# 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:** 29
**Author:** ![nashiitashii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@nashiitashii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nashiitashii)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/561 "2007-01-07T05:47:13Z")
[QUOTE=wasson] Anyway, I guess it’s PC because people of any kind of ethnicity are supposed to be proud of their heritage, and who am I to tell her what race to consider herself to be? But still, not ALL Americans consider everyone with dark skin black. [/QUOTE] Ethnicity is also assumed along the lines of skin color a lot more in the US than I’ve noticed elsewhere. Personally, it bothers me a little as an American because skin color doesn’t necessarily mean they’re belonging to any sort of different cultural group per se purely because of their skin color. Also, an interesting read on how early 1900s American culture worked in regard to skin color is Nella Larsen’s _Passing_. It’s about a “black” woman who is pale enough in skin tone to “pass” for a white woman in, IIRC, the 1920s. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/562 "2007-01-07T06:48:04Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] What the British call “biscuits” is what we Americans call “cookies.” That’s probably why he thought you were mad. [/QUOTE] Aah. I used to think so too, but from past experience on the Dope, I now know that this issue is deserving of a whole, separate thread. There seems to be a lot of regional variation in the US with the word “biscuit”. Here in Australia (and possibly the UK too) the little sweet things you have with tea are called biscuits as a catch-all term, however _some_ of them are “cookies” (generally the rough, homemade-looking ones - hard to define, but we know a cookie when we see one). ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/563 "2007-01-07T08:29:47Z")
Something that puzzles me: If an American cop is pursuing a felon and the felon crosses the from state “A” into state “B” it is my understanding that the cop can no longer chase after him but has to hand over to the cops in state “B” Am I right? ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/564 "2007-01-07T08:48:06Z")
What’s with the police on COPS (and other shows) finalising the arrest with “YOU’RE GOING TO JAIL”? It’s like a throwaway line from a 50s B grade drama or a Leslie Nielsen show: “You’ll be doing your {insert crime here]… IN… JAIL!” Don’t they go to court first??? Innocent until proven guilty and all that?\* \*I know they do, but where do the cops get off saying that? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/565 "2007-01-07T11:12:30Z")
TheLoadedDog writes: \> What’s with the police on COPS (and other shows) finalising the arrest \> with “YOU’RE GOING TO JAIL”? If they’ve arrested someone, they take them to jail to be held until a judge can decide if they should be allowed to be bailed out. The judge can decide to impose a specific amount of bail on them before they are allowed out, or he can decide that they are a flight risk and can’t be bailed out, or he can release them to their own custody or someone else’s custody, or he can throw the arrest out and release them. Is it different in Australia? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/566 "2007-01-07T12:47:34Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] I believe that “pie” is just a literal translation of “pizza,” so there’s a more-or-less logical explanation for that one. [/QUOTE] [Wiki sez:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza) > [@](#): > > \*Pissa \* is late Vulgar Latin (9th century) flat bread, and apparently came to mean a flat bread with a cheese topping by the 14th century in some Italian dialects. _Pizzo_, which means “point” in Italian, may have been an influence. Many languages around the Mediterranean have similar words meaning flat bread or unleavened bread, see _pita_. > > The Italian word for a person with talent for making pizza is _pizzaiolo_. A restaurant that serves pizza is called a \*pizzeria \* (from Italian); the phrase “pizza parlor” is also used in the United States and Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/567 "2007-01-07T13:09:00Z")
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog] What’s with the police on COPS (and other shows) finalising the arrest with “YOU’RE GOING TO JAIL”? It’s like a throwaway line from a 50s B grade drama or a Leslie Nielsen show: “You’ll be doing your {insert crime here]… IN… JAIL!” Don’t they go to court first??? Innocent until proven guilty and all that?\* \*I know they do, but where do the cops get off saying that? [/QUOTE] I think most of the confusion lies in the fact that most criminals that are found guilty of felonies go to **prison** for their sentence and not jail. Jails are most often used as short-term holding cells operating by towns or counties so what the police are saying is true. The person is going to jail until they can get a hearing in court (to set bail and take care of preliminary matters) which usually happens very quickly and then the person is free again before trial (generally speaking). Jails can also be used for extended stays for lesser sentences but that is an alternate subject here. What the police are saying is letting the person know about where they are taking them and not whether they will be found guilty or innocent eventually. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/568 "2007-01-07T13:41:30Z")
Aah, okay. In this part of the world, jail/gaol is synonymous with prison. That’s where the guilty do their time, long term. You guys are talking about what we’d call “holding cells” or a “police lock-up” down at the local cop station. It still makes for humorous television though… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/569 "2007-01-07T13:47:37Z")
[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner] If they’ve arrested someone, they take them to jail to be held until a judge can decide if they should be allowed to be bailed out. The judge can decide to impose a specific amount of bail on them before they are allowed out, or he can decide that they are a flight risk and can’t be bailed out, or he can release them to their own custody or someone else’s custody, or he can throw the arrest out and release them. Is it different in Australia? [/QUOTE] It’s essentially the same in Australia, but the concept of “jail” (as I posted above) is not. Police stations generally have a handful of holding cells that people can be placed in immediately after arrest. For most mundane offences, the people are just there for the hour or two while the cops do the paperwork, and then they are “bailed to appear before (a) court”. Where bail is refused, they might be placed in custody “on remand”, and that can be in a proper prison, AFAIK. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/570 "2007-01-07T14:24:19Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] Something that puzzles me: If an American cop is pursuing a felon and the felon crosses the from state “A” into state “B” it is my understanding that the cop can no longer chase after him but has to hand over to the cops in state “B” Am I right? [/QUOTE] Most (all?) police agencies have agreements with bordering jurisdictions to allow them to pursue criminals into adjacent communities. Sometimes there might be a limit to the distance/time of the chase, but the new jurisdiction’s police would likely join in the arrest. ---
