The two cases are very disanalogous. ‘Boy’ is a specific and (American) culturally-loaded term. ‘USian’ is entirely unracist. But you’re right, I suppose I should stop writing it like that. Sorry if this offended anyone (though I stand by the contents of my posts). Why do/did I write like this?
A Simpsons reference. If you’ve every seen the Simpsons where they want to pass the anti-immigration proposition 24 (?), notice that in the bar one of the white Americans carries a sign saying “United States for United Statesians”.
Since moving here, I have begun to feel quite nationalistic … about the European Union. In general, I feel that the differences between me and an American are much bigger than those between me and other EU citizens. So I would often describe myself as … a citizen of the European Union. Except there’s no shorthand for that, so I sometimes call myself ‘EUish’. ‘European’ would be presumptuous and uninformative. By analogy, ‘USian’ and ‘USish’ pop into my head.
Hehe you’re right it doesn’t matter in the slightest. But this thread is (or at least started out as) a forum for lighthearted observations … something which I am not wholly innocent of derailing!
Well, I was aware it annoyed some Brits to have Americans going on and on about their ancestry, etc. but I had no idea it was such a painful experience for them for an American to proudly proclaim “I’m Irish” or “I’m English”.
A factual question: several people have mentioned differences in the ways Americans and Europeans dress. The socks with sandals I understand (most people even think it’s tacky here) but what are some other differences?
(Full disclosure: I’m American, and can only name three Australian cities without resorting to Wikipedia: Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane)
To be fair, while Australia is one of the largest countries by land area, it certainly is nowhere close to the population of the U.S. If a city like Fort Worth, Texas, was suddenly dropped into the outback, it would instantly qualify as the sixth largest city in Australia.
How many cities in Mexico can you name off the top of your head? Venezuela? Canada? How many cities can the average Australian name?
Additionally, another contributing factor is the level of “culture” (movies, music, television) that the U.S tends to export to the world. A small suburb of the U.S, like “Inglewood” is suddenly on the map because people recognize it from a Tupac song, for example.
Anyway none of this excuses the level of ignorance/arrogance about the world from your average American, but I hope it’s a little more understandable.
Most Americans I’ve met have been through the SCA or the Christian Scientists, so there may be selection bias involved, but in general, they tend to be very sociable, very … egalatarian, very not-private, often to an uncomfortable degree for some people (not me, though).
The whole American cultural identity thing is complex. On one hand, I agree that there’s a certain element of associating yourself with another’s identity that is silly, but on the other hand it’s sometimes a legitimate expression of one’s own cultural identity. The melting pot didn’t melt completely. When someone from Boston says “Kiss me, I’m Irish” they’re not saying that they’re an Irish citizen, they’re saying that they’re an Irish American from Boston, which is a cultural group all its own. Hamtramck, Michigan still has a very strong Polish identity and even a small Polish speaking minority, and is generally regarded as a very bad place to tell a Polish joke in a bar. The Scotch-Irish of the American South have a similar self-identification, going back over two hundred years.
On my mom’s side of the family, my mother is the first generation that doesn’t speak German in the home. My grandmother never came within a thousand miles of Germany, but she grew up in a central Texas German community where everyone spoke German. My great uncles had to enlist in the Navy and fight in the Pacific theater in WWII due to German last names and German accents in their voices, despite having been born and raised in America and never having even set foot in Germany. Those communities still identify strongly as German - a German (from Germany) girl I was dating in law school was let out of a speeding ticket while going through Fredericksburg by a state trooper named Shultz with a German flag lapel pin.
I also have a relative who was an American Indian, my grandmother’s grandmother. Based on where she was from I think she was Cherokee but I’m not sure, because she refused to speak about it. If asked I might colloquially say I’m “part Cherokee,” but what I really mean by that is that I had a great great grandmother who was Cherokee, because I don’t self-identify that way at all. If I were to run up to a person who actually grew up on a Cherokee reservation and insist I was a Cherokee also just like he is, that would be irritating and insipid, but I wouldn’t go to the opposie end of the spectrum and say that the only cultural identity an American can legitimately express is “American.”
I’m Canadian, and I have to agree about certain things about American - the loud talking, strange desire to identify with cultures that they clearly don’t really belong to*, and the ‘if big is good, bigger is better!’ mindset.
