# Non-US Dopers, what mentions of contemporary American culture puzzle you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 12, 2006, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858 "2006-12-12T19:42:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/321 "2006-12-20T21:18:40Z")
quid? what is quid? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/322 "2006-12-20T21:33:30Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] quid? what is quid? [/QUOTE] A pound (pound as in money, not as in weight). ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/323 "2006-12-20T21:34:16Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] quid? what is quid? [/QUOTE] Prerequisite for obtaining quo. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/324 "2006-12-20T22:06:05Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] No bloody idea. Five quid for an oven thermometer and problem solved. [/QUOTE] Does your oven not have a thermostat? Recipes always tell us “set the oven to 400” (that’s Fahrenheit, of course, not centigrade), and we turn the dial to 400 (or punch it in on the key pad, these days) and that’s that. The only reason we would get an oven thermometer is if we thought the oven thermostat weren’t working properly, or maybe someone making a really fussy recipe (a souffle or something like that) would want one. > [@](#): > > Huh? They’re about the same length as American ones, aren’t they? (Bear in mind that the leading zero is, errrm, always a leading zero). Why is it harder to remember 0XXXX XXX XXX than XXX-XXX-XXXX (other than familiarity with the rhythm of the groups of digits)? ISTR some of the guidebooks I read when I went to England just gave the phone numbers as one long string of numbers, with no spaces. I’m sure this is an efficient thing to do for the authors, but it does make the number a lot harder to remember. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/325 "2006-12-20T22:08:29Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] Does your oven not have a thermostat? Recipes always tell us “set the oven to 400” (that’s Fahrenheit, of course, not centigrade), and we turn the dial to 400 (or punch it in on the key pad, these days) and that’s that. [/quote] A lot of gas ovens don’t, and have the farcical ‘gas mark’ system which is an ancestor of the ‘pull it out of your arse’ method. > [@](#): > > ISTR some of the guidebooks I read when I went to England just gave the phone numbers as one long string of numbers, with no spaces. I’m sure this is an efficient thing to do for the authors, but it does make the number a lot harder to remember. Any phone number listed this way will be hard to use - it’s the book’s fault, not the numbering system. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/326 "2006-12-20T23:00:24Z")
Is that what the 3 was-- A gas mark? We did a lot of take out and restaurants, so it was all good–it just was this odd thing. Like the laundry detergent(already in the flat) all in an Asian language-I have no idea what it said, but I couldn’t find any English on the box. This is why(one reason) I travel-to have these little odd moments and see how other countries do things. I like pubs much better than bars, your cabbies are much nicer (and cleaner, too), but I didn’t know what to say to a man who wanted me to explain America’s foreign policy to him… ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/327 "2006-12-20T23:49:03Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] Is that what the 3 was-- A gas mark? [/QUOTE] Yes. [Gas mark - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_mark) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/328 "2006-12-21T03:14:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Prerequisite for obtaining quo. Can’t you just take a semester of Quid 101? ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/329 "2006-12-21T03:23:56Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] Yes. [Gas mark - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_mark) [/QUOTE] Thanks, but if you think about it–getting a themometer wouldn’t have helped me much (since I don’t know Celsius well at all), even if I had known where to get one in the first place while over there…does Boots sell oven thermometers? Marks and Spencer? Now that I’ve probably made you want to put my head (or yours) IN an oven, I’ll shut up. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/330 "2006-12-21T14:27:37Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] LA - no problem whatsoever - it’s an internationally-understood abbreviation… I can’t see how these could possibly be misinterpreted! [/QUOTE] Except that _within the United States_, “LA” is ambiguous. It can mean Los Angeles (casually) or Louisiana (by postal abbreviation). And since we’re talking about using abbreviations that non-Americans can’t be expected to know, this ambiguity is not insignificant. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/331 "2006-12-21T14:31:56Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] Or, if we change the bolding, you see my point: “The United Kingdom of Great Britain **and Northern Ireland** ”. Great Britain refers to a constituent part. To hopefully avoid getting dragged down a very convoluted hijack, [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:British_Isles_Venn_Diagram.png) sums up the basic situation [/QUOTE] I know what the basic situation is, but my focus was on your saying that it is _in no way accurate_. It’s slightly inaccurate; not completely so. “Great Britain” does encompass all but a small (disputed) portion of the country, and in some situations, Northern Ireland is treated as a somewhat separate unit, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/332 "2006-12-21T14:34:07Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] Except that _within the United States_, “LA” is ambiguous. It can mean Los Angeles (casually) or Louisiana (by postal abbreviation). And since we’re talking about using abbreviations that non-Americans can’t be expected to know, this ambiguity is not insignificant. [/QUOTE] CA too, when the Canadian Top Level Domain comes into play. Has caught me out a couple of times. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/333 "2006-12-21T14:34:15Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] Well, I realize it’s only one more, but it’s the spacing of the numbers. I can’t remember them. Must be a brain weakness or something. I can understand most accents, and the difference in vocab is no problem, but the “mobile” numbers…can’t do it. [/QUOTE] I can sympathize with this. I can’t get used to how my relatives in India state telephone numbers – ######## – all run together (land line) or – #####-##### a five-five split (cell phone). I just can’t grasp five, six, seven, or eight digits stated without any pauses. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/334 "2006-12-21T14:35:18Z")
Although, I’d have to say that for the vast majority of non-Americans, LA means Los Angeles. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/335 "2006-12-21T14:38:48Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] I can sympathize with this. I can’t get used to how my relatives in India state telephone numbers – ######## – all run together (land line) or – #####-##### a five-five split (cell phone). I just can’t grasp five, six, seven, or eight digits stated without any pauses. [/QUOTE] Another strange thing… Recend events in my home state have lead me to think that it’s not the length or type of numeric combination that makes memorising difficult or otherwise, but familiarity. For all my life, New South Wales care numberplates were three letters and three numbers. I can remember them with ease. When they ran out of combinations about two years ago they went from XXX-111 to XX-11-XX. The same number of characters, but can I remember them? Can I arse. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/336 "2006-12-21T14:40:22Z")
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog] Although, I’d have to say that for the vast majority of non-Americans, LA means Los Angeles. [/QUOTE] Which just emphasizes the point that postal abbreviations for states aren’t appropriate in an Internet context. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/337 "2006-12-21T14:52:06Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] I can sympathize with this. I can’t get used to how my relatives in India state telephone numbers – ######## – all run together (land line) or – #####-##### a five-five split (cell phone). I just can’t grasp five, six, seven, or eight digits stated without any pauses. [/QUOTE] If we ever travel together-we’ll remind one another to write them down. 🙂 License plates are just odd-they differ in their numbering here, too-state by state. And then there are the so called vanity plates-the IM FINE and URAWK type things. The cops must go nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/338 "2006-12-21T15:02:52Z")
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog] Another strange thing… Recend events in my home state have lead me to think that it’s not the length or type of numeric combination that makes memorising difficult or otherwise, but familiarity. For all my life, New South Wales care numberplates were three letters and three numbers. I can remember them with ease. When they ran out of combinations about two years ago they went from XXX-111 to XX-11-XX. The same number of characters, but can I remember them? Can I arse. [/QUOTE] Absolutely. We had this “how to study better” course in high school. It was an after-hours activity and, of course, every student there was a high achiever with nothing-is-good-enough parents. Anyway, we’d known each other for at least 8 years. One of the parts of the course was numeric memorization. When we were given random phone numbers with random names, we had serious problems memorizing them. But our real phone numbers? Easy. The first two numbers came from the town; if you knew what town someone was from, you knew his first two numbers. So you only had to “learn” four more; two of the other people in the class had phone numbers with two of the pairs identical to mine; another one had the phone right after my best friend’s (who was also in the group). We didn’t need to learn the names from scratch, like in the examples from the books: only to match each string of numbers with the right person. The teacher wasn’t too convinced. So next time she got us to list the phone numbers of our grandparents. This raised the amount of figures to be memorized, from 6 to 9. Ah, but… The first two or three indicate province. And hey, how funny - one of those classmates whose number almost matched mine? His grandma’s is my grandparents’ plus 1000! Turns out they live four blocks away. So if I’m ever visiting the young 'uns and see someone who looks like that guy… it could be him. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/339 "2006-12-21T15:59:39Z")