**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:** [January 7, 2007, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/571 "2007-01-07T16:31:28Z")
[QUOTE=Fish] I don’t find that hard to believe. When baseball started, it was _all_ about the local teams [/QUOTE] I don’t follow your logic here – the teams were named for the city in which they were located – not for the neighborhood, which is the case in London. A team whose home field was in Manhattan was always “New York,” not “Manhattan” or some subdivision thereof. I wonder, what’s the English football equivalent of the New York Yankees or the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants – the biggest metropolis’s gold-standard club? Is it Arsenal? ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/572 "2007-01-07T16:46:27Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] I wonder, what’s the English football equivalent of the New York Yankees or the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants – the biggest metropolis’s gold-standard club? Is it Arsenal? [/QUOTE] Arguably, yes. But I think the closest to the Yankees is Manchester United. ---
**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:** [January 7, 2007, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/573 "2007-01-07T17:57:01Z")
> [@](#): > > What’s with the police on COPS (and other shows) finalising the arrest with “YOU’RE GOING TO JAIL”? > > It’s like a throwaway line from a 50s B grade drama or a Leslie Nielsen show: “You’ll be doing your {insert crime here]… IN… JAIL!” > > Don’t they go to court first??? Innocent until proven guilty and all that?\* This is TV law. Nobody ever gets arrested unless they’re guilty. This is related to one of the great mysteries of TV. Every police and lawyer TV series shows only guilty people going to prison. But every TV series inside a prison shows that all the prisoners are innocent.\* What happened to all those guilty criminals? \*Network series only. In cable series, everybody - prisoners, guards, cops, lawyers, members of the clergy, preschool children - is guilty of something. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/574 "2007-01-07T18:10:05Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] I don’t follow your logic here – the teams were named for the city in which they were located – not for the neighborhood, which is the case in London. [/quote] That’s where the misunderstanding is. The neighbourhood isn’t London - it’s Tottenham, or Fulham, or Charlton or Millwall or wherever. And Arsenal were Woolwich Arsenal, founded by workers from there. Regional loyalties and identities are much less fluid than in America, and I’m sure that this is at least in part because American (and its cities) are built on immigration. Whereas Palace fans are scummy south London chavs. West Ham fans are nasty cockneys. (Sorry if partisanship is creeping in 😉 ) > [@](#): > > I wonder, what’s the English football equivalent of the New York Yankees or the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants – the biggest metropolis’s gold-standard club? Is it Arsenal? There ain’t one. Chelsea are currently the most successful, due to dodgy Russian money. Arsenal, I think, have had the most overall success. But neither hold what could be described as a dominant position, and certainly not a ‘gold standard’. Man Utd neither - Liverpool certainly see to that. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/575 "2007-01-07T22:08:22Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] I don’t follow your logic here – the teams were named for the city in which they were located – not for the neighborhood, which is the case in London. A team whose home field was in Manhattan was always “New York,” not “Manhattan” or some subdivision thereof. [/QUOTE] What about the Brooklyn Dodgers? ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/576 "2007-01-07T22:11:16Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] This is TV law. Nobody ever gets arrested unless they’re guilty. This is related to one of the great mysteries of TV. Every police and lawyer TV series shows only guilty people going to prison. [/QUOTE] To be fair, COPS is supposed to be footage of real law enforcement. But I could see them declaring someone as going to jail as bravado after a struggle or chase, and for drama on camera. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2007, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/577 "2007-01-07T22:48:42Z")
Furthermore, remember that until 1898, the name “New York” meant just what is presently the borough of Manhattan. I’ve got to suspect that the cops in the show _COPS_ are deliberately being more dramatic than they would be in ordinary work. Like most reality programs, the people are constantly thinking about the fact that they are on TV. Furthermore, only the people who are willing to let themselves be shown on TV will participate in any reality program, including _COPS_. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2007, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/578 "2007-01-08T01:05:38Z")
[QUOTE=alphaboi867] We’d also have “dress-up” days the week leading up to Homecoming. Monday would be wear your clothes inside out day, Tuesday dress like your favorite teacher day, etc. Until my junior year there was a pajama day, but the school abolished it after several boys came to school wearing boxer shorts (usually multiple pairs) instead of pants. [/QUOTE] Hee hee. We had “hat day”. I went to school wearing gloves. Everyone looked at me like a dog who had their water dish moved. Sad really. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2007, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/579 "2007-01-08T08:16:31Z")
[QUOTE=betenoir] Hee hee. We had “hat day”. I went to school wearing gloves. Everyone looked at me like a dog who had their water dish moved. Sad really. [/QUOTE] Just gloves?..ew ---
**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:** [January 11, 2007, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858/580 "2007-01-11T15:32:48Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] > [@acsenray](#): > > Yes, there are a couple hundred minor league clubs in towns of all sizes, but **nobody cares about them** … My bolding - these are what seem to be the huge cultural differences. More and more I suspect it’s totally intertwined with the presence or absence of a promotion/relegation system. And only if the first two of those paragraphs are true can the third one be. [/QUOTE] I just remembered something I read in _Fever Pitch_, Nick Hornby’s memoir of being an out-of-control Arsenal fanatic (made into two pretty awful fictional romantic comedies). Hornby suggests that a contributing factor to football hooliganism is the continuing popularity of small-time clubs. He suggests that adoption of the American model – focusing public interest only on the top rank – as a way of ameliorating thuggery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858.md?page=28) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-us-dopers-what-mentions-of-contemporary-american-culture-puzzle-you/383858.md?page=30)