I know that the US exports a lot of culture via TV, movies, etc. Obviously some of our references are not going be understood by those separated from us by language or culture. As an example, in a thread here on the SDMB about baby teeth, a German mentioned that he/she had never heard of the Tooth Fairy until seeing her referenced on The Simpsons.
What are some others?
It was years before I realised ‘bangs’ did not mean boobs.
It did seem awfully weird in Napoleon Dynamite thinking about it.
Edited: typo.
The tooth fairy is not strictly a US thing, just so you know.
There’s tons of references that continue to whoosh right by me, though, even after several years in North America. Yesterday, I was introduced to a ‘Sloppy Joes’ for the first time. And, playing Cards Against Humanity, I heard about Billy Mays, so there’s that.
Yes, I know.
It took me ages to work out what the hell “Bangs” were (in a non-explosive sound context).
There’s countless references to various foods I’ve got no idea about without looking up on Wikipedia (Grits, for example. Never seen them or had them in real life.)
There’s also a lot of media personalities whos influence doesn’t travel - I’m aware of the existence of a gentleman named Rush Limbaugh, for example, but couldn’t tell you anything about him beyond the fact he has a radio show without looking it up on the internet.
I’ve been away from the States for almost 25 years now, and there’s lots of things I don’t get. Pretty much any pop culture reference is wasted on me.
For example, I’m aware that there are some sort of famous Kir-something sisters(?) and lots of people complain about them, but I have no idea what that’s all about.
I take it that there are a lot of reality shows about housewives, but I’ve never seen any of it. I did see one reality show one time some years ago on a trip back to the States. Something like “Survivor”(?)
New words or phrases will come into popularity and I’ll have never heard of them. Words like “outlier.” Maybe I missed them growing up, but it didn’t seem to have been that popular before.
Several years back it seemed that a lot of people would ask questions then answer them themselves. “Does this mean that I think XXX? Of course not, YYY” I hadn’t really heard that very much and then it seemed everyone was saying it.
There is no belief concerning hyper kids and sugar in France, so I was stumped when I first came across that reference.
Otherwise the only examples I can think of also deal with names of food. (grits, hush puppies, granola)
Ha, yeah another things: declawing cats and cratings dogs (except, say, during a trip maybe). Unheard of here.
Now I’m really curious how you refer to them in other parts of the world.
I first read the word “bangs” in reference to hair when I was 11 and reading Anne of Green Gables. From the context I figured out it was referring to her fringe.
That’s actually a really interesting aspect: folk beliefs, urban legends, etc. I’d love to hear more of those in this thread.
It (singular) is called a fringe in the UK. Bangs is completely non sensical to us, both the word and the plural.
I’m really showing my age here, but is it possible you’re referring to Willie Mays? :dubious:
Why couldn’t it have been Billy Mays? He was certainly famous on television for his advertisements, particularly for Oxy-Clean, and might not have been as well-known outside the U.S.
We knew him in Canada, but outside of North America, he might not be well-known.
Billy Mays was a pitchman, and he plugged dubious, TV-advertised-only products, in a loud voice. “Hi, folks, Billy Mays here, and I want to tell you about the amazing Product. It slices, it dices, it makes mounds of julienne fries! But that’s not all! It also cleans your toilet and changes the oil in your car! What would you pay for this? Don’t answer yet, because we’ll also include a set of steak knives! Now what would you pay? Forty-nine-ninety-five? Give your head a shake, folks, because today we’re offering Product for…”
Billy Mays–not Willie, who was a baseball player–was a pitchman, and he pitched, just not on the ballfield. A lot. Over and over again.
As other people have said, we call it a fringe (singular).
Missed the edit window:
I don’t think he was ever on mainstream TV in Australia or New Zealand. Like Rush Limbaugh, I am aware of his existence (and that Mr Mays has passed on) but beyond “TV infomercial host a while back” I couldn’t tell you more without looking it up on the internet.
Also, a lot of US political stuff goes sailing waaaaaaaaay over my head, too. One of the papers here (The Australian, I think) runs the comic Doonesbury and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single one in which I understood what the characters were talking about.
“Bangs” doesn’t make much sense in American English either, I always figured we borrowed some other word from French or another language.
I don’t understand how you cook your eggs - “sunny side up”, “over easy” - what the heck’s that all about? We do boiled, fried and scrambled, which are hopefully self-explanatory.
And the origin of the phrase “put up” meaning to shut away. Someone on a US board I read, (possibly this one) kept going on about “putting up the dog” when she had dog-phobic visitors, and I wanted to genuinely ask what she was putting the dog up on top of?
sunny side up is fried, but only cooked on one side (yolk is runny). Over easy is the same thing, but you flip the egg over and cook the other side.
Basically its a fried egg with varying levels of yolk consistency.
In Hebrew, they’re called a “pony”, which only adds to the confusion.