20 of the Weirdest Things About America.. What's the Straight Dope?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
1

I’ll occasionally see a post on fb concerning 20 Weird Things About America That Americans Don’t Realize. Or 11. Or 15. Whatever. Supposedly a list of things that happen in America that Americans don’t realize are strange. Since we have quite a few international members and members who have traveled extensively I thought I’d find out how on target the list is.

The list.
[ol]
[li]Portion Sizes[/li][li]Flags everywhere. EVERYWHERE![/li][li]Price tags without taxes included.[/li][li]Tipping.[/li][li]Advertising prescription drugs. In the UK, your doctor tells you what drugs to take, not the other way around.[/li][li]Everything being designed around cars.[/li][li]The sheer amount of commercials on the television, and their lack of quality.[/li][li]Aerosol cheese. Like seriously I would try it once, but that shit looks like cancer.[/li][li]A visiting friend was very puzzled at the use of the phrase, “Oh really?” in group conversations. Somehow he took that as a person challenging his statements.[/li][li]Your toilets are too low and the stalls have massive gaps arond the door that people can see in.[/li][li]Pickles. Your hidden love for pickles. I have been in the states for like 8 years and you guys give a pickle with everything.[/li][li]I find it really weird how college football players are kind of celebrities.[/li][li]Jaywalking is a crime?[/li][li]Why is bread in the USA so sweet? Sandwich bread, hamburger buns, taste like cake.[/li][li]Soft drink is free flowing, everywhere. At McDonald’s you get a gigantic cop for a dollar and it comes with unlimited refills.[/li][li]You are all so loud! But friendly.[/li][li]Why is there so much water in your toilet bowls?[/li][li]A very blasé approach to credit card security.[/li][li]The pledge of allegiance is creepy. I realize that most Americans just say it because they have to in school but if you listen to the words it sounds strange to have children just chanting it off.[/li][li]Lawyer adverts everywhere. Saul Goodman style.[/li][/ol]
I realize these are generalities and there are exceptions to most or all of them. There’s no real need to nit-pick.

Some of these were already on my list of things to question like portion sizes and freefills. I would love to have price tags reflect taxes.

But how far from international custom are we on these? Feel free to add any other items to the list as seem relevant.

2

Yes, lots of ads… But many of them are actually quite good.

Looks awful, but is actually yummy.

Agreed. It’s a very common linguistic trope. “Oh, really?” is a polite way of saying “Bullshit!” It’s also a common way of just saying, “Hey, wow, that’s really something.” It’s extremely context-sensitive.

Better than those Japanese holes in the floor. Otherwise, yeah, bad design.

Damn, yeah! I was just at a salad bar restaurant, and piled the pickles all over the potato salad. Love 'em!

Goes with how everything is designed around cars. Anything that fucks with traffic is bad, bad, bad. Also, stupid and dangerous.

I hope to goodness we can keep up the friendliness. It’s just about the only virtue we’ve got left. I’ve always heard Australians referred to as “matey,” i.e., readily willing to be friendly. I want USAians to try to equal them in this.

I’ve always hated it. Loyalty Oaths: they’ve got that in North Korea. We should never have implemented them here. It’s the highest quintessence of “Un-American.”

3

[quote=“Projammer, post:1, topic:734694”]

The list.

[li]The sheer amount of commercials on the television, and their lack of quality.[/li][/quote]

At least we don’t have to pay a fee to the government to watch TV (even if we aren’t watching it).

Because our poops are the biggest in the world. Everything here is the biggest/best in the world!

4

Most of the stuff is something you find elsehwhere as well.

I would say that the lawyer adverts, tipping and jaywalking are something which would raise a foreigners eye brow,.

5

Postal delivery of packages is better in the USA then in Holland. With you, mail is sacred and no one would dream of stealing a package. So they can be safely left on porches or on open mailboxes untill the receiver gets home.
With us, packages would be taken or thrown out or messed with. So the mailman doesnt leave them, but takes them back to the post office, which is only open 9-5, causing inconvenience to everyone.

