in Dr Strangelove (1964). It’s presumably apocryphal but it’s said Ronald Reagan (1911-2004, US president 1981-1989) remarked his only disappointment upon becoming president was that the White House Situation Room was more like something in which an insurance company might conduct seminars than the film’s dramatic War Room set.
The first known use of something recognizable as a “Football”
was during the second administration (1957-1961) of Dwight Eisenhower
(1890-1969; US president 1953-1961) although in those days it contained purely
the vital information and none of the independent communications connectivity
which apparently was added as early as 1977.
Quite when first it was called the Football isn’t known but the term was
in use during the Kennedy years and all agree it was based on the idea of the
football “being passed” as happens in the game, the link being that it’s
carried 24/7/365 by an on-duty military officer. There’s also the story that “Football” was a
refinement (possibly a euphemistic one) of the earlier (and also unattributed) nickname
“dropkick”. In the game of football the dropkick
can be used to transfer the ball to another player and it was used as a
codename in the film Dr Strangelove,
a dark comedy of nuclear destruction. However
whether art imitated life or it was the other way around isn’t known and
Football anyway prevailed.
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