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In English, though, the distribution of meaning of the word “football” is more like:

340 million: Grid Iron

60 million: soccer

15 million: Aussie Rules (proper footy)

10 million: Rugby League

5 million: Rugby Union

Probably some Gaelic Football in there too for good measure.

But that doesn't correctly represent the proportions of hacker new readers that would call it soccer. Since this web site was started in the u.s. and is almost entirely English speaking that heavily selects users from English speaking countries, both north America, and in particular the u.s., and especially silicon valley.

I would't be surprised if majority of HN views are from outside North America as of now. There are likely more English speakers in Bangalore than in Silicon Valley.

So what? A thousand trillion people could speak some way, and it wouldn't make it somehow illegitimate for a village of 100 people to speak a different dialect.

More people in the world eat rice than bread, does that mean cultures that eat bread are wrong?