What do you mean by “the whole class thing”? If it’s something about one’s parentage barring one from, say, certain career aspirations, how about all the British Prime Ministers who have come from modest, even humble backgrounds? John Major, Margaret Thatcher, James Callaghan, Edward Heath, Harold Wilson - none of these people were “upper class”.
To an extent, yes. I think that unless there’s a compelling reason to the contrary (long list of criminal convictions, having Typhoid, etc) then any person should have the right to live and work in any country they like, be it the USA, Australia, or Lesotho.
If you have a New Zealand passport (like I do) then yes, yes they do.
As has already been mentioned, it’s still quite possible for other people to get into Australia legally to live here- but there’s a distinct vibe from the US that they don’t want you to move there. Sure, visit for a holiday, but don’t even think about moving here unless you’ve got some really Mad Skillz or a lot of money.
Yes, most Uni students here are at home or flatting with a group of people. No-one I know would move states to go to University, and the idea here is that you move into a flat (like an apartment) with someone, rather than living in Halls of Residence… the only people in Halls of Residence are generally the International Students or students from way out in the sticks.
You’d be surprised how many Australian parents are fine with their teenagers drinking and having sex, too…
Of course Australia never had Prohibition, or the odd concept that one can be both an adult and a minor simultaneously.
With the possible exception of baseball and hockey, the popularity of sports at the college level is what drove the creation of professional leagues. It was not uncommon to have 50 or 60 thousand fans at college football games in the early 1900s, before the NFL was founded.
And still not today given the right market.
It’s still not uncommon to get large crowds for college football. It’s seen primarily in areas where there is no competition from professional teams, however; but the largest stadia in the US – in excess of 100,000 seats – were all built for college football, and all still fill to capacity every week.
No. It hasn’t been a real issue for decades. The aristocracy has no real power these days - the days when a nobleman could be Prime Minister, running the country from the House of Lords, are long gone (When the 14th Earl Home became PM in the early 1960’s he had to abandon his title and get himself elected to the House of Commons first). The House of Lords is pretty much powerless these days, it can only delay legislation for a year, and suggest amendments, it can’t initiate or veto bills. The House of Commons has all the power. And most of the hereditary peers no longer have the right even to sit in the House of Lords.
Outside politics, there’s still some residual “class thing”, but it’s eroding fast. The fact that many “upper class” people are no longer rich and can no longer afford to employ servants or live in the stately homes of their ancestors is a factor in this.
No.
My bold. This is something that’s cropped up in sports-related threads before, but the way you measure ‘attendance’ or ‘crowd size’ is not clear-cut.
Number of tickets sold? Easy to calculate.
Number of people with tickets entering the stadium? Easy to do, if you’re set up to do it (and it’s the way British, and I assume European, stadiums work).
Number of people in the building? I’ve heard suggestions that this is used in America to bolster the totals, but seems like a bullshitter’s way of doing so.
We are living in the same world, aren’t we? It might be eroding, but we’re talking granite rather than sandstone.
hope I edited the quote right there!
I called it S.A.Ts cos anytime I’ve heard it mentioned, that’s what people called it ess-aay-teez
thanks for the answers!
And I have another one, is it true that at one time the American National Anthem was not the one that goes ♪Oh say can you see♪ (sorry I don’t know what the actual title is :o ) but something else entirely??
this thread is fun! 
Shagnasty writes:
> They are actually a thinly veiled IQ test (they correlate highly with IQ tests) so
> their major goal is to assess raw mental ability.
Well, actually, no, they aren’t. The people who run the SAT and ACT testing companies don’t make any such claim. What universities wanted was some way to use a test to predict how well prospective students would do in college. What the SAT and ACT people then did was to create a test which would predict a student’s freshman grades with reasonable accuracy. That is, if you take a weighted average of the SAT score and the student’s high school grades, that is a reasonably good (not great, but reasonably good) predictor of the student’s freshman grades in college. (The same is true for a weighted average of the ACT score and the student’s high school grades.) It’s a better predictor than any other easily measurable thing.
That does not mean that the SAT or the ACT are mostly IQ tests. Lots of things help one achieve high SAT or ACT scores. High IQ (in so far as that can be measured) helps. So does studying hard in your high school classes. So does going to a good high school. So does being a prolific reader outside of class. So does coming from a higher social class. That is, if your parents and your neighbors were well-educated, well-spoken, and (basically) well-off, you’re more likely to be well-spoken and well-read and to do better on the SAT or the ACT (even if you hold IQ and education constant).
The Weird One writes:
> That’s the main reason that going to college is a major life experience over
> here - most people, even those who go to college in their home state, move out
> of their parents’ house and into dorms or other student housing.
