Well, duh!
Well, in living memory, it was.
The most common misconception about the U.S., especially among Europeans, is the scale of the country. If you’re not from a country the size of the U.S., then it’s very difficult to comprehend the vast distances between cities within the same state, much less from one coast to the other.
The first time I visited Italy, I discovered that whenever I mentioned I was from Florida, I had to field questions about “Miami Vice.” It was difficult explaining that although I live in Florida, I’m in North Florida–several hunded miles from where Sonny Crockett and co. were based. I’ve also been frequently asked about Disney World.
On the other hand, I’ve seen some brilliant examples of ignorance from fellow Americans. The OP reminded me of a remarkable conversation I had with an American who was working as an intern in London:
Her: One of the guys I’m working with is from South Africa.
Me: Yes, many South Africans live in London.
Her: But he’s white.
Me: So…?
Her: I didn’t think there were any white people in South Africa.
I shared this story with a South African friend of mine, who greatly enjoyed it.
(btw, my friend happens to be one of those “rare” white South Africans like MrAndrewV and this girl’s co-worker).
Ireland (26 Counties):
[ul]
[li]That there are bombs going off all over the place. Since the early 70s the South of Ireland has been mostly free from the conflicts that have plagued the North. (And a lot of people tend to overestimate that too.)[/li][li]That the Catholic Church runs the country. Uncomfortably close to true once, but not now - although they do have more influence than I’d like. Birth control is readily obtainable and divorce is legal. Abortion still isn’t, though.[/li][li]That Protestants don’t have equal rights. Nope, all religions have equal rights and religious discrimination is simply not an issue here.[/li][li]That it’s a part of the U.K. or the Commonwealth or that the British Queen is also the Queen of Ireland. It’s the REPUBLIC of Ireland, duh. And no, you can’t use your Pounds Sterling here (except along the border or in particularly touristy places).[/li][li]That it’s full of redheads, and possibly blondes, but dark hair is very rare. Wrong.[/li][li]That the indigenous language is called Gaelic. Well, that’s not really a misconception, but most people call it Irish. It is part of the Gaelic branch of the Celtic language family.[/li][li]That people say “Top of the morning to you” and “Begorrah”. No, they don’t.[/li][/ul]
I’m sure I’ll think of a few more …
I live in HK, but being mostly Indian I’ll focus on India:
[ul]
[li]We aren’t Hindi and we don’t speak Hindu ;)[/li][li]No, not all Hindus are vegetarian[/li][li]Not all of us are cricket nuts[/li][li]English is widely used in India[/li][li]Not everyone likes Bollywood movies![/li][li]We don’t eat curry everyday[/li][li]Yes, there are plenty of people in India who wear turbans[/li][li]There are loads of Indians who have naturally green eyes (it runs in my family), so don’t keep asking why so many Indians want to change the colour of their eyes.[/li][/ul]
I’ve got a buddy from Nigeria and when he first joined our buddy circle people would ask him (rather seriously) things like: Do you guys have electricity back there? What about buildings? How’d you handle all those wild animals roaming around?
I know you think that. I know I think that. When I say “about” I hear myself pronounce the “owww.” But we don’t; to an American we are clipping it really close.
Listen to a U.S. midwesterner say the word. It becomes pretty obvious that we do NOT use the longest OOOWWW possible, because they’re using a much longer one, a really exaggerrated dipthong, like “abaeowwwt.” They even put it into words that don’t have it; it’s hilarious to hear a CNN weatherperson try to say the word “snow,” which they pronounce as “sneaow.” Believe me; relatively speaking we’re closer to “aboot” than the way they pronounce “about.” It’s a noticeable difference to them, just as you notice how a Southerner pronounces I’s like A’s (“I’ll carve the turkey with a naff!”) but they don’t hear themselves doing it. I was thrown off a bit the first time I heard someone from the Southern U.S. talking about “naffs” and “waffs.” I’m sure THEY hear “knife” and “wife,” but I don’t.
My favorites were from a Turkish guy I met when I bought my first car. He was finishing up a Ph.D. in engineering at Northwestern U. and was about to go back to Turkey; in the course of the transaction, I ended up meeting pretty mch every Turkish grad student at Northwestern, and we all went out for dinner after the deal was closed.
One of the other Turkish guys had done a H.S.-level exchange program in a suburb of Little Rock, Arkansas. He was from Istanbul and was a fairly cosmopolitan guy, and he said he quickly tired of answering really stupid questions about Turkey, so he would just make stuff up. Like “yes, the government issues us all camels so we can commute to school. And instead of license plates, we hang specially woven, encoded Turkish carpets off the back of the camels.”
When I hear many Canadians speak, I hear “oat and aboat” for “out and about”. It’s my standard “this person isn’t from the US” test. Sorry 'bout that.
My favourite misconception of Canada (or at least Toronto) is that it’s always freezing. Only half right - it’s sometimes freezing.
My husband moved here from England last year (he’s originally from someplace much hotter). I and everyone else assured him - no, the rumours are wrong, it’s not perpetually minus a million degrees here. Of course last winter was unseasonably cold, and if it wasn’t a million below for eight months solid, it certainly felt like it ! He was a bit annoyed.
But for some reason it annoys me when people accuse Toronto of being inhumanly cold all year - they ignore the fact that it’s inhumanely hot and smoggy for at least half of it !
Flying back to Montreal from California about 10 years ago, my mom sat next to a couple who were on their way to Quebec for a vacation. They had packed all their ski gear and were ready for a great time.
It was July.