Having said that, when I travel people often ask me about Americans, expecting some mean answer, but I’m usually a big defender of the Americans in general. Sure, they can be defensive when you run into them abroad, but I would be too if everyone on Earth had such a lot of preconceived notions about who I was and why I was there. Many Canadians like to bash Americans by saying they know nothing about us or the rest of the world, but in my experience the average Canadian actually knows very little about American history or culture. We know what is presented to us on TV, we tend to absorb it passively so it’s not exactly a big accomplishment on our part, and when I’ve travelled in the US I’ve quickly realized just how much I don’t know. Also, it’s not like us Canadians really know a lot about Europe, Asia, Australia, whatever, unless it is a subject of special interest to us.
When I’ve been in Europe I have noticed that many of the most obnoxious tourists are not in fact Americans - often they are Australians, Brits, and in some places Germans (of course anyone can be obnoxious, but this is what I’ve noticed). Particularly in Eastern Europe, the perception is that everyone who speaks English is American, so any bad behaviour is attributed to Americans even when that is totally unjustified.
I am actually British - as in, I was born there and spent a part of my childhood there, my parents and their parents are from there, etc. However, I have lived in Canada for more than 20 years and I barely identify as British - most people don’t even know until they meet my parents or see my birthplace on a form or something. I’m so sick and tired of other people telling me they are British when their great-great grandparents came to Canada in 1894 and they grew up in Winnipeg!
Euros seem a lot more likely to wear long sleeves and short pants (something rarely done here) and, for the guys, tiny skimpy swimsuits than here, just in pictures and movies. Are Crocs big there? Or promotional T-shirts? What about undershirts? (I religiously wear undershirts- hate to be without one- in hot humid climates you need one imo, but most guys I know don’t wear one because they claim it’s too hot.)
A friend who’s Italian (born and reared in Rome) says one of the biggest differences in America and Italy is that in America if a person is asked “what do you do?” they answer “I’m a lawyer/banker/plumber” etc.- occupational default. In Italy, per her, asked “what do you do?” a person will respond “I garden/ski/read/play football”- they default to their hobbies and interests. Anyone else find this true in Europeans?
(Reading expat blogs is my secret vice. It’s surprisingly addictive. Just after the people arrive it’s the most fun. Observing them discovering their new country is very entertaining and informative.)
I’ve experienced that regionally within the US. As a gross generalization, down South in my wife’s hometown, no one talks about work, while back home here in the Washington DC area, people talk about nothing but.
Not true in Britain, where the question would be understood to mean “what do you do for a living?” You do occasionally encounter people who make out that they are above mindless small talk, and actually mean “what do you DO?”. You know, what do you do, with this life of yours? But they are wankers.
Very, very interesting thread. Kudos to you communists (you know, non-Americans) who’ve contributed.
“You’re welcome” here is commonly used in a passive-aggressive/derisive sense and I’d have a definite double-take if somebody used it in full, expansive form during typical conversation. Then again, “thank you” doesn’t really mean anything anymore either and is basically “goodbye” in a similar way that “how are you” means “hello.”
Keep in mind this is my observations of my countrymen in public, where we walk around with four-foot thick walls of invisible personal space armor, consider eye contact a challenge, and generally want to get to/from work as quickly as possible while engaging in as little conversation as possible. We’re all a lot different around friends.
As far as Americans being patriotic/defensive about America, I can tell you that I catch myself doing that online sometimes. I am not at all a patriotic person, but it’s a knee jerk reaction that comes from a frequent feeling of being ganged up on online. It seems like a lot of times, the bad things about the US get so blown up that Americans get defensive in “oh come on, its/we’re not that bad”. I don’t doubt that there are plenty of Americans that really are overly patriotic to a ridiculous degree, but that’s not always the case.
I don’t know if you’re joking or not, but I thought YamatoTwinkie gave a well-reasoned argument. Americans can get defensive in a bad way, but YamatoTwinkie wasn’t doing that, in my opinion.
After all, can most Australians or Europeans name more than the three largest cities in China, India or Brazil? All of which have ridiculously higher populations than Australia. I think there’s an undertone of Eurocentrism when people expect the latter but not the former - that people can only really be expected to know about ‘white’ countries, with knowledge of others completely supererogatory.
IIRC a couple years ago, when all those car burnings in France were in the news, some official was quoted in a report as saying, basically, “We need to learn about better race relations from the U.S.” I was surprised by that.
