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 Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 6:45 am
This thread is inspired by Fire Phieonix.
In answer to the question I was asked in the "real life news and other issues" thread....
Stereotypes about England? Perhaps that in one way or another we all sound "posh" when we're not. You guys in the US could pick up on that easier than what we can, but it's downright obvious with the upper class folks and the royal family. A ridiculous assumption was made about people who come from Norfolk such as myself. Someone said we're all in-bred, because in-breeding results in stupidity. We're no more stupid than anyone else in the UK, nor any more intelligent.
A very English stereotype rather than general "British" is how we love out cups of tea. I'm very much into tea. I can drink anything from 4 to 8 mugs of tea in a day. eek
There's also the classic fish and chips meal. Go down the local fish and chip shop (usually called "the chippy") for that. Erm, there's the Sunday roast thing as well. In the US I think people most often go to bars/clubs to go drinking with their mates don't they? Whereas over here, though we have bars and clubs, most prefer to go down to their local public house (pub). That's a very British thing to do. It's not just an English thing. There's football. Again, that's mainly English blokes (if you haven't heard the term that's a slang term for men). You Americans call it Soccer, but it really IS football because it's kicked around. I don't understand why American football is called that because they run with it under their arms most of the time. American football to us is pretty much a sport called Rugby. Baseball is called Rounders over here and is played ever so slightly differently as well.
All in all, I do think the English have that "posh" tendency anyway. They call it the "British" way of thinking and acting, when the Scottish, Welsh and Irish don't act that way. It's just the English, but nevertheless still perceived as a wholly British thing. We have a full range of different dialects over here, but I suppose you could easily pick out the posh sound anyway. I think it's in all English people somewhere.
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Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:04 pm
Hm that all sounds pretty normal to me though I'm living in Canada. Personally I think we have less canadians than any other culture here xd . The thing that annoys me is when we are called americans because were in norht america and people assume it's the same here as in the U.S.A. I suppose that's like when people say British when they're actually thinking of English. neutral
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Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:55 am
Yeah, you could say it's pretty much the same.
What did you mean by that seems "normal" to you? It's typical of English people to do some of if not all of those things! Heh.
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Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:43 pm
I get some really weird ones here in Wisconsin, mainly stemming from the fact that I live in Madison, which is sometimes referred to as "twenty-five square miles surrounded by reality." The exact number has changed over the years, but the sentiment is the same.
When I talk to people outside of Wisconsin, I tell people I live in here and their first reaction is to ask how many cows I milk in the morning on my dairy farm.
When I talk to people in Wisconsin, I tell them I live in Madison and their first reaction is to assume I'm some sort of Godless, devil-worshiping lesbian demon or something. Unless I'm in Milwaukee...
Basically, people in Wisconsin and people outside Wisconsin think I'm out of touch with what's really going on in the world because of where I live. Other Wisconsonites think I'm out of touch because I live in a city that doesn't vote Republican. Other people think I'm out of touch because I live in a state that, by and large, does vote Republican. It's a weird, onion-like layering of assumptions.
Berz.
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Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:42 am
Regarding government systems, I don't know what to make of ours in the UK anymore.
Here are some examples of why:
* They want people to eat more healthily, so they put healthy food prices up and unhealthy food prices down.
* They complain about the troublesome youths in the country because they beat each other up, kill each other, or harm others in some way and leave it to charities to pick up the pieces because they can't be arsed to create more things to do for young people. The only jobs around that deal with vulnerable people like the youth and the disabled are in charities so they're few and far between (this is the area I want to go into).
* You can leave home and get your own place at the age of 16 if you want and yet the national minimum wage is about £3.53 (around $6.89) for those up to the age of 16, £4.60 (around $8.99) per hour for those aged between 18-21, and £5.52 ($10.7 cool for those aged 22 and over. Employers can pay more than that, but are only obliged to pay minimum and the cost of living has gone up considerably.
