Why is "soccer" more 'polite' than "football"? I think the word you are looking for here is "pretentious".It was Victorian Oxonians who invented the term soccer. They were just trying to be polite. Leave it to a Scotsman to decry the eternal struggle to speak politely.
There's a link hidden in my post, but the point salient to yours is that Oxonians had already turned rugby into rugger, so they correctly foresaw the linguistic faux pas inherent in doing the same for Association Football. The rest is left as an exercise for the student.
Gentlemen sport played by gentlemen.
Once Argent mentioned ice hockey, the bubble was burst.
