# This Is An Outrage! Who Says the English Are Better Educated Than The Americans?!? Ap
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [June 13, 2003, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544 "2003-06-13T12:43:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/1 "2003-06-13T12:43:58Z")
This Is An Outrage! Who Says the English Are Better Educated Than The Americans?!? Apparently, Homer Simpson Does!
[LINK!](http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/wtwta/2959462.stm?dynamic_vote=ON#vote_2959462_index)
You Ghoddam, lime-sucking, flying monkeys-coming-out-of-your-asses-next-door-neighbors-to-the-French!
This is too much!!!
TOO MUCH I SAY!!
Somehow, you must all **PAY!**
Where did I put that Doomsday Device?
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### Author:  [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/2 "2003-06-13T12:52:46Z")
That list is a joke, right?
Mr. T and Bob Dylan on a “greatest americans” list? That makes no sense.
I don’t even really understand how Bill Clinton got on there.
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### Author:  [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/3 "2003-06-13T12:53:06Z")
Americans?
I pitty the fools.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/4 "2003-06-13T13:03:54Z")
In case anyone is taking this seriously… this is in fact a serious poll.
The BBC runs polls like this all the time.
It’s just that the polls’ results are rarely serious.
D’you see?
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### Author:  [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/5 "2003-06-13T13:07:02Z")
C’mon folks. If they’d have asked me, I’d have said Mr. T too. Or possibly Bruce Springsteen. Ya don’t mess with the boss.
What possible incentive could there be for giving a serious answer?
pan
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/6 "2003-06-13T13:13:24Z")
I am shocked, absolutely shocked, that George W. Bush didn’t make the list. Don’t the British blindly follow their leader, Blair? Why oh why can’t they be more like Americans?
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### Author:  [@The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Unwashed)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/7 "2003-06-13T13:23:50Z")
**jjimm** is lying. Here we base all our social policy on such on-line polls.
Go Homer! Go!
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/8 "2003-06-13T13:25:08Z")
This is an obvious invitation for Americans to nominate their picks for all-time greatest Brits as an indicator of England’s place in the world.
Therefore, I select as my top five:
Tony Blair
Winston Churchill
Penelope Hobhouse
Benny Hill
Edward Elgar
with honorable mention to:
Jack the Ripper
---
### Author:  [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/9 "2003-06-13T13:27:31Z")
Glad Franklin made it. He’d get my vote. 🆒-est of the Founding Fathers by far. What a life.
Most of the rest–gaaah with a side of yikes sauce. I mean, who doesn’t love Homer, but didn’t the Beeb NOT mean two-dimensional fictional Americans to be included? They should have said so.
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### Author:  [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/10 "2003-06-13T13:44:10Z")
If you remember the “Greatest Britons” poll from last year, you might also remember that Princess Diana figured prominently in it.
Clearly, therefore, two-dimensional fictional characters are _not_ meant to be excluded.
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### Author:  [@Gorgon\_Heap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorgon_Heap)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/11 "2003-06-13T14:06:21Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The BBC runs polls like this all the time.
Yes, but that’s the BBC. That’s even worse than a CNN poll.
> [@](#):
>
> Clearly, therefore, two-dimensional fictional characters are not meant to be excluded.
Truly, but Homer doesn’t have such marvelous hair.
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### Author:  [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/12 "2003-06-13T14:17:20Z")
The BBC ran a poll like this recently to find the worlds best/most popular song.
Irish people everywhere start receiving and forwarding e-mails to vote for “A nation once again” with the reason “800 years, that’s why”. It came in at no. 1 IIRC. HeHe. We’ve also tried to get a unknown Irish footballer to be named the greatest ever. These things are a great way to wind the BBC up. YMMV 😉
[http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm\_731719.html?menu=](http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_731719.html?menu=)
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### Author:  [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/13 "2003-06-13T14:19:05Z")
It’s pretty funny. But you have to remember what sort of no-life time-wasting online addicts take those sorts of polls to begin with–HEY! Get that mirror away from me!
Homer’s hair and ears are formed roughly from his creator’s initials–an M and a G, for Matt Groenig \.
