Australia is a land and a people unto itself. At the same time, our geographic isolation lends to our sense of wanderlust as we peer over the horizon imagining about the different people and places that exist.
Any cultural expression that we catch ourselves doing causes our bodies to elicit a reflex gag in the form of a cringe. More specifically, a Cultural Cringe.
An Australian coined the term, a chap by the name of A. A. Phillips wrote an essay in 1950 under the same heading.
Does the Cultural Cringe still exist? Is it relevant today? And does it exist in football at all?
Some AFL types think calling Soccer by Football is a form of it. Here is a letter I found by an irate ex player who refuses to join the football bandwagon:
“Let’s not revive the Cultural Cringe on the football field,” he protested. “Many millions of Australians ‘going to the footy’ most decidedly does not mean attending a soccer match. Australian journalists, sports writers and commentators should be mindful how we Australians think of and talk about our games, and resist inducements to jump on yet another trendoid bandwagon.”
The A.A. Phillips essay explored ingrained feelings of inferiority that local intellectuals in Australia struggled against. The essay spoke of an internalised inferiority complex.
One article on the essay said that ”in the back of the Australian mind, there sits a minatory of Englishman. His ghost sits in on the tête-à-tête between Australian reader and writer, interrupted in the wrong accent.”
It seems Australia has taken self-deprecation that the English made into an art form and taken it to a new level.
Whereas the English like to sing, “we’re shit and we know we are,” Australian’s like to sing “we’re awesome ,but we’d rather be shit,” as to avoid at all costs the Cultural Cringe’s closest relative: the Tall Poppy Syndrome.
The Socceroos recent success and some of the media reaction to that success could be a case of the Cultural Cringe and Tall Poppy syndrome, particularly with the Tim Cahill and E-E-mail-gate stories.
Perhaps certain sections of the media who have the job of peddling League, Union and AFL are now suffering from Football Cringe. That is, every time the Socceroos are successful, they can’t help but cringe.
The success of the Socceroos and the rise of football in Australia may not sit well with all the locals, but with A-League season closing in and the World Cup on the horizon, rather than cringe or wrangle with a syndrome or feelings of inferiority, I think the year ahead will see me cheering for my football.
Dave
Guest
We haven’t destroyed the English language.
Dave
Guest
no, Internationale is a word in English, it’s a song. English borrows from other languages so you’ve got an English dictionary and given the English meaning of the word. The French translation for the Internationale you used is L'Internationale and that is the name of a song and therefore is a noun.
Dave
Guest
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/internationale French [edit] Adjective internationale Feminine form of international.
Dave
Guest
so you're saying its a noun if its the name of song?
Michael C
Guest
cheers Millster - (I didn't know!!! I only ever passed 1st year Korean and year 7 French - and sadly both are now ancient history). So - - we can all be agreed that the semantics of FIFA does not prove much more than it's the name of an organisation who apply an autocratic rule of law over it's member bodies, with such arrogance, disdain and Euro centric disregard for the spherical nature of the earth, the nature of seasonal and temperature fluxuation due to the 2 hemispheres and the Earths oscillation.....;-) ...about the only concession made is the altitude rule.
Koala Bear
Guest
syntax n. study of sentence structure (Grammar); rules governing the arrangement of instructions in a programming language (Computers); orderly arrangement Hang on Millster we are discussing a "Title" not a sentence.... All the words are nouns and can be arranged in any order the author wishes to place them in; regardless of them being singular or plural... ~~~~~~~~ KB
Koala Bear
Guest
Millster, you disappoint me ... I had them going there.... :lol: ~~~~~~~~ KB
Millster
Guest
Still lurking even if I'm not posting regularly any more. And sorry comrade KB - and Middie earlier - but take it from a Frenchman that in this case you are wrong. The meaning is "Association Football" not "Football Associations". If it were otherwise the correct syntax would be "Federation Internationale d'Associations de Football (plus a few accents which my Aussie keyboard can't accomodate). Now in practise I agree that FIFA is also an international federation of football associations. But we have to be clear that this is not what its official name describes. PS: MC no it has nothing to do with plurals. The meaning is (singular) international federation of (singular) association football. The 'e' on Internationale, as Pippu rightly points out, comes from the word Federation being a feminine noun in French. Au revoir.
Koala Bear
Guest
Midfielder, :lol: I saw your video; I would say the bride's maid never to be a bride fits perfectly.... ~~~~~~~~~ KB
Koala Bear
Guest
Don’t tell me you too have a personal dictionary separate from the rest of the world MC...? ~~~~~~~ KB
Koala Bear
Guest
Pippi, I have invited you to put up your dictionary link... or do a refresher course in remedial linguistics you have said you do not like to partake in... I can see why now.... you are confused... ~~~~~~~~ KB
Michael C
Guest
Isn't this a case of the plural adjective for - effectively, International (plural) federations, of Association Football (singular), where by we're either using "Association Football" as a noun, or, 'Association' as a singular form adjective?
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Gross ignorance. The root word is shown in the masculine form (just as the root word for verbs are shown in the infinitive).
Koala Bear
Guest
Poppycock..! Here’s your chance; put up a “definition link” from your own dictionary for the word “internationale” ~~~~~~~~ KB
Pippinu
Roar Guru
These sorts of dictionaries don't show the feminine form of adjectives.
Koala Bear
Guest
oops not surprising you didn't know what an option contract was…
Koala Bear
Guest
http://info.babylon.com/onlinebox.cgi?cid=CD510&rt=ol&tid=TPToolbar&term=internationale&tl=English&uil=English http://info.babylon.com/onlinebox.cgi?cid=CD510&rt=ol&tid=TPToolbar&term=internationale&tl=French&uil=English not surprising you don't know what an option contract was... ~~~~~~~~ KB
Koala Bear
Guest
Check the french dictionary its a noun internationale (French) n. revolutionary socialist hymn Babylon French-English dictionary ~~~~~~~~ KB
Pippinu
Roar Guru
there are no adjectives? then what's internationale??? Look, once again, I don't really like doing remedial linguistics, but people need to understand the pitfalls of Babel fish and other translators - they're great tools, but like wikiepedia - you need to undertand the shortcomings. Federation is a feminine noun, so naturally it takes the feminine form of the adjective. And clearly, if you honestly believe that it means Football Associations (which it can't), then you are making the word "football" an adjective - so please - don't try and tell us there are no adjectives!! Whichever way you mix it up - there are two adjectives!!!
Koala Bear
Guest
Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) FIFA-Strasse 20 P.O. Box 8044 Zurich Re: French to English translation: All the words in the "French title" are nouns that make up the FIFA title, all are nouns, no adjectives there ... And the title itself is a noun, a combine collective of nouns, placed in a desired order by the author... It’s not a sentence.... It’s a title... Your argument is flawed... Babylon English dictionary federation (French) n. confédération, fédération federation (English) n. act of joining together; league, covenant; political unity formed by a number of separate states international (English) adj. between countries, involving or belonging to two or more countries, of relations between two more countries internationale (French) n. revolutionary socialist hymn Babylon French-English dictionary n. de football (French) football (ballon) n. football (m) (English) n. association (French) association, société; union; connotation; association d'idée n. association (English) organization; society; union; coalition; connection of ideas ~~~~~~~~~ KB