* The cost of gas and electricity, etc etc etc....has all gone up by a heck of a lot.
* Emergency services staff keep going on strike. Since the last postal strike (even though that was several months ago now), post keeps getting lost. I have to spend extra on sending post via recorded delivery to ensure it actually gets to its destination.
There are a lot of other things going on as well and it's driving everyone nuts.
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Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 12:42 pm
Some of those things you mentioned Mel happen in the US as well, on top of even more obscured things... We are told to preserve gas and to go "green", yet the cars being made are still those ones that eat up so much gas and the hybrids here barely get decent mileage. The government could care less about the environment and rather waste money on a non-existent war in the Middle East. (it is not a war, but more like a crappy missionary movement type thing).
Berz: I hate it when people assume something because of where you live or even who you are. It's completely pathetic, but I guess some of it is human nature.
I guess I can say because of where I live many people who are not from New York would think I speak in some gangster language and stuff... I really don't even speak like such!
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Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 4:56 pm
Hmm, interesting but, I don't know much about stereotypes. However, I can tell you a few things about latino stereotypes. I'm not sure if there are any Guatemalan ones but still... I'll come back later. mrgreen
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Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 5:53 pm
If your talking about government take a look at our democracy. It just doesn't make sense anymore. Nobody gets anything useful done.
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 11:57 am
The world is headed for the next depression, you know?
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 12:40 pm
Yeah, and it may even be greater than the Great Depression! sweatdrop
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 3:30 pm
DM_Melkhar The world is headed for the next depression, you know? Headed? I think we're in it. The whole gas thing is what pisses me off most, though. All the big companies assure us that it's as much a problem for them as it is for the common man, and yet they're making more profit than they ever have in the history of using oil as an energy source. And with one hand, they assure us that demand will drop and prices will level out while with the other, they send their financial officers off to buy up oil futures as a "hedge investment against the weakening dollar." Bull crap. It's to keep demand up and everyone knows it. First up against the wall when the revolution comes, as Douglas Adams would have said... Berz.
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:06 am
Berzerker_prime DM_Melkhar The world is headed for the next depression, you know? Headed? I think we're in it. The whole gas thing is what pisses me off most, though. All the big companies assure us that it's as much a problem for them as it is for the common man, and yet they're making more profit than they ever have in the history of using oil as an energy source. And with one hand, they assure us that demand will drop and prices will level out while with the other, they send their financial officers off to buy up oil futures as a "hedge investment against the weakening dollar." Bull crap. It's to keep demand up and everyone knows it. First up against the wall when the revolution comes, as Douglas Adams would have said... Berz.
I said "headed" for it because we're not quite at the stage where everything just falls to bits. We're not far off it though.
They want us to use public transport more, and use our cars less, yet they put the bus fares up. In a few areas of the UK there are free buses (not many mind you), and there are several cities/regions with fairly cheap fares, but where I live it's ridiculous. £2 for a single fare to travel 3 miles into the city centre. That's....nearly $4. It's cheaper for me to drive myself places still than to pay that amount for the bus every day!
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 12:54 pm
That is expensive! It's only $2 here for a ride anywhere along the line the bus runs on, and $2.25 if you want a transfer to another bus. Unfortunately, those buses run near the city and in Nassau County, not out here in Suffolk county. The ones that do run here are so sporadic you have no choice but to drive!
I agree with every little bit Berz said... The industry is rubbing bull crap in our faces and making us blind. They make, like, 20 something million a year in profit, and they say to us they are in deep sh*t. It's all about money these days, and that's what is going to bite our a**es in the end, as it's doing it already.
Time to travel to Jupiter and live there!
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 12:59 pm
DM_Melkhar The world is headed for the next depression, you know? That sounds about right. With gas prices rising, there's no telling where it will end. rolleyes
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:43 pm
The Egyptian Dragon Time to travel to Jupiter and live there! I hear there might be water on Europa... Berz.
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