It’s called a shibboleth - and apparently some of them have been used in the way you mention.
Some examples are given in the Wikipedia page here: Shibboleth - Wikipedia
I seem to recall this being used to identify US draft evaders in Canada.
Moderator Note
stui magpie, this is a reminder that it is against the rules to alter text within the quote tags while leaving the original attribution. No warning issued, but don’t do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The two shibboleths you mention are based on the expectation that:
- Irish Catholics pronounce the letter “h” as “haitch”, whereas Protestants pronounce it as “aitch”;
- Irish Catholics say “Our Father, who art in heaven”, whereas Protestants say “Our Father, which art in heaven”.
The effectiveness of this test is dubious, as it would presumably depend on the test subject not being aware of these differences. But it makes for a good story.
Maybe, but I’m curious how many of those, say, Aussie foreign-borns are from, say, New Zealand, which is not all that culturally different from it. Or from England.
First off, there is still more diversity in Europe, even by this measure.
Secondly, the measure makes no sense. You are saying that China is the most diverse country on Earth, simply because it is home to a lot of Chinese. That’s a total non-sequitur. Diversity is a measure of variety, not a measure of abundance. A collection of 1.3 billion Han Chinese is not, by any conceivable standard, more diverse than a collection 4 people, 2 of whom are Han Chinese and one of whom is Pakistani and one Zulu. The fact that there are 300 million Americans tells us absolutely nothing about diversity.
And finally, the original point was that somehow Americans are more aware of foreign culture because they are exposed to more foreign-born residents. But since the proportion of foreign-born residents is much lower than for most developed nations, Americans are actually exposed to far *fewer *foreign-born residents, not more.
This in itself to be a classic example of US parochialism. The US is not “a long way away from anywhere else except Canada and Mexico”. The US is much closer to the tropical islands of Colombia and Venezeula than England is to the Mediterranean islands. Yet while hundreds of thousands of Poms go on holiday to the Mediterranean and North Africa every single year, almost no Americans go to South America or the southern Caribbean.
I read something a few years ago that pointed out that the lower 48 is within 1000 kilometres of the territory of something like 50 foreign countries, whereas England is within 1000 kilometres of around half that number. The average size and population of the foreign territories neighbouring the US is actually larger than those surrounding the England. The whole point of the article was to dispel this widely believed myth that the US is especially isolated, which explains US parochialism. The myth itself is a *result *of US parochialism. It originated because most Americans don’t know and don’t care that they are surrounded by dozens of foreign territories.
To take a comparison point in the opposite direction, Australia is the same size as the lower 48, is even further from from “anywhere else”. And yet ~50% of Australians hold passports compared to 33% of Americans. Australians make about 10 million overseas journeys each year, compared to 30 million for the US, despite the US population being almost 15 times larger.
It’s impossible to say, because of the way the immigration system works and because of the diversity of both countries.
NZ is the biggest immigration source for Australia, but ~50% of those Kiwi immigrants are themselves OS born. Because there are effectively no borders between Australia and NZ, around half of all foreigners who immigrate to NZ eventually end up resident in Australia. That’s to be expected of course. If you are a foreign resident of a country/region you have no strong ties there, so of course you are highly likely to move to the most economically prosperous parts where your chances of getting a job are highest.
That’s further complicated because NZ has an even higher diversity than Australia. Just because someone comes to Australia from NZ doesn’t make them “not all that culturally different” from the “typical” Australian. A large proportion of Kiwis in Australia are Polynesian, whereas the “internal” Australian Polynesian population is tiny: most of Australia’s Polynesian population arrived via NZ within the past 2 generations.
Also Camelot (another Lerner and Lowe vehicle), in the song How to Handle a Woman.
ETA: And I pronounce “Z” as “Zebra,” if I’m using it in a standalone fashion.
Blake would be wrong about much.
The only medium to large countries within 1000kn of the USA are Canada and Mexico…the rest are island nations and most smaller than most large US cities.
Many Americans didnt need passports to visit Canada or Mexico.
The British need to leave their country to vacation in warm tropical weather; Americans dont.
The USA is more diverse than Europe; we have all the Euro diversity plus we have sizeable Latin American and Asian populations that Europe just doesnt have.
It can be hell in Thailand. There actually is a Z in my name, and the Thais try to copy the British style on this, but the Z sound does not appear in Thai. So they pronounce the letter more like “set.” But “set” is also the word for “finished.” So if I’m spelling my name, they often think I’m telling them I’m done spelling it when I get to the Z. We usually have to start all over.
Which, ironically, tells us nothing since Merkins pronounce it “Zeebra” and the rest of the English speaking world pronounce it “Zebbra”. :smack:
I’ll thank you to leave the Welsh out of this.
I can think of an American example where Z is pronounced zed and not zee: in Kill The Dead, the second novel in Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series, zombies are colloquially referred to as zeds. Or zots.
Canadians pronounce it “zeebra” too.
I promise to say “New Zedland” from here on out.
Probably true. But while the United States may be within 1000 kilometers of a lot of countries a very large portion of Americans are not.