She didn’t have the heart to explain it to them.
No freakin’ joke. New Mexico, here.
“I’m sorry, we don’t ship outside the United States.”
“Wow, you speak English good.” :rolleyes:
Well, I heard that all the time, when I was in the US too, and I am from Germany…
After a while I started telling people that no, we did not have electricity. And since that implies no TV, we just have a town crier come to our little village every week to tell us the news. Of course, before 8 p.m., because after that we need to stay indoors and let the wild bears roam the streets.
green-bladder help fight some ignorance here, please. It’s unclear (at least to me) from the way you’ve constructed your list … is your fourth point (about English usage) true or false?
BTW, I chuckled at item no. 1. I know that Hindi is the language and that Hindu refers to people, but it seems that whenever I want to use one term or the other, my inferior brain mixes them up and I always say the wrong word! Even though I know the distinction!
See, these problems are fixed by buying online.
We Merkuns do get confused about everything the US “owns” that isn’t an out-and-out state (except for NM; Mr. Burns: “There’s a NEW Mexico?!”) I live in the city with probably the largest concentration of Puerto Ricans outside, well, Puerto Rico, but if you stopped random people on the street most of them probably couldn’t tell you if it’s a colony (nope), whether the folks are US citizens (yep), etc. etc. Forget about places like American Samoa, the Wake Islands, Saipan, the US Virgin Islands, etc.
One of my best friends in college was from Guam. Hilarity often ensued. My favorite story was the time when she was near graduation and wanted to subscribe to a Boston-based magazine to be delivered back to Tamuning. They insisted that she had to get the much more expensive foreign rate, even though they did count Hawaii (far from Guam, but still) and Alaska as domestic, as they should have. Finally she asked, “OK, what country do YOU think Guam is in?” and got total silence. She said most people who knew about Guam were either geography buffs like me and WWII veterans, since it’d been key in the Pacific war, and military guys because a big chunk of the island is an airbase.
As for OP, I haven’t travelled enough to reply but I did hear a story from an Italian-American friend of mine who said that when she travelled in Eastern Europe, people thought she couldn’t possibly be American because a) she spoke Italian and b) she wasn’t blonde.
Well Dutchie here…
Believe it or not, but we do not wear wooden shoes nor live in windmills…nor am I a heave druguser (in fact I know more people among my friends in the US who smoke pot then among my dutch friends)…and no we don’t speak German…and yes you can truly drive for 10 mins, get out of your car and be surrounded by people who speak a completely different unrecognizable dialect…The most stares though I get from people is when talking about distances. The Netherlands are small, I live 2 hours away from Amsterdam which is about the furthest away you can get without crossing the border. And yet I have only been to A’dam about 6 times in my life - since there’s always a ‘big’ city within a 20 mins drive why bother making a 2 hour trip?
swannguy Don’t forget:
- Not all our gays are married.
- We don’t euthanise you when you have the flu.
- Some streets don’t have hookers.
- Clogs are only worn on special days, like when Holland plays against Germany [football]. *Clogs are pretty heavy. Excellent material to kick butt *
- Tulips are used on the same special days, just to throw at the goalie.
American here. On-line, there have been some great quotes:
“Why are All American’s Overweight?” -We’re All not. Maybe the 60 year old tourists who visit your country are.
“How hard was it to quit smoking? Nobody in America smokes anymore.” - Not true. And more business gets done at the foot of a tall building over a cigarette here than on golf courses.
“How come America changed? Why did you all vote for that Idiot Bush?” - We Didn’t all vote for him, but there’s no such thing as a ‘no confidence vote’ in our electoral process. Its winner takes all for four years.
“What brand of gum do you chew?” - I don’t chew gum. Most people here don’t.
“I’m sick of American TV and Movies and News”. -Fine. Then pony up enough money so that your country’s local TV can create enough interesting programming, support a sufficient amount of Indie film production and cover enough domestic news that you don’t have to hear about who’s visiting Camp David next Tuesday.
“How come Madonna dumped your country and is now living over here in one of our castles?” - We won the coin toss.
Oh yeah, and don’t forget:
“Why do Americans like peanut butter so much?” (Um … I don’t? I was equally baffled to be informed by a group of Aussies that Americans ate a lot of sausages.)
And guidebooks published in other English-speaking countries always make it sound as if the word “toilet” is considered borderline obscene in the US, which it is not.
In Austria, everyone knows how to ski. Naturally, as the entire country is full of mountains and there´s always snow, so what other means of transport would we have?
In fact large parts of eastern Austria are pretty flat and it gets quite hot in summer.
Everyone knows how to waltz. Well, actually I do, but it´s not like you learn it in grade school.
We´re also very musical, as befits the country of Mozart and Sound of Music. Oh dear, Sound of Music… I don´t know how many times I´ve heard “Oh, Austria? The Sound of Music…” Yes, we all run around in Lederhosen and those nice white-and-green dresses.
The most common responses when people hear I´m from Austria are:
“So, what language do you speak there” (Alternatively: “So how come you know German?”)
“Oh, isn´t that the southern part of Germany?”
Or we get mistaken for Australia.
I´ve had Europeans ask me whether Austria is a member of the European Union.
OTOH, when Austrians hear I´ve lived in Finland, they´ll ask how I could stand living in perpetual darkness and snow all year round. And whether there were any polar bears in Helsinki. Or penguins. :rolleyes:
Well, yeah. I guess they have a few at the zoo.
But most stereotypes about the Austrians and the Finns are true. We drink loads of beer, for one.