6

[quote=“Projammer, post:1, topic:734694”]

[li]The pledge of allegiance is creepy. I realize that most Americans just say it because they have to in school but if you listen to the words it sounds strange to have children just chanting it off.[/li][/QUOTE]

Hell, I’m American and I agree whole-heartedly. I was doing a job interview for a court-related job in a rural California county and as part of it sat through a morning criminal court session. The judge took the bench and had everyone in the courtroom say the pledge of allegiance. It was damn creepy.

7

Brit here, who has been to lots of countries, and I’d say that the list is accurate.

Not that any of those things are exclusive to the US. Nor are many of them necessarily bad things.
But they’re uncommon enough that I think most people going to the US for the first time will pick up on some of the things in that list.

Love that toilets get two separate entries.

8

It’s not so much that mail isn’t stolen because it’s sacred but because it’s a serious federal offense and carries heavy penalties. Still, mail does get stolen from time to time. And packages left at the door by both the U.S. postal service and commercial delivery services like UPS and FedEx get stolen fairly regularly, often by people who trail the delivery trucks for that very purpose. I imagine that as a percentage of the total number of packages delivered the number stolen is fairly small, but still it happens more often than you might think.

9

I’d much rather pay a fee than put up with those constant ad’s, why your society has accepted that level of constant interruption will always be a mystery to me.

Seriously, you stop your freaking football games so that a TV show can have an ad break, everybody in a stadium sitting there scratching their arses because of TV, thats absolutely insane!

10

Including your modesty!

11

It’s pretty accurate. I mean, it’s all “weird,” not necessarily bad, except for the Pledge and maybe a couple of others. I can’t actually think of another country that has those things (except jaywalking laws maybe?) though it’s not like I’ve visited every country - I’m sure a few do.

You don’t in the UK either.

12

They do get a lot more TV over the air in the UK though. Freeview would be the equivalent of at least the first two tiers of my cable subscription, at a much lower price.

13

The licence fee is about £12 a month

Here’s a listof the channels you can get in the UK covered by that fee, these are all over the air (no satellite or cable required).
Most have adverts but none of the BBC channels do.
You also have access to quite a few catch-up TV and radio players and the BBC iplayer is excellent, has downloadable content and is add free. (and in my opinion BBC radio is worth a fee on its own)
You also can use a DVR without any additional fees or restrictions, you simply buy one off the shelf, run your aerial cable into it and record to your hearts content.

On top of that you can of course subscribe to additional streaming, cable and satellite providers but you can be royally entertained by just the content above.

And you don’t even need a licence to access the catch-up players or Netflix-type services. You only need it if you watch or record TV as it is being broadcast.

14

Some of those things, although they exist, are rarer that you think they are. I have never seen anyone actually use aerosol cheese outside of movies and TV. I have vague memories of the Pledge of Allegiance in school, but it’s not as common as you think and nobody I know even discusses it. Flags are not as common as you think. It’s not so much that college football players are celebrities as that college and high school sports are a bigger deal in the U.S. than they are anywhere else. Pickles aren’t as common as you think. Some of the things you mention are trivially different ways of designing things. As long as toilets work, who cares how they are designed?

Some of the things you talk about are somewhat specific to where you live now (in southwest Arkansas, right?). They aren’t as common in other areas of the U.S. Where do you come from? Tell us about the story of your life, where you were born and where you’ve moved in your life. You’ll find that things are often more based on the region of the U.S. than on the whole U.S.

15

See items 1, 8, and 14.

16

What’s the matter with those things? Other countries could do them if they put in the effort.

17

[quote=“Projammer, post:1, topic:734694”]

[li]Price tags without taxes included.[/li][/QUOTE]

I actually had to explain this once. At some shop out in West Virginia by some touristy thing a woman - UK accent - was yelling at some poor teenage shop clerk - just because the serve you doesn’t mean they like you - about how he’d overcharged her.

When I told her how prices/taxes were handled she was absolutely befuddled. But she did apologize to the clerk.

18

Flags everywhere. EVERYWHERE!

