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How do you view the Brittish?

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The Pentacle Queen
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 08:12 am
Hmm I think it's true England is pretty varied for it's size- America is so much bigger.

Quote:
a little turnabout PQ...beyond politics...how do you view Americans....just curious about the, you know, little stuff. The everyday life things.


I suppose the typical view of Americans is that they are rather brash and aggressive, really rich and live on fast food. Also they say 'Honey' when they are having a go at you (maybe not so much the men- the men are homophobic, especially in the south).
Everything is bigger in America because geographically it's so much bigger. Things are more extreme, and there are more weirdo fanatics and girls in high school are really hot.

More seriously, Americans are much more patriotic- and whilst Rodeos and Americana **** freaks me out, I suppose it's not a bad thing. In England lots of people are scared to honour our heritage because of all this political correctness bollocks, I like the way America embraces the minorities but isn't afraid to be patriotic.

However, this said I've never actually been to America.
I would really like to go to America.
All the stuff said above is formulated from such things as The Simpsons, The Fresh Prince, Borat, and Bill Bryson books. Cool


All this is bollocks, but (I think) quite an accurate report of how ignorant British people who have also never been to America see America. After all, in this post I did say 'How do you view the British?' not 'What are the British actually like?'

Oh, and obviously America has a ****-for-brains president. That goes without saying.
Oh! And also- if you drive too far down south to states like texas, then you end up in an ill-sign posted weird forest and get lost. Then you step out of your car and get dragged off by imbreds/a man with a chainsaw/ a man in a scream mask. Every time.
0 Replies
 
Coolwhip
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 08:41 am
The Pentacle Queen wrote:

Oh! And also- if you drive too far down south to states like texas, then you end up in an ill-sign posted weird forest and get lost. Then you step out of your car and get dragged off by imbreds/a man with a chainsaw/ a man in a scream mask. Every time.


Hey! That happened to you too?
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Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 09:13 am
At least we don't have Chavs . . . init?
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username
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 09:35 am
Brits are all Bertie Wooster as played by Hugh Laurie. We're all whoever the character played by Bruce Willis in the "Die Hard" endless series is (can't remember his name)(except for British women, of course, who are all Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft in "Tomb Raider")
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squinney
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 10:34 am
Brits?

Uppity, snooty, but I love their accents.

Very proper, pinky out whilst sipping tea.

What's up with the friggin white wigs? And, red coats?

They ARE a Monty Python movie. I love when they show parliment on the telli. Hear, Hear, and silly stuff they say as they stand and sit, stand and sit. Makes me cry with laughter.

Their a rather silly lot, in my opinion.

Probably a bit too uptight to be great lovers. I mean, do they really think "Fancy a shag?" is a great pick up line?
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Chai
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 10:50 am
The Pentacle Queen wrote:
Oh! And also- if you drive too far down south to states like texas, then you end up in an ill-sign posted weird forest and get lost. Then you step out of your car and get dragged off by imbreds/a man with a chainsaw/ a man in a scream mask. Every time.


well, yeah....you got that part right.

Laughing



actually, where I am you step out of your car and decide which organic coffee shop you want to go in, or get caught up in a gay pride parade or a Mexican quinceanera
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Bi-Polar Bear
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 10:54 am
My bet would be that some Brits are really cool and some Brits are insufferable ass holes..... sort of like everywhere else.
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nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 10:55 am
Re: How do you view the Brittish?
The Pentacle Queen wrote:
Recently we had a Dutch friend over- and I was kind of hoping for a cultural insight, but alas! She was heavilly opinionated and downright rude at times.

So you did get some cultural insight then... about the Dutch...
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Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 10:57 am
My view of the English has been conditioned in recent years by the discovery of Chavs and Chavettes.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8c/Chav.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/33/39519414_64230809bf.jpg

Visit the premiere commercial Chav site at Chav Scum-dot-co-dot-UK!

Take the Chav test!

Read more than one hundred personal and idiosyncratic definitions of Chav at the Urban Dictionary-dot-com.

Play Chav Olympics! See if you can get away with the stolen telly before you're nabbed!

Chat with Chavs at Chav World-dot-co-dot-UK!

Everything Chav at Technorati-dot-com.
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nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 11:07 am
Funny thing about stereotypes about the English, is that there's these two stereotypes - that are each other's polar opposites.

You know - stuff upper lip old boy; and football hooligan stag night lager lout. Both got mentioned here too.

Well, not so funny at all really - I mean, it is traditionally the most class-conscious place in .. uh .. the world? Well, 'xcept India Razz

John Edwards talks about two Americas.. but there's two Englands like there's no two of something anywhere else... still, after all these years. Different language, even - say "typical English/Brit" and you have these two completely opposite images...

Actually thats one of the things I love about the UK - this bewildering variety in accents, which are so completely different from each other. America does have it too, but it's a zillion times bigger a country - I dont know of any other country the size of Britain that has so many, so different, accents...
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FreeDuck
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 11:37 am
squinney wrote:

Probably a bit too uptight to be great lovers. I mean, do they really think "Fancy a shag?" is a great pick up line?


