Depending on where you live, everyone has a different name for the same thing: “soda,” “pop,” “Coke,” or “soda pop”; “you guys,” “y’all,” or “yinz,” if you live in Pittsburgh; “Knockout,” “Gotcha,” or “Lightning” for this basketball game; “cornhole” “bean bag toss,” or “bags” for all the tailgaters out there. It’s a neat thing to observe and an easy, silly way to start arguments on which term for the same object is “correct.”
Canada’s other term for kickball is ‘soccer baseball,’ which ... makes sense
More power to you, Canada.
It turns out Canada has its own regional language differences. The folks over at The 10 and 3 surveyed Canadians about what they prefer to call things, such as soft drink/pop, convenience stores/corner stores/dépanneur (the last one is prominent in French-speaking regions), and pylons/traffic cones. One glaring observation revealed that Canada has a different name for kickball, and it’s both apt and mind-boggling: “soccer baseball.”
It’s apt because yes, the main functions of soccer and baseball exist in kickball, which is to say it’s baseball but played with feet. It’s mind-boggling because soccer and baseball are both sports on their own. Maybe it’s a language thing. Maybe “kickball” isn’t illustrative enough to tell someone what the game actually is — that it could be easily confused with “soccer,” and therefore “baseball” needs to be added. Language is fascinating and weird.
In other news, Canada is apparently a “Kraft dinner” country, using it in the same way people say “Kleenex” for tissues, which goes to show you how marketing works:
(h/t Deadspin; The 10 and 3)
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