Shorts:
In Florida in August - Fine.
In Westminster Abbey in January - not so fine.
See also baseball caps. Especially if worn back to front.
There is never an acceptable time for Lycra.
The English criticizing people for shorts? That’s rich. Back in California when I was working in a tourist area, you could always tell when a customer was British. They had khaki shorts with black socks and brown leather shoes. With the saddest, pastiest legs you’ll ever see. Truly hideous. 
Maybe you just don’t notice those Americans, like myself, who dress in such a manner that we manage to blend in (until we speak, anyway)? The only time I’ve worn any of the articles mentioned above while traveling in Europe was a hat, but then it was Leningrad, and it was damn cold out, and Russians think you’re insane if you don’t wear a hat when the temperature is below about 5 degrees Celsius anyway. In fact, if they see someone walking around with no hat in late October onward, they usually decide it’s an American. (Or are you talking solely about baseball caps?)
Oh, except the gym shoes/trainers. I have worn those abroad, but well, so do lots of Europeans. Besides, I have ankle issues and have to wear supportive, comfy shoes.
It’s a fair cop.
Now you understand the average Englishman’s aversion to shorts.
A pith helmet sets the outfit off nicely I feel.
OK, January? That’s weird. I got the impression it was shorts anytime that bugged you folks.
Well that’s probably true.
However I work in business finance and as such deal with a lot of Americans in the city. You can spot 'em a mile off. They have “American hair”. Also there’s something not quite right about their suits - I can’t put my finger on it but there’s something iffy about them. Oh and the men wear jewellery, which simply isn’t on. Don’t their wives trust them? Rings on a man’s hands. How wrong is that?
The other giveaway is that they are completely pissed after one pint of beer.
Yank bints are similarly easy to spot - and rather frightening with it. They are so terribly keen .
And a riding crop. Good stuff.
Actually, the real fun was asking the Australians what part of England they were from. They always got exasperated. Always fun.
<hijack> Could someone translate that sentence into American for me?
Getting back to the OP… When I’m curious for the average European’s view of the average American I think of checking the Urban 75 message boards. Can anyone tell me if the views expressed there are indeed representative of the average?
You realize that I have to find out about this one…“American hair?”
Urban 75 is full of soap dodging Swampie wanabees, crustifarians and snaggletooths.
Not remotely representative of anything other than tree-hugging dog-on-string dole-moles.
Avoid like the plague - it’s ciderspace.
Like John Kerry or Jay Leno. Just not on.
I think the thing that overshadows every American, and the thing that many people find hard to seperate is the whole foreign policy issue… Americans are seen as fiercely patriotic (not a problem per se) but that is then taken as support of the shit that rolls down the Hill.
Personally, I work for an American company, speak to them everyday, travel to NY on business and found the people to be… well… nice. I just noticed you all seemed happier than us. When I got off the plane in UK I was stunned by the amount of miserable bastards I could see. Within a day or two that was me too.
Anyways, my tuppence worth…
p.s. People have questioned our policies too so lets not go down that route…
p.p.s. Kyla - yeah, he was a boor. I wouldn’t know anything about the US education system. And BTW, O’Levels were phased out years ago
Okay - looks like more English to American translation is needed - or maybe not. I’ll wager to say that you mean that Urban 75 is full of left-leaning hippies (and thanks for the hearty laughs your “tirade” provoked!).
But , getting back to my original question - could you at least tell me what a “bint” is?
I dunno if I would have been recognizable when I was in Spain (OK, well, apart from the bag with the Canadian and Quebec flags on); I wore long pants and good shirts. One day, however, I said “fuck it” and put on shorts (black ones) because it was beastly hot and I was going to be walking down Montjuic and back up to the Parc Guell after. I figured by the time I was mooning around the tourist attractions, people would have a good idea I was a tourist anyway.
Bint is an easy girl. That drunk chick at the bar ready to sleep with the first guy that talks to her? That’s a bint.
From Fawlty Towers, I thought a “bint” was just a stupid girl. There’s a scene where Basil says to Polly, “Don’t you take anything in, you cloth-eared bint?”
Moving to the continent, and regarding fashions, when I was in Germany I got the impression that the students there took the grungy hippie look farther than must American students of the time. Of course that was a long time ago…much, much longer than I ever thought it would be before I got to cross the water again 
Well, I can bet I wasn’t classified as a bint, because my personal experience with British guys is that they’d take a sideways glance as an invitation for a shag. My sister and I literally got groped just walking through bars in London, and if you even mildly flirted with a guy he was trying to get in your pants for the rest of the night (shudder). Now the Scottish lads, on the other hand, I was rather keen on.
Oh man! When I was on vacation in Wilmington, North Carolina, some friends and I ran into a posse of drunk, horny, sleep-deprived Dutch marines. They flirted with us pretty outrageously, then one marine named Dion stood up and declared, “You come to Holland, I vill f!ck you all!”
I exchanged identical glances with my friends, and we were all, “Are you sure about that, buddy? There’s three of us ya know, that’s a pretty tall order. Can your heart handle the strain?” Anyway, their bus came and picked them up.
A few night later we met three drunken Englishmen in a bar who tried to talk us into going on a road-trip to Florida with them. No Scots, though.
Bint is just a young girl. It’s taken from Arabic.
I’m not European, but I live in London.
#1 visual way to spot Americans in London: calf socks and athletic shoes, with baggy shorts or baggy jeans. Natives here shun white athletic shoes (except for sport) and only the misguided young kids wear their pants baggy.
As a outsider, I’d say the prevailing opinion on Americans is quite positive. People don’t have much trouble dissociating politics from the people. There is, however, a tendency to form sweeping generalisations and I often find myself reminding pontificating friends that there’s over a quarter of a billion Americans and that it’s extremely difficult to characterise the lot of them in any particular way.
One generalisation I almost agree on (having travelled through the US), however, is the view that Americans don’t party as hard as (at least) the Brits. The pubbing/clubbing/drinking/partying/drugs culture here dwarfs that in the US, so there’s a tendency to view Americans as fairly prudish in this area.
Scottish guys are British. And as someone who spends a lot of time in Scotland, I can also assure you they can be every bit as obnoxious as their English counterparts.
Better accent, though.