Oh, and you are aware the football can end in ties, right?

I don't remember the rules to american football that well.. since I don't watch/play much.. but isn't it that 5th quarter is sudden death, whoever scores first wins.. if there is no scoring in the 5th quarter, then the game ends in a tie..

and fyi, to refute my statement.. there have been baseball games to end in a tie.. generally due to time restraints..

when england are knocked out of world cups, i sometimes switch off for the rest of the tournament and i can successfully avoid it for the most part. yet with the superbowl, i dont hear the end of it for a week. i dont understand the whole culture around it. also, is it the only major competition in american football? or is it like the FA cup to the premiership? and why is it called football when they hold the ball in their hands? so confused.

Perrin, you nailed it. The only change is that in the playoffs it keeps going for as long as needed and isn't quite sudden death.

X, it is the only championship. The North American leagues all operate on 4-6 month seasons followed by one playoff (8 to 16 teams) and then 6 months off. No secondary championships or anything like that.

As for the name I haven't a clue. I do know it is an offshoot of rugby so maybe that plays a part in it.

is it football which has local leagues of 4 teams each?

There are 8 geographically-based divisions of 4 teams each, yes. Though they aren't super-close in geographical terms (Boston and Miami? NY and Dallas?) 32 teams total, 12 make playoffs, single-elimination with 4 teams having first-round byes.

Again, not disparaging football. I watch it, occasionally. I understand why Europeans don't like our football, and there is no reason WHY it called football when they rarely use their feet. But there is no way people would allow it to be changed. It is what it is. And it's not the ONLY championship, but it is the only pro championship.

Richard Sharpe wrote:
|> Learn something new everyday... was aware that much of the world uses a period to break up large numbers but did not realize that a comma was used to provide the break to decimals. Interesting. I guess the name decimal point must strictly be an American thing.

Not even all countries group their numbers by three digits, in India for instance, they use: xx xx xx xxx yyy. Here, *x* represents the integral digits and *y* the fractional digits. I can't remember what they use to split the groups though, could be either periods, comma's or spaces, nor can I remember if they use a decimal point or a decimal comma (or, for that matter if / how the fractional digits are grouped).
Funny thing, this is not something which they could really change, because it's not just how they write numbers, it's also how they name them. Where as our names for numbers are based on three-digits-at-a-time (thousands, millions, etc.) they use names (which, of course, I also can't remember ;) ) based on the same subdivision (thousands, hundred thousands, ten millions, etc.).

Moros wrote:
|> Well, we could also start with using the decimal time system
That's already been done / attempted: [Swatch Internet Time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time)

Ace Windu wrote:
|> Yeah we use the Imperial pint, or as I like to call it, a Real pint.
A while ago I was trying to talk to an English guy about the differences between British English and American English. The moment I dare utter "British English" he interrupts me and, to put it politely :p, objects to that phrase. So, instead we had a talk about the differences between Real English and American English. ;)

[WM] x wrote:
|> i like the turn this thread has taken.
Yeah, we kinda hijacked this thread didn't we? :D

I believe there has been some misquoting

Ah, you just accidentally made your response to the quotes continuations of the quotes, I think?

I'll just give you the short version. Basically, football has been around in some form or another for 100s of years. The British are the people who really embraced the sport. At the time, the game was played with a round ball and only feet were used. Then, in the 1800s (I think, it might have been earlier) a school in England (or thereabouts) named Rugby changed the rules and started carrying the ball and running with it. This split the sport into two games that they called Rugby Football and Association Football. The word Soccer is derived from the word "asSOCiation". When the game migrated to the US, the Rugby version became the more popular sport. People started playing it in college, sort of like an intramural sport. Then, some colleges wanted to play each other. When they got together they realized that they all had slightly different rules. So the officials sat down to write down rules everyone could agree on. Thus, our Gridiron Football was evolved! From Football (or Soccer) -> Rugby -> Gridiron. You can say that Soccer is Gridiron's grandpa!


Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_did_the_name_'football'_come_from#ixzz1lsXlj9ly

Another thing about numbers: a lot of English-speaking countries use the short scale to voice their numbers, and the others use the long scale.

For example: British and Americans use these words for 10^6, 10^9, 10^12 and 10^15: million, billion, trillion and quadrillion. But long scale users such as continental Europe use these words for the same numbers: million, milliard, billion, billiard.

That can be pretty confusing, because when an American says that there are 7 billion people on the earth, a European would say: "No way! There are a thousand times less on the planet!"

Hello =]

Bye :)

@Not even all countries group their numbers by three digits, in India for instance, they use: xx xx xx xxx yyy. Here, x represents the integral digits and y the fractional digits. I can't remember what they use to split the groups though, could be either periods, comma's or spaces, nor can I remember if they use a decimal point or a decimal comma (or, for that matter if / how the fractional digits are grouped).
Funny thing, this is not something which they could really change, because it's not just how they write numbers, it's also how they name them. Where as our names for numbers are based on three-digits-at-a-time (thousands, millions, etc.) they use names (which, of course, I also can't remember ;) ) based on the same subdivision (thousands, hundred thousands, ten millions, etc.).


dd,cc,bb,a3a2a1

here:
a1=ones
a2=tens
a3=hundreds

b=thousands

c=lakhs

d=crores

source: i am Indian.

Ignore Alpha, he's the new name of Vostro.

hmmmm , good to know :¬)

rugby is in england. but i was joking a little bit when i asked about the etymology of american football.

Ace Windu wrote:
|> I believe there has been some misquoting

Aaaaaaaaaargh... Sorry, my bad. Markdown (the markup system used on this board) very "conveniently" let's you just put a "|>" in front of the first line of a quote. When a quote is hard-wrapped (has "Enters" at the end of every line) that's a nice trick, *but...* it does mean you need to include an empty line after a quote to mark its end. Which I forgot (and, can't edit). My apologies.

---

Alpha wrote:
|> dd,cc,bb,a3a2a1
|>
|> here:
|> a1=ones
|> a2=tens
|> a3=hundreds
|>
|> b=thousands
|>
|> c=lakhs
|>
|> d=crores

Even if he used to be called Vostro, he is right about that (I recognize the words now that I see them), thank you!

British English used (within living memory) to have "billion" == 10^12 but that usage is now effectively dead.