Well, actually, that’s at least an overgeneralization and may well be simply wrong. Fifty years ago it may have been true. Now there are a lot of students who live at home. Now there are a lot of students who don’t go to college for several years after high school. Now there are a lot of part-time students. Now there are a lot of students who work full-time jobs while going to college. Now there are a lot of students who attend colleges where there are so few dorms that only a small proportion of the students live on campus.
Indeed, the students who go to college in what we tend to think of as the standard pattern (full-time students who entered college right out of high school and who live in dorms at what we think of as a standard college or university - with fraternities and sororities, athletic teams, and plenty of other on-campus social life) may actually be a minority these days.
Lobelia Overhill writes:
> And I have another one, is it true that at one time the American National
> Anthem was not the one that goes ♪Oh say can you see♪ (sorry I don’t know
> what the actual title is ) but something else entirely??
“The Star-Spangled Banner” is the only song that has ever been the official national anthem of the U.S. It didn’t officially become the national anthem until 1931. It became increasingly common to treat the song as if it were the national anthem throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it wasn’t until 1931 that it was made official.
It depends on the school / club / stadium. Tickets sold and number redeemed are common. Many places have used the “everyone in the building” method – the University of Texas calculates attendance based on tickets sold + number of vendors + custodians + EMS + press + ushers + etc etc. “Capacity” in this case is physical number of seats in the stands, so while UT may state a capacity of 86,000, official attendance at the games is closer to 89,000.
Conversely, professional baseball only counts tickets sold – regardless of whether or not the ticketholder shows up. I’ve been to many SF Giants game where they cheerily announce: “Today’s attendance…41,235: another sellout!” where I can see that 5000 of those fans came disguised as empty seats (quite common when the weather is bad, the team sucks, or both).
This past September I went to a football game at the University of Tennessee. Capacity 107,000 and it was damnear full to overflowing. A very impressive sight to behold (and noise to be-hear).
Could’ve sworn I heard them singing something else in Peggy Sue Got Married
:dubious:
I’m going to echo Smooth Jack and say you’re just plain wrong.
I grew up in Appalachia, in a community where most people struggled just to maintain a blue collar lifestyle. (What you would no doubt call “working poor.”) Yet I have several friends from that background who have, through education and/or by dint of will, gone on to successful careers. That includes several successful small business owners. They would be very surprised to learn that “the American Dream is a lie intended to help keep the working poor in their place.”
OK, but is there anything particularly American about the dream? In all free countries, there are people from humble backgrounds who become successful. Free countries are naturally meritocracies.
No, you’re right about that. I don’t claim that it’s an exclusively American phenomenon. Just that it is a real phenomenon.
It is a whole cultural mindset and it really is prevalent. Everyone is told that they can be successful, millionaires etc. if they just try in the right ways. In fact, people are expected to and people that don’t take advantage of it are looked down upon. We don’t have any classes in the true sense of the word. Sure, some are more entrenched than others but a doctor from very poor means is equal to his counterpart that grew up in a wealthy household (probably even more respected for that). The system is also set up so that any given person can redeem themselves at any time. There is the stereotypical phrase “getting into college” which isn’t accurate at all because we don’t track people to different paths in high school and there is plenty of variety of college options that almost anyone can find a college to go to at any time.
This impacts how we see the poor because the typical view is that they don’t have anyone to blame but themselves or, at least, they could get out of it if they tried. That is undoubtedly true in some cases and not so in others. I think the American Dream is real in a sense. I grew up in a completely impoverished Southern town and did very little all through high school. Five years later I was in an Ivy League PhD program although it didn’t work out. I have had to reinvent myself at least 4 times in the decade since and that is what we as Americans are told we need to do: treat ourselves like businesses and find a way to succeed.
I don’t see how anyone can claim the American Dream is false. We all have real and mental images of the poorest of Europe’s despondents risking everything and sailing into Ellis Island and other places. Most of them didn’t die broke and the vast majority of their descendants are doing just fine. I think that is the difference between the U.S. and Europe. We had desperate people flooding in by the shipload and it had to be clear that they had nothing but opportunity but that was about it.
We nearly had prohibition- there was a very strong temperance movement in both Australia and NZ back in the day- but in the end, when it came down to a vote on introducing Prohibition (or “Temperance”, as it was known) the soldiers fighting in WWI said there was no way in hell they were risking their lives for their country, only to come home and be told they couldn’t have a cold beer at the local pub afterwards.
The legacy of the temperance movements, though, was the Six O’Clock Swill, as workers hurried to the pub after knocking off from work in an effort to get as drunk as possible by 6pm, when the bartender would call Time.
It wasn’t in every state- Queensland, for example, didn’t have 6pm closing- but there were ways around the legislation. In NZ, guests staying at the hotel were exempted from the 6pm closing time, which led to all sorts of interesting rorts, as you can imagine.