You utter bounder !
I just nearly choked.
Sadly, altogether too true. You missed out the fact that we also seem to have actually taken over large parts of Spain, filling them with British pubs and caffs selling a full English, not to mention the retired whiners fashioned from hide who spend their days complaining about the Spanish even though they chose to live there. Again, though, you only notice the bad ones, not the good ones. On the plus side, it means that any attempt at speaking the language beyond the most begrudging “grassy-arse” in a Spanish bar is greeted with astonishment and renewed respect, since they (and by they I mean everyone everywhere, not just the Spanish) expect all English people to be mono-lingual and pissed.
Thanks for reminding me to watch Run, Fatboy, Run. Watched it last night. Yeah, the American turned out to be an ass, but he could have been a rich jerk from anywhere.
I watch MI5/Spooks. The only Americans I can think of on that show are usually CIA operatives, and they’re usually arrogant and often corrupt, but they’re also competent spies generally and not people you’d be embarrassed to take out in public or anything. I get a giggle out of the fake American accents sometimes, though.
The only Aussie show I can think of is The Games, which at least once had a fat, entitled demanding American businessman on it. But they make fun of anyone from any country and Americans got off pretty easy. Technically not Brit/Euro I guess.
Yet, IRL he’s Canadian.
Teacake, that is certainly true. Yelling is a violation of the principle that “your rights extend to the end of my nose.” I, myself, can get incandescent at the sound of some self-centered jerk holding a conversation on his cellphone, in public and loudly. (What makes you think I want to participate in your conversation?)
But I think it does come down to cultural norms - perhaps we just speak a little more loudly than others do. Have you ever visited the U.S.? If you have, I am curious if you noticed the same phenomenon. In any case, I’m going to Germany in a few months, and I’ll try to remember to keep my voice down. (I’m also listening to German language CDs, to pick up the basic phatic phrases, because nothing is as obnoxious as going to another country and insisting that they speak your language - a point I believe you alluded to in a post upthread).
But this is another argument for the desirability of international travel - to pick up on the crucial fact that not everyone in the world does it the same way as you do back home in East Jesus, Arkansas. And my nation is bad about this sort of thing, I will admit; we produced the legislator who once proclaimed in all seriousness that “if English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me” as an argument against bilingual education.
Honestly, I don’t think I do notice loud voices so much when I’m in the U.S. as I do when I’m elsewhere. I can’t imagine why that would be, but I certainly don’t think of, for instance, walking around malls or whatever cringing at the intolerable noise level. Interestingly, though, I was quite aware of the volume of my (stupid, about biscuit mix) conversation with my slightly deaf father when I was in the supermarket last time I was there, which suggests I’m not just resetting my decibel meter as I walk through immigration!
With the languages: my partner and I are not very good at languages, and we were travelling all over Europe, so we just made sure we knew very basic stuff, like please, thank you, excuse me and sorry, in as many languages as we could, and then tried to catch a few more phrases when we got to each place. People appreciated it so much, especially “small” languages like Basque. All we said was thank you, and the guy we’d just bought some food from from gave us a bottle of wine for nothing!
Maybe it’s not so much decibel levels per se, as the contrast between one set of voices and the general register? If Americans tend to be slightly more loud than Brits, then, amongst a crowd of us, you wouldn’t notice a contrast like you would with two or three Americans in a crowd of Brits.
As to your language comments, phrases like “thank you”, “good morning”, “pardon me” are exactly what I meant by phatic phrases. I don’t expect to be able to read Schiller in the original when I finish my CDs - just to be able to find a bathroom or order a drink. It’s more about courtesy, and signalling to your hosts that you are aware that you are the foreigner here. It’s a nice thing to do - as you seem to have discovered on your travels, Teacake. Happy journeys!
As with most stereotypes, I imagine the “boorish American” stereotype is in large measure informed by confirmation bias. People only notice (and remember) behavior that conforms to the stereotype, and tend not to notice or not to remember counterexamples (quiet, polite Americans). 