That is largely American exceptionalist mythology. Much of it is true of anywhere.
I was going to bring up UT in response to the same question: over 100,000 seats and every damned one of them is occupied, every game, 1/3 of the population of the city at a football game. The common saying around here is that on football Saturdays, Neyland Stadium becomes the fifth largest “city” in the state.
As a Brit living in America, I too usually miss out the “you’re welcome” although it does seem to be more common “back home” these days. On the other hand, “please” seems to be a rare word in America, especially when ordering in a restaurant or deli or similar, which seems terribly rude to me. So in America we get:
What time is it?
2:30
Thank-you
You’re welcome.
In England it would be:
Do you have the time please (accompanied by excrutiatingly embarrassed, subservient, so-sorry-to-trouble-you, body language).
2:30
Thank-you.
Hey! What about the raspberry/coconut ones? :mad: They’re the snack food of the gods. 
Forgot, huh? Well…okay. But don’t let it happen again.
Another interesting Americanism: dropping the ‘ed’ from words like ‘iced tea’ and ‘whipped cream’. It still jars the ol’ eardrums hearing ‘ice tea’ and ‘whip cream’ or ‘whipcream’.
I can’t remember visiting the US ever that my request for tea wasn’t met with ‘hot tea?’ as a response (me thinking, ‘well yeah, otherwise I’d say ‘iced’, wouldn’t I?’).
What I’m wondering is what is yoohoo? I thought it was kind of a chocolate milk-like item but the way it’s used on tv shows, it seems as though it might be something else.
Actually, a few years ago, they finally admitted it had nothing to do with aptitude (if it did, students couldn’t study your way up to a better score.) - and they changed the middle word to “Achievement”
Then, even more recently, they revamped the whole thing and now it’s a triple test of reading, writing, and mathematical skills.
Nope. I used to think that, too, but it’s bogus. From the American Heritage Dictionary:
I am surprised that you see this type of behavior in the south. When I am down in Charleston (not really Atlanta, I know) everyone litters their speech with please and thank yous. Up here, in New Jersey, I usually hear people replace the “please” with an “excuse me” when they are asking for something. I always thought this was a product of everyone in the Metropolitan area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut) feeling that everyone is a busy person. This results in people saying:
Excuse me, do you have the time?
half past 5
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
But when people order food, I rarely hear a please come out.
Yeah, well thanks but nowhere does it say what it is. It talks about ‘chocolate drink’ and lists nutrition information but I’m still not getting what it tastes like - is it like plain old chocolate milk or is it something else?
It is close to chocolate milk in taste but not quite the same. A little more watery tasting rather than milky tasting. They also have had a variety of flavors over the years. When I drank Yoo-Hoo, I really enjoyed the Chocolate Mint and the Coconut flavors.
Yoo-hoo just…is. It’s sorta like Moxie, or Marmite. Any attempt to pin down the flavor is doomed to failure. You have to taste it to know.
Lobelia Overhill writes:
> Could’ve sworn I heard them singing something else in Peggy Sue Got Married
There are several other songs that aren’t quite national anthems but are traditionally sung in a similar way. There’s “America the Beautiful” and “My Country, Tis of Thee,” for instance. I don’t remember anymore what they sang in Peggy Sue Got Married. It could have been a state song or even just the high school song (since there were scenes set at a high school reunion).
amarone writes:
> In England it would be:
>
> Do you have the time please (accompanied by excrutiatingly embarrassed,
> subservient, so-sorry-to-trouble-you, body language).
> 2:30
> Thank-you.
This is because of the British hesitancy about speaking to anyone that you don’t really know, not so much because of the need to say “please.”
Born and raised in Florida, graduated from UCF.
Some colleges/university require freshman to live on campus, some don’t. Some kids can only attend school part-time, or don’t want the extra expense of living in a dorm (it costs extra, above and beyond tuition) so they still live at home.* It depends on what the school requires and what the student can afford.
*I only lived on campus for one semester before moving into an apartment. I had to pay a penalty for moving out before the end of the school year.
To expand on this: There are multiple songs that could be taken to be a national anthem by someone who doesn’t know what the official national anthem is. Among them are “America the Beautiful” and “My Country, 'Tis of Thee” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean” and even, in the south east, “Dixie” (the national anthem of the defeated breakaway republic called the Confederate States of America). America didn’t get an official anthem until 1931 so a lot of also-rans had a chance to gain a foothold.
In addition to that, each of the 50 states has its own official anthem. All of them sound like reasonable ‘national anthem’ candidates, for certain definitions of ‘reasonable’.
In addition to that, schools at various levels have ‘fight songs’ sung at pep rallys and games and other school pride events. The famous fight songs belong to colleges (a term that includes all post-high school institutions), but high schools have them as well sometimes.
Despite all that, most people here aren’t especially active in politics and the vast majority never learn to sing. (Which is why we picked a complex drinking song as the basis for our official national anthem.)
It may be worth mentioning to our British doper friends that My Country 'Tis of Thee uses the exact melody of God Save the Queen.
I lived in a residence hall when I was in college. I never got laid so much in my LIFE. Parties allatime, girls hanging out with boyfriends, girls looking for boyfriends hanging out with girlfriends hanging out with boyfriends, the smell of pot in the hallways all weekend, every weekend. The place was drug and orgy central, basically. I feel sorry for those who missed it by living in some remote flat. It was truly paradise.
Oh, I studied some too.
Actually, you’re wrong, statistically speaking. While it’s true that many people move from low income to middle class income in their lives, because the only difference between poverty and a middle class lifestyle is a decent job, there is much less churn between the upper class and the middle class. In America, anyone can become middle class, maybe. But you have to be someone special or someone lucky to make it to the upper economic class if you weren’t born into it. Or some combination thereof.
If being able to make it into the middle class is the American dream, it is true, mostly. If being able to make it into the upper class defines the American dream, it is a lie, mostly.