From where I am it is 1200 kilometers to Canada (if I want to visit Vancouver for the 20th time) and 700 kilometers to Mexico (if I want to visit Tijuana for the third time). The closest non-Mexico/non-Canada country to me are Belize, Guatemala, and Cuba, each about almost 4000 km away here.
So if I want to go to a country other than our closest neighbors, the distance it would take me will get someone in Belfast to Moscow and large portion of the way back. (And I’m guessing that the average Russian doesn’t consider Japan a close neighbor for travel purposes even though the countries are physically close.)
What I’m curious about is if England had a decent warm beach somewhere how many the hundreds of thousands would be heading to domestic beaches instead of puking all over foreign ones. If you’re traveling for weather or geography, Americans can get almost all the varieties of that while staying in the U.S., most smaller countries can’t do that. Obviously, if you’re traveling to experience different cultures then that doesn’t work.
I suspect that when it comes to travel a huge factor is just the different in how much time most Americans have to do it compared to other countries. I’ve been all over the world but will admit that for the most part our closest neighbors aren’t all that appealing to me because I really don’t care for tropical climates (despite this I have been to a half dozen Caribbean and Latin American countries but they generally aren’t high on my list of places to visit, been to Europe and Asia as well just in case this all comes off as defending my own parochialism). And for years when travel was limited by my wife’s 10 days a year of vacation it was a real decision whether to do a road trip and visit some part of my own very large country I hadn’t yet seen or to waste two days of vacation just on the out and back part of the travel, and another day or two semi-wasted getting over jet lag (I love Istanbul but the first two days when I’m pretty much experiencing it between 1 and 8 am are less than stimulating).
Anyway, we can all find some reason to hate on each other. Having spent way too much time in the company of British tourists at Walt Disney World (and American tourists in Japan who wouldn’t eat anywhere other than McDonald’s and Hard Hard Cafe’s) I certainly know that just because you’re willing to leave the country doesn’t mean you’re a good traveler.
:rolleyes:
Uh huh.
So England, France and Holland are island nations smaller than most large US cities.
Talk about parochialism.:rolleyes:
And what? You think Poms need passports to visit France or Finland?
Once again, an astonishing example of US parochialism and blind assumptions that the US is somehow “special”.
And how does that support your position? The argument was that Americans don’t possess passports because the US is especially isolated. How does climate make it somehow especially isolated?
And even that argument is stupid because there are actually more Mediterraneans and Australians traveling to northern and central Europe than the reverse.
Seriously?
:rolleyes:
Just :rolleyes:
To believe that the only sizable populations in Europe are Europeans is so incredibly parochial as to be laughable.
To actually believe that there isn’t any significant Asian population in England is to be so incredibly ignorant of world affairs. modern history and even popular culture as to be shameful.
But hell. You made the claim, and this is GQ, so..
Cite!
Pony up your evidence that the US is more diverse than Europe. And your evidence that the US has an Asian populations that Europe doesn’t have.
This ought to be fun to watch, since the former flatly contradicts everyranking I haveever seen. And the latter is so incorrect as to be laughable to anyone who has even had so much as a stopover at Heathrow or watched even 5 minutes of European television.
"a b c d e f g; h i j k, lmnop; q r s, t u v, w x, y and zed…(needle scratching across a record sound effect…)
All quite true, but:
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It still doesn’t support the widely held belief that that America is a long way from any where but Canada and Mexico.The idea that the only close neighbours of the US are Mexico and Canada is provably untrue, and is a classic example *of *US pariochialism and insularity. Not the reason *for *it.
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It’s inconsistent. If it’s a long way from Seattle to Mexico, then it’s equally far from Tampa to Canadato Mexico. Either the US is a long way from all of its neighbours or from none of them. Saying that Canada and Mexico are the only US neighbours at comparable distance to European neighbours is wrong no matter how you look at it.
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It still doesn’t fly when you compare the US to other similar sized, climatically diverse nations. Australia and Russia are both as large and climatically diverse as the US, yet they still have more foreign travellers and more passport holders. So the whole thing seems like a post hoc justifcation.
More, I suspect. But there are still more English traveling to Germany or Holland and Australians traveling to Indonesia and Thailand than there are Americans travelling to Honduras. So climate clearly explains very little.
No, but the only comparably diverse countries, Australia and Russia, can. And they still travel more. So once again, there is still no American exceptionalism except in the degree of insularity.
I can’t credit that as the major driver. Other developed countries have a strong concept of a “gap year” between high school/uni graduation and starting work, where a large percentage of the middle classes run off overseas and travel cheaply. That’s not a time thing because it’s a conscious choice to put off working for the sake of travel. In contrast, Americans just seem to go to Mexico for piss-ups during the holidays.
All very true. My only point is that trying to justify American porochialsim because the US is physical exceptional just doesn’t hold water.
I’m pretty sure you’d be wrong. Zee vs Zed is common knowledge as is the lack of “u” in words like colour. It’s hardly surprising when you think about it. Kids grow up on Seseme Street and then get corrected by their parents/teachers when they pronounce Z wrong.