Stephen wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>>
>> We call it football here. Europeans call it "American football". It's 
>> based on a game called "Grid iron", so you hear that too. Chinese call 
>> it "olive ball."
>>
> 
> I thought that it was based on rugby league.

That too. "Gridiron" refers in part to the field marked off with lots of 
lines. So you can call it "gridiron football" to distinguish it from "soccer 
football" or "rugby football". "American football" is what americans play. 
"Gridiron" is what americans, canadians, australians, etc play. They're all 
terms for rules that are approximately similar, just like you have rugby 
rules for different numbers of players and such.

Certainly a lot of the rules and concepts and especially terminology comes 
from rugby.  For example, it's still called a touch down in american 
football even tho you don't actually have to touch it down. Altho it's 
common to spike the ball when you've made a touchdown in american football.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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