Why Do Yanks Call It the "EPL"...

...if no one in England calls it that?

A few English acquaintances of mine always ask this. I actually think it's a stupid question. We call it the English Premier League so people know we're not talking about, for example, the Scottish Premiership. Obviously, in England, there's no need to make clear that it's the English Premier League because no one there gives a shit about Scotland (they've even got a line in their national anthem about smiting rebellious Scots or something like that). So it makes perfect sense that, in the US, where our tastes in soccer are a little more cosmopolitan, we need to make clear which premier league we're talking about.

It's just another illustration that there's no need to assume everyone else is an idiot if they do things slightly different than you do. Calling the "EPL" the premiership makes sense in England, but it's not quite good enough in the US.

On a similar note, the most tired observation by non-Americans is that, yes, we call it soccer. Some especially ambitious wags will even attempt a phonetic version of the word with an American accent: "sawker". Trust me: this was pretty funny the first time, but, like the various plays on the word "Adu", it long ago lost any trace of cleverness. Every time you note that Americans call it "sawker", an English child is forced to drink fluoridated water while eating fresh fruit instead of meat pies. Don't let that terrible fate happen-- simply drop the tired observations about Americans and sawker.