I don't know, there's always John Clease in A Fish Called Wanda. I developed a new appreciation for him in that movie.
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Coolwhip
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 03:30 pm
nimh wrote:

Actually thats one of the things I love about the UK - this bewildering variety in accents, which are so completely different from each other. America does have it too, but it's a zillion times bigger a country - I dont know of any other country the size of Britain that has so many, so different, accents...


I'd mention Norway... Feel sorry for those immigrants tho'. Smile But you were talking about english speaking countrys maybe?
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ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 03:40 pm
I've liked the British people I've known personally, and am generally favorable, but I surmise they are as varied in character and in personal ways as we are in the US, and, well, others, everywhere.

Class seems to matter more there, a surmise, but then money seems to be a primo validator here. I take each person as I find them.
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nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 04:09 pm
Coolwhip wrote:
nimh wrote:

Actually thats one of the things I love about the UK - this bewildering variety in accents, which are so completely different from each other. America does have it too, but it's a zillion times bigger a country - I dont know of any other country the size of Britain that has so many, so different, accents...

I'd mention Norway... Feel sorry for those immigrants tho'. Smile But you were talking about english speaking countrys maybe?

No, just Britain. So many bewilderingly contrasting accents!

The English spoken by someone from London's East End, the English that a stiff-upper-lipper from the home counties speaks, the English that they speak up north, not to mention the Scottish accent, then the immigrants' different (black, Asian, etc) forms of English - the contrasts seem as big as those between Southerners and Californian girls and New Yorkers - but within such a much smaller country!

French and especially German come in a range of accents too, but I dont know any country where the differences are as big and rich as they are in Britain.
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Coolwhip
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 04:38 pm
nimh wrote:
No, just Britain. So many bewilderingly contrasting accents!

The English spoken by someone from London's East End, the English that a stiff-upper-lipper from the home counties speaks, the English that they speak up north, not to mention the Scottish accent, then the immigrants' different (black, Asian, etc) forms of English - the contrasts seem as big as those between Southerners and Californian girls and New Yorkers - but within such a much smaller country!

French and especially German come in a range of accents too, but I dont know any country where the differences are as big and rich as they are in Britain.


I believe I read that Norway has the biggest difference in dialects in the world. A lot of people even have trouble understanding the different dialects. Norway even has two different official languages just to compensate. But hey, I don't even know why I'm debating this.

Over to you, Brit-bashers.
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nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 6 Jul, 2007 07:11 pm
Well, I wouldnt know anything about Norway! Sounds interesting though. And I guess it would make sense for a country so narrow and long, so sparsely populated across long, hardly interconnected distances, to have great linguistic diversity.. Plus, isnt Norwegian a relatively very young language, anyway?
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Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Sat 7 Jul, 2007 12:01 pm
A linguist in the late 19th century was studying dialects of Norge, and tells a good story on himself. In a village north of Narvik, he found an old man, who was literate and well-educated, and who also happened to be a Lapp who had been born on the trail when his parents were herding the reindeer. The linguist became excited, because he had found someone who could authoritatively and reliably inform him about the dialect of Norge which was spoken by the nomadic Lapp herders. So he began asking the old man how this was said, what someone says when that happens, and then, finally, he asked: "And what does a man say when he is dead?" (meaning, of course, that he wanted the conjugations of "to die.")

The old man looked at him for a long moment, and then dryly commented: "Around here, when a man is dead, he generally doesn't say anything."
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Coolwhip
 
  1  
Reply Sat 7 Jul, 2007 06:26 pm
nimh wrote:
Well, I wouldnt know anything about Norway! Sounds interesting though. And I guess it would make sense for a country so narrow and long, so sparsely populated across long, hardly interconnected distances, to have great linguistic diversity.. Plus, isnt Norwegian a relatively very young language, anyway?


The written language is relatively young, yes. Mostly due to unions with Denmark and Sweden, in the 1800s there was a movement to create a language based on the norwegian dialects rather than the danish language, which had been the official language during the union with Denmark (refereed to as the four hundred year night, roughly).

However, many of the dialects were fairly untouched by the unions with Denmark and Sweden because of, as you said, the scarce population and geographical inconvenience.

As a result, there is quite a gap between the written language and the spoken one. As I mentioned we have two official languages to compensate. My point being that the different dialects have had ca. 1000 years to form the different branches of the modern dialects. I'm not really sure how Norway compares to other countrys in terms of linguistic diversity, but I'm sure Setanta can enlighten us.
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nimh
 
  1  
Reply Sat 7 Jul, 2007 07:12 pm
Interesting stuff!
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cyphercat
 
  1  
Reply Sat 7 Jul, 2007 08:05 pm
username wrote:
I gnerally view the British through a lorgnette. So very, very proper to do it that way, don't y'know.


*snork!*

The Pentacle Queen wrote:

Oh! And also- if you drive too far down south to states like texas, then you end up in an ill-sign posted weird forest and get lost. Then you step out of your car and get dragged off by imbreds/a man with a chainsaw/ a man in a scream mask. Every time.


I didn't know that people in other countries thought that too! You know what, it makes me really happy to find out that this is a belief held by pretty much everyone who isn't a Southerner... We're all united in our fear and horror of those weirdos! Twisted Evil
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