It can be even more extreme than that. Apart from on armed police at airports, I’ve never seen a UK policeman with a gun. In the UK, I’ve never seen anyone apart from a member of the armed forces with either a handgun or rifle. I’ve seen plenty of shotguns, wielded mostly by farmers. Even after spending a total of 9 - 10 years of my life in the US, I still have to restrain the instinct to do a double-take and stare when I see a cop with a gun, let alone anyone else. The difference in gun culture between the UK and US is that huge.
So to us, going into an ordinary store and seeing guns for sale is about on a par with Americans going to a supermarket in another country and finding dogs hanging in the meat department and marijuana in the waccy baccy department.
Well it’s a police force, and it’s armed… though I’m thinking that maybe Amarone has never been to Northern Ireland (since it was in fact a personal anecdote, not a general comment on who is or isn’t armed in the UK).
The police in Northern Ireland do carry guns, as far as I know.
However, if amarone has never been to NI, then he or she is perfectly correct in saying that
“In the UK, I’ve never seen anyone apart from a member of the armed forces with either a handgun or rifle”
And surely if the PSNI are armed, then they qualify as an “armed force”?
There are a great many people in Great Britain and in the Republic of Ireland who wouldn’t dream in a million years of ever going to Northern Ireland, so the sight of a policeman with a gun would be most disconcerting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gardai with a gun, but then again for all I know they may well be armed. I remember my eyes being out on stalks in New York when I saw the policemen with guns, even though I have visited NI on many occasions.
Are there any NI Dopers who can add to this thread and say that they did not think it was odd to see USA-er policemen with guns?
I always had gotten the impression that European airports and city centers were crawling with soldiers with machine guns since the 70s because of domestic terrorism like the IRA, the Baader Meinhof, the ETA, etc., like we had in the subways when we’re on high Orange Alert. That freaked me out–I’d never seen a machine gun before.
Covering just the UK, note that I said “Apart from on armed police at airports” in my initial post on not seeing guns iun the UK. They do, indeed, carry machine guns. However, I have not seen soldiers doing so, and I have not seen machine guns carried by police or soldiers in city centres.
Yes, it nearly always means illegal drugs. Not 100%, because we are aware of the US usage of the word. My partner will often remark “drugs are your friend” when taking ibuprofen or aspirin, but that’s a joke.
Technically, we’d say “pharmaceuticals”. Commonly we’d say “medicine” or “pills”, or name the item or its generic class - eg, “sudafed”, “zantac”, “antacid”, “antibiotic”. If I had a minor illness and asked the pharmacist for advice, I’d ask for “something for a cold/stomach upset”, not drugs.
I’ts only occurred to me writing this that we don’t really seem to have a generic term. “Medicines” is the closest I can think of.
I was trying to think of American uses of the word “drug”, aside from “drug store” where the substances being referred to are NOT illegal, and the only one I can come up with is our FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates pharmaceuticals.
It also occured to me I rarely use the term "drug store"myself anymore. I usually use the name of our most prevalent local chain, CVS, or the next most prevalent, Walgreens, as the case may be.
You guys are right. Drug store is a strange concept.
Well, of course two people go and have beer/icrecream/whatever-you-think-would-be-fun together. But the whole “I am going on a date tonight”, “How was your date yesterday?” whith the understanding that a date means ‘let’s see whether we can actually stand each other’, or ‘our friends think we should meet’ was kind of strange to me. Don’t get me wrong - great concept.
At home, ‘first contact’ was typically in a group setting, one starts to get interested, and only if you knew that you could actually stand the person around you for a few hours (e.g., talking a few times at different parties/group dinners), you would do the “what do you think about dinner tomorrow” thing. Setting up two friends for a date just didn’t happen - you invited them to some “group event”*
And there is no word that expresses what “date” expresses in German, French, or Italian (as far as I know at least).
AH, you got a point there. Pink jogging outfits on 70 year old women Saturday morning in the coffe shop are in the “surprised when I arrived here the first time” category as well. I guess I was talking about the 18-30 year old professional women I know who put makeup on for anything from work to going out to Friendly’s to have some icecream.**
HAND
God, i just realize that maybe we were all just very insecure. Could be.
** Sorry, generalizing. I mean the women I know, not all women in that group.
Just to throw some American wierdness into this conversation, today after work, I went to a DRUG store and bought a case of BEER (yes that right, I got beer at a drug store. Cure’s what ails ya ) Then I drove my car (alone) to the gas station and pumped the gas all by myself, since they know at the gas station that I’m a big boy and know how to work the pump/nozzle and everything. And I gazed at the high heeled miniskirted women there with their large American breasts as it brought to mind a scene from the film"look who’s talking". Then I consumed a bit of car (gasoline-wise) to return home.
Wow, you guys would reall hate to go to some American states. In Arizona, for instance, you can walk around with your gun on your hip, as long as it’s registered.
“Arizona is an open carry state-- it is legal to carry a holstered or cased loaded handgun (visibly) in your car. A.R.S. 13-3102” From www.packing.org
) Then I drove my car (alone) to the gas station and pumped the gas all by myself, since they know at the gas station that I’m a big boy and know how to work the pump/nozzle and everything. And I gazed at the high heeled miniskirted women there with their large American breasts as it brought to mind a scene from the film"look who’s talking". Then I consumed a bit of car (gasoline-wise) to return home.