# Misconceptions about USA **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 19, 2003, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510 "2003-09-19T00:33:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/261 "2003-09-26T15:20:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NoClueBoy \* > \*\*Do you furriners have garage sales? (Garage is a fancy frenchyfied word for car hold) Is an explanation of “Garage Sale” needed? \*\* We have garages, ya kna. What on earth made you think we’d understand “car hold” any better/ 😕 😉 Garage sales are highly unusual, but we do have American TV though, so I’d imagine that you don’t need to explain it. In the UK and occasionally in Ireland there are things called “Car Boot Sales” (“boot” is the word for a car’s trunk), where dozens of people drive into a big field and sell crapola out of the backs of their cars. ---
**Author:** ![Jennyrosity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@Jennyrosity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennyrosity)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/262 "2003-09-26T15:23:27Z")
Not only do we have them - although we call them “car boot sales” - but such is their popularity we’ve even made a TV show about them. Although I believe it’s only shown here in the South West, where we are somewhat starved of entertainment. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/263 "2003-09-26T15:51:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jennyrosity \* > \*\*Not only do we have them - although we call them “car boot sales” - but such is their popularity we’ve even made a TV show about them. Although I believe it’s only shown here in the South West, where we are somewhat starved of entertainment. \*\* You’re making Northern Irish regional TV sound positively scintillating… ---
**Author:** ![tanookie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/48db29/32.png) [@tanookie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanookie)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/264 "2003-09-26T15:56:18Z")
your car boot sale sounds like a flea market to me 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/265 "2003-09-26T16:02:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NoClueBoy \* > \*\*It could’ve been an ad. I have some old 1940s and 50s Better Housekeeping type mags that were in a box of classic cameras I picked up at a garage sale. > > The ads were the most interesting things! Very detailed, really small print in some of them, stuff you don’t see ads for now. Durkee’s Onions had an ad with a greenbean casarole recipe. > > Do you furriners have garage sales? (Garage is a fancy frenchyfied word for car hold) Is an explanation of “Garage Sale” needed? \*\* I find garage sales (or yard sales) to be hilarious. Where I live you get one person from a family with a six-figure income haggling with another six-figure incomer about whether they will drop the price of a piece of total crap from $1 to 75 cents. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/266 "2003-09-26T16:06:54Z")
Yeah, y’all’s cars got wings, too, huh?! In Brittania, truck is a verb. In USA, we “ship” things via planes, trains, and automobiles. 🙂 Man, I gotta gets to Ireland! Boot sales?! That just sounds like the bee’s knees, man. The wasp’s nipples. The entire set of insect errogenous zones! “Car hold” is a _Simpsons_ reference. ---
**Author:** ![Hugh\_Jass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4da419/32.png) [@Hugh\_Jass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hugh_Jass)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/267 "2003-09-26T23:03:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NoClueBoy \* > \*\* > > “Car hold” is a _Simpsons_ reference. \*\* The Simpson’s reference is “car hole.” ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/268 "2003-09-27T00:44:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hugh Jass \* > \*\*The Simpson’s reference is “car hole.” \*\* Not to nitpick a nitpick, but I’m pretty sure it is “car hold”. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/269 "2003-09-27T01:05:56Z")
> [@](#): > > I cannot even begin to express my disgust at this. Johnny L.A, does your mother not like you or what?!! My parents were products of the 1950s. The dashing Naval officer, and the lovely wife in a cocktail dress. Now, the 1950s were before my time, but as I understand it things were weird back then. I mean, they had fins on cars! (Almost as silly as all of these cars with spoilers nowadays. Heck, my Porsche 911 didn’t have a tail on it!) I guess “convenience” was the watchword of the day. New convenient products were coming out all the time… and uses had to be found for them. It took me a while before I would eat the “green glop” (or “that green Jell-O salad with the apples and nuts in it” as it’s generally called in my family). It was pale green and had lumps in it. Yikes! But a few years ago I actually tried it (just to be polite, y’know). It’s not bad. In fact, it actually tastes kinds good. (Of course, I like Vegemite, escargots and liver. Not all mixed together.) But it _is_ weird, and you need to get past how it looks. I’ll grant you that. ---
**Author:** ![Opus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/858c86/32.png) [@Opus1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Opus1)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/270 "2003-09-27T02:17:45Z")
5-HT: Nope, it’s car hole: [http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F21.html](http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F21.html) ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/271 "2003-09-27T03:40:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by amarone \* > \*\*It could be that there is legislation similar to in parts of Atlanta - a place cannot serve alcohol if it has nude dancing. Presumably they are not allowed just to ban nude dancing, so they try find ways to make it unprofitable. \*\* I don’t know, there are other strip clubs in town that do the “memberships available” thing. Possibly they make the girls keep their g-strings on so they can sell liquor. I don’t know; I’ve never been in one. (A strip club, I mean; g-strings I’ve been in.) ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/272 "2003-09-27T04:24:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Opus1 \* > \*\*5-HT: > > Nope, it’s car hole: [http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F21.html](http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F21.html) \*\* Well, I’ll be! And I mustaseen it about 20 or so times, too! Just goesta showya Fighting ignorance isn’t always a high calling. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/273 "2003-09-27T04:38:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spogga \* > **Oh come on! random exploring isn’t going to provide all and sundry with an ordnance survey map is it? > Again given the sheer size of the USA these random explorers are going to have to be pretty good at map making and writing as well as having damn good memories.** Actually, a lot of them WERE mapmakers. Lewis and Clark, for instance, surveyed as they traveled. That was [the whole point](http://nd.water.usgs.gov/lewisandclark/mission.html) of them going. We had recently bought a big pile of land from the French and President Jefferson wanted to know what was there. [It is said](http://www.l3-lewisandclark.com/ShowOneObject.asp?SiteID=29&ObjectID=454) that he hoped they’d find mammoths and giant sloths! ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/274 "2003-09-27T14:23:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Opus1 \* > \*\*5-HT: > > Nope, it’s car hole: [http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F21.html](http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F21.html) \*\* Well I’ll be damned. for what it’s worth, I did find a bunch of sites that list it as Car Hold, but the SNPP is usually dead on about simpsons stuff. color me mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![burntsand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba9def/32.png) [@burntsand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burntsand)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/275 "2003-09-27T23:17:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GMRyujin \* > \*\*Well, I think the reason we’re so provincial is it costs quite a bit to go anywhere overseas. International airfare is extremely high, at least for the unwashed masses like myself, and we don’t have much of an alternative, except swimming. \*\* That reminds me of a joke that my emigrated-from-Germany parents used to laugh about (in the original German, for those who took it in High School, and then in English): - Mammi, Mammi, ich will nicht nach America! - Bleib still, junge, und schwimm weiter! trans. - Mommy, Mommy, I don’t want to go to America! - Be quiet boy, and keep swimming! ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/276 "2003-09-28T06:48:18Z")
When I lived in France for a year (I’m American), many people were surprised that my last name was of German origin. The thinking seems to be that since Americans speak English, they must have English-sounding names. French people I met (other nationalities too) were surprised to hear how much German immigration to the USA there had been in the 18th and 19th centuries, and consequently how many German names. Also, here is my favorite European slam of the US; I heard it in France, Germany, and a few other places: “You Americans have no culture, because you have no history.” Whenever I catch myself thinking that Europeans are smarter than Americans, I remember that little gem. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/277 "2003-09-28T11:23:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Neurotik \* > That’s not really true. Non-Christians only number about 10-12% of the population. And a really good chunk of those (5-7%) are atheists, a good chunk of whom will likely celebrate Christmas if only for the cultural aspect or because the rest of their family does and it’s nice to get together. > > My guess is you’re only really looking at (5-6%) of the population that doesn’t celebrate it. First of all, I don’t know how _you_ define “significant” but 1 in 10 or 1 in 8 is a noticable part of the population from my viewpoint, particularly if you live in an urbanized area with a higher percentage of non-Christian in the vicinity. And I find it _really_ hard to believe that _half_ of this group is atheist. Between the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddists, and Pagans… well, that’s a lot of folks. Although I’ve learned that some folks have some pretty odd definitions of atheists. Maybe it’s just because I live in an odd area, but I’d say easily a third of the people I know don’t celebrate Christmas, at least not as a religious holiday. There’s a lot of social pressure to give gifts and so forth at that time of the year, but that’s not quite the same as religious holiday focused on a particular day. I do note you’re from Virginia - perhaps your state/region is more heavily Christian than mine. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/278 "2003-09-28T12:59:37Z")
Fun thread! I have often meant to ask about the Jello salad, but, well, thought it might be rude to ask. 🙂 To be fair, way back when Celyn was young, jello/jelly often appeared at school meals, alhtough it would contain fruit (quite likely tinned) but none of the funkier - oops more imaginative - ingredients. AND the cream on the top was strange sort of fake whipped cream stuff\*, not actually cream, so maybe we’re about even there. Well, today I can contribute the misconception that the USA has at least one organisation that feels a need to look at whisky distillieries, just in case they suddenly diversify into weapons manufacture. Ah wait -that’s not a misconception. As you were, chaps! 🙂 - called something or other “Delight”, IIRC. Very ironic, you see. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/279 "2003-09-28T14:56:04Z")
**burntsand** : Ah, those “Mommy! Mommy!” jokes! “Mommy! Mommy! I don’t _like_ daddy!” “Shut up and keep eating.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/280 "2003-09-28T15:12:25Z")
Mummy, mummy I hate Daddy’s guts Well, just leave them by the side of your plate, dear [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510.md?page=15)