At least MLK and Lincoln are on it. But the choice of Mr. T. over Sylvester Stallone is baffling. 😃
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/14 "2003-06-13T14:19:09Z")
Yes, and when the English run around naked, the spectacle is so horrifying that sharks begin to hemorrage from sheer terror!
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/southern\_counties/2984936.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/southern_counties/2984936.stm)
Poor thing! Frightened to death by a naked Sussexian.
Getting naked in front of the fishies for kicks!
Aquatic Deviance for shits & giggles!
Where will it all end!?!
It will end in tears–tears & vomit in a rubber room, no doubt!
The UK’s shameful history of Public School Deviance lives on…😃
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### Author:  [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/15 "2003-06-13T14:42:17Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by yojimbo \*
> \*\*The BBC ran a poll like this recently to find the worlds best/most popular song.
>
> Irish people everywhere start receiving and forwarding e-mails to vote for “A nation once again” with the reason “800 years, that’s why”. It came in at no. 1 IIRC. HeHe. We’ve also tried to get a unknown Irish footballer to be named the greatest ever. These things are a great way to wind the BBC up. YMMV 😉
>
> [http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm\_731719.html?menu=](http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_731719.html?menu=) \*\*
Sounds quite a lot like the BBC Sports Personality of the Year / Justin Fashanu thingie.
> **[Top of the polls](https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2002/jan/20/life1.lifemagazine4)**
>
> Top of the polls.
> [@](#):
>
> Luckily, the email voting revolution hasn’t entirely been hijacked by willing lackeys of the major record labels. The 1996 Sports Personality of the Year award is a case in point. Student pranksters decided that it would be a jolly good wheeze if Justin Fashanu, Britain’s only openly gay footballer (who later tragically killed himself) was to win. A chain email went out and, astonishingly, it was so successful that Fashanu did indeed come close to victory. But, perhaps because he broke an unwritten law of the competition by actually having a personality, he was disqualified by the BBC.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/16 "2003-06-13T15:15:52Z")
The current results are:
1. Homer Simpson: 40.83 percent
2. Abraham Lincoln: 10.28 percent
3. Martin Luther King Jr.: 10.06 percent
4. Thomas Jefferson: 6.43 percent
5. Mr. T: 8.38 percent
6. Bob Dylan: 6.15 percent
7. George Washington: 5.10 percent
8. Franklin D. Roosevelt: 4.34 percent
9. Benjamin Franklin: 4.52 percent
10. Bill Clinton: 3.92 percent
It’s looking like a landslide. We are four days away from having Homer J. Simpson declared the greatest American in history.
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### Author:  [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/17 "2003-06-13T15:46:25Z")
Results now:
Homer Simpson 45.68%
Abraham Lincoln 9.55%
Martin Luther King Jnr 9.26%
Mr T 8.40%
Thomas Jefferson 5.73%
Bob Dylan 5.31%
George Washington 4.62%
Benjamin Franklin 4.07%
Franklin D Roosevelt 3.83%
Bill Clinton 3.56%
26456 Votes Cast
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### Author:  [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/18 "2003-06-13T16:03:56Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Jackmannii \*
> \*\*This is an obvious invitation for Americans to nominate their picks for all-time greatest Brits as an indicator of England’s place in the world.
>
> Therefore, I select as my top five:
>
> Tony Blair
> Winston Churchill
> Penelope Hobhouse
> Benny Hill
> Edward Elgar
>
> with honorable mention to:
>
> Jack the Ripper \*\*
NO WAY Benny Hill ranks above John Cleese (or any of the other Monty Python Brits).
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### Author:  [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/19 "2003-06-13T16:07:27Z")
Who exactly is voting in this thing?
Mr. T and Bob Dylan are both higher on this list than George Washington. That’s just wrong.
I can see the Homer Simpson thing, though.
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### Author:  [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2003, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-an-outrage-who-says-the-english-are-better-educated-than-the-americans-ap/181544/20 "2003-06-13T16:36:50Z")
Princess Di wasn’t two-dimensional. Well, at least she wasn’t until she hit that wall going 90.
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