I lived in Germany for a couple of years. There were flags everywhere there too. The difference was that regional and city flags were more prevalent and here it’s usually just the US flag.

Price tags without taxes included.

Yeah that’s dumb. So are the tax laws. Different items in the same store may be taxed at different rates or not at all.

Tipping.

What’s wrong with tipping?

Advertising prescription drugs. In the UK, your doctor tells you what drugs to take, not the other way around.

It costs billions and takes years to come up with new drugs. If the drug companies didn’t make money those new treatments would not happen.

Everything being designed around cars.

It’s a big country. It is impossible for public transportation to get you around unless you live in a big city or are willing to shrink your world down to where the bus will take you.

The sheer amount of commercials on the television, and their lack of quality.

The quality of national commercials are not any worse than elsewhere and probably much better because of the amount of money spent. Local commercials are a different story.

Aerosol cheese. Like seriously I would try it once, but that shit looks like cancer.

I have never eaten it and don’t remember any time where it was being served. It’s really not very prevalent. I’m sure there are no shitty foods in the UK.

A visiting friend was very puzzled at the use of the phrase, “Oh really?” in group conversations. Somehow he took that as a person challenging his statements.

It could mean different things depending on how it is said. Like most things in the English language.

Your toilets are too low and the stalls have massive gaps arond the door that people can see in.

I will take American plumbing over European plumbing any day. No I don’t need a shelf to inspect my shit thank you very much. I’m not sure about the too low part. The toilets in my new place seem to be much higher than the last place. Designs vary.

Pickles. Your hidden love for pickles. I have been in the states for like 8 years and you guys give a pickle with everything.

Where are you eating? On a hamburger? Sure. On the side of the plate at a deli? Of course. I can’t think of somewhere outside of a deli where pickles are routinely served.

I find it really weird how college football players are kind of celebrities.

In some parts of the country more than others. Around here pro football is big and college not so much. Down south college and even high school football is big.

Jaywalking is a crime?

Not really. It’s a violation like a traffic ticket but usually enforced in cities where pedestrian accidents and deaths are a problem. I have never heard of a jaywalking ticket outside of a city.

**Why is bread in the USA so sweet? Sandwich bread, hamburger buns, taste like cake.
**

No idea. Seems fine to me. There is also a large variety of breads you can find in any supermarket. It doesn’t end at wonder bread.

Soft drink is free flowing, everywhere. At McDonald’s you get a gigantic cop for a dollar and it comes with unlimited refills.

In most restaurants if it is not stated explicitly you are not supposed to take unlimited refills. Otherwise why would they sell different sized drinks? Just because they don’t have a guard on the drink dispenser does not mean you are supposed to take as much as you want.

You are all so loud! But friendly.

A bit regional I believe. We are loud around here but not so much in other parts of the country.

Why is there so much water in your toilet bowls?

Who wants to see feces left behind?

A very blasé approach to credit card security.

In what way? All cards are getting chipped and chip readers are becoming the norm. What else do you mean?

The pledge of allegiance is creepy. I realize that most Americans just say it because they have to in school but if you listen to the words it sounds strange to have children just chanting it off.

Meh. I don’t find it creepy at all. I’m not fond of the under god bit but it doesn’t really bother me too much. It doesn’t come up very often.

Lawyer adverts everywhere. Saul Goodman style.

Seems to me there are a lot of them on daytime TV when advertising rates are cheap. Lawyer advertisements were illegal until 1977 when there was a Supreme Court Case Bates v Arizona. The ban was deemed unconstitutional. Basically schools are pumping out too many lawyers and they are scrambling to make a living.

19

It is a stupid system though.

Over here I go into a shop for a widget, its priced at €1, I give the server €1 and leave with my widget. At every stage I know where I stand and what I am paying.

In the US its priced at $1, but when you get to the till its actually costing something else, what a pain in the ass if you are planning and budgeting on the move. Yeah, taxes. But this is supposed to be a transaction between me and the shop, nice and simple, let the shop worry about its tax obligations and leave me out of it.

20

Depends on what their arms are doing while pledging, I guess