I do not mean to insult America generally, since as a Canadian neighbour I like the country and its people and visit it regularly. But since you ask what puzzles me about contemporary American culture, it is the implication in so many US TV programs and movies that racism in contemporary American society is an extremely rare phenomenon. Very rarely, a character is depicted as a racist and is firmly and irrevocably condemned by everyone around him. With the notable exception of Archie Bunker, most US popular culture gives us the impression that 99.9% of Americans are completely colour-blind and non-racist. They accept blacks and other non-whites freely and easily, and are perfectly comfortable with inter-racial sex and marriage. Take the program _Roseanne_. This lower-middle-class family living in the industrial rust belt was totally free of not only racism but homophobia as well! Now, my own experience of Americans is that while most of them are NOT what I would define as racist, perhaps one American in five holds opinions that I would definitely qualify as racially prejudiced. And I am NOT talking about southern whites, necessarily. Most of my experience is with whites in Boston and New England. For example, I have frequently heard vicious and unbearable jokes about blacks from “Boston Irish” types at a party who had a few drinks in them. On Cape Cod, I met a family who were ready to have an apoplexy because their daughter married a black Haitian. I would point out that the man is educated, has a decent income, and is a good father and husband. To be fair, the family is slowly working on changing their attitudes. They ARE making an effort. But if that family were in a US TV program, they would no more notice the colour of the man than they would notice the number of consonants in his name. Perhaps American culture is trying to set a good example, to show Americans how they SHOULD be. But the trouble is that your culture also gives complacent whites the idea that racism is something that is almost 100% banished from America. Yeah, right! :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/340 "2006-12-21T16:23:54Z")
[QUOTE=Valteron] I do not mean to insult America generally, since as a Canadian neighbour I like the country and its people and visit it regularly. But since you ask what puzzles me about contemporary American culture, it is the implication in so many US TV programs and movies that racism in contemporary American society is an extremely rare phenomenon. Very rarely, a character is depicted as a racist and is firmly and irrevocably condemned by everyone around him. With the notable exception of Archie Bunker, most US popular culture gives us the impression that 99.9% of Americans are completely colour-blind and non-racist. They accept blacks and other non-whites freely and easily, and are perfectly comfortable with inter-racial sex and marriage. Take the program _Roseanne_. This lower-middle-class family living in the industrial rust belt was totally free of not only racism but homophobia as well! Now, my own experience of Americans is that while most of them are NOT what I would define as racist, perhaps one American in five holds opinions that I would definitely qualify as racially prejudiced. And I am NOT talking about southern whites, necessarily. Most of my experience is with whites in Boston and New England. For example, I have frequently heard vicious and unbearable jokes about blacks from “Boston Irish” types at a party who had a few drinks in them. On Cape Cod, I met a family who were ready to have an apoplexy because their daughter married a black Haitian. I would point out that the man is educated, has a decent income, and is a good father and husband. To be fair, the family is slowly working on changing their attitudes. They ARE making an effort. But if that family were in a US TV program, they would no more notice the colour of the man than they would notice the number of consonants in his name. Perhaps American culture is trying to set a good example, to show Americans how they SHOULD be. But the trouble is that your culture also gives complacent whites the idea that racism is something that is almost 100% banished from America. Yeah, right! :dubious: [/QUOTE] That was a good and true post. TV does not show the reality of prejudice in this country. Overall, I think they are trying to be positive about it, not pretending it does not exist. I think many of our best shows dealt with racism honestly. You already brought up “All in the Family”. “Barney Miller” and “WKRP” handled racial interaction more realistically than most sitcoms. I know there are a few others, but this is the problem, there are only a few others. “All in the Family” is still probably the sitcom that did the best job of showing America what it looked like. In many ways it was more realistic than any drama I have ever seen. I believe to this day, police officers still consider “Barney Miller” to be the most realistic of Police Shows. This was true in the past. Most sitcoms today are formulaic and occasionally confront real issues, usually during sweeps. Maybe someone could right a realistic sitcom again. It might do very well. Jim [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858.md?page=18)