Your stupid questions about other countries and cultures

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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[quote=“elmwood, post:216, topic:651161”]

The Canadian side feels like an “alternate US”. It was cleaner, but suburban areas were tackier and uglier, in a way. Road signs look similar, but with metric units. Houses looked sort of like what you might see in the northeastern US, but they were smaller, and had more brick. Canadian flags everywhere; far, far more than Stars and Stripes displays on the US side. /QUOTE]

That’s funny because from a Canadian perspective I’ve always found the opposite. The suburban areas in the US seem tacky and ugly to me and I notice far more US flags flying that I ever see Canadian Flags in Canada.

222

At both levels, the only sports really worth asking about are football (American) and basketball, at least when looked at on an across-the-board level in terms of national culture. (There may be small regions or individual communities where everyone really gets into soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, etc.) As noted above, it’s sort of variable for high school. In Texas, where I live, high school football is, in fact, a big huge deal. Whole communities bond around the success of their school’s team. Families move so their sons can play for traditionally powerful schools. Players are treated like special beings.

On the basketball side, some places have a reputation as basketball hotbeds (Indiana, for example), and I’ve heard that high school basketball is a really big thing in those places, too.

College football has always been very popular and has become a huge deal to the point of insanity over the past decade or so. Not quite so much the case for college basketball, although the annual championship tournament in March (“March Madness”) is definitely a Thing.

It’s weird that baseball, which to many is THE quintessentially American sport and is certainly one of the three major ones here, doesn’t have much of a serious following at either the high school or college level.

I do have a question about Ireland- maybe this could be applicable elsewhere, too. Background: at my first job (about 20 years ago), our company hired an Irish woman as our receptionist. A friendship developed between her an our accountant, with the two of them getting together socially outside of work on a semi-regular basis. At some point, the receptionist’s parents were coming from Ireland for a visit, so the accountant offered to have them all over to her house for dinner while the parents were here. As the day approached, the accountant told her what she was planning to serve. When she mentioned corn on the cob, the receptionist looked horrified and asked her to please find something else.

Apparently the concern was that, to the Irish parents, corn on the cob was something that you feed to pigs, and the receptionist was afraid that they would be terribly offended at being offered livestock food. So… is this an Irish thing, or was this just a weird hangup the parents had? 'Cause, corn on the cob is GREAT, and I feel existential pity for anyone who would refuse to partake.

223

Sounds like a weird hang-up. Although maybe they were pig farmers. I’ve no notion of corn cobs are fed to pigs here, doesn’t make much sense that they would be. Corn on the cob, typically frozen, is a common enough part of a meal here. I’ve never heard corn described as pig food before. Sweetcorn is also a popular topping on pizza.

224

By frozen, I don’t mean the corn is eaten frozen, just that it’s not fresh corn. :slight_smile:

225

When I visited France over 30 years ago I never saw sweetcorn in any form, much less on the cob. Between that and talking to various elderly immigrants from across Europe, including Irish but also at least a dozen other nationalities, I gather that “maize is animal fodder” might have been a meme in the past in Europe. In recent decades, with more communication and international exchange of foods easier than ever before, maybe it’s become an accepted part of the human food banquet. A comparable example might be sushi - when I was a kid virtually everyone outside of the Japanese ex-pats were horrified at the notion of eating raw fish (yes, I know, sushi so much more than that) but now it seems to be everywhere and I know several local grocery stores in no way ethnic that serve it in their take-out section.

If your only experience of maize is the “flint” feed corn intended for cattle and the like I can understand the horror - that stuff is called “flint” because that’s roughly how hard it is, and to be edible at all to humans it requires processing and grinding. Sweetcorn, as the rest of us know, is a different thing entirely and quite tender.

226

In Spain corn roasted with different flavorings (most commonly salt or red pepper) has been a children’s snack since at least the mid-60s; I know my parents’ generation didn’t grow up with it, but people talk about that more as being part of the post-war deprivation than as if the snack had suddenly appeared in the market. Post-war kids had altramuces and other beans which got treated the same way; in fact, some people call the corn treat by that name although they’re completely different plants.

227

Outside of an English enclave, in Quebec you’re almost certain to get addressed in French by default. In my experience, at least.

228

In New Brunswick, Canada (more bi-lingual that Quebec) businesses usually start the conversation with, “Hello, bonjour”. For interaction between strangers it is usually started with an excuse me said in the dominant language of the questioner and continues based on the response of the questioned (depending on if they know the other language and how comfortable they are in it).

229

I asked my 66 year old mother about this and it just wasn’t a food that was around when she was young. She didn’t grow up on a farm though so it’s still possible it was used as animal feed. FWIW I can’t remember it not being somewhat common but it’s never been a staple here the way other food stuffs are. It also ruins a good tuna and mayo.

230

I live in Montreal. Many store clerks greet people with “Bonjour/Hi” or just “Bonjour.”

231

In Montreal, it’s very common for people to great you with ‘bonjour hi’, which is a cue to then start speaking either English or French. If people start out in only one language and you want to switch, I suppose etiquette would dictate that if you want to speak English, you’ll have to be a bit more polite than if you have to speak French. But that is not really any different etiquette wise from, say, being in France. Then again, in Montreal, the presence of anglophones is so strong that a lot of them just start out in English without bothering to check whether that’s ok - most of the times it’s ok but often enough, people do mind.

232

I remember eating corn both on and off the cob in the sixties.

233

I’ve been to each of Montreal and Quebec City a couple of times, as an anglophone with a bit of high-school French. Often, when I greeted someone with “Bonjour”, they responded in English, so my French was clearly not perfect. Once, at an airport, a swoman said “Bonjour – good afternoon” to me, and I responded “Bonjour”, with the result that got some instructions in French that I couldn’t understand. Once I’d made this clear, she told me that I should have responded in English so that she could deliver her message in English. But, generally, when you are talking with someone in Quebec you can find out pretty quickly what your best common language is.

234

When I was a student in the early 90’s, I worked in that bus station in Galway, and I can confirm that is exactly what was going on. Sometimes the driver might have only ten minutes between pulling in to the station and scheduled to fill up the bus again, so they might sit behind the wheel reading the paper, eating a sandwich or whatever.

235

In Spain it varies from region to region.

In Basque-speaking areas and unless there’s something which seems to indicate otherwise, the assumption is that people will not speak Basque - or if they do, it may be a dialect that’s pretty different from the local one. You’re more likely to be greeted with a kaixo than with hola the more rural the location, but if you answer back in Spanish it’s no big deal. Not only is it a language whose speakers have been consistently bilingual for almost two thousand years but it’s not related to the other local languages, so there’s no mutual understandability and it’s viewed as “not very likely to have been learned by someone who’s not from around here”.

In Galicia, people will usually address unknowns in whichever language they happen to be more comfortable with themselves. If one party doesn’t speak Galego, the conversation will take place in Spanish (or English, or gestures, as needed); if both parties speak it, they’ll speak in Galego. The two languages are mutually understandable to a high degree, so there will be times someone can’t find the right word in the language being spoken and will just use it in the other one; there are also expressions which you’ll rarely hear in Spanish, they’re widely known in their original Galego.
In Catalonia, politics has really poisoned things; it used to be as in Galicia, but the independentists have managed to change the notion of manners and to radicalize attitudes. People will use one language or the other, and be willing to switch or not, depending on their political affiliation.
There’s a story people tell as a joke, but I’ve seen my grandfather do it.
A storekeeper has adressed a client in Catalan; the client has replied in Spanish. Instead of switching to Spanish, the storekeeper keeps using Catalan, because after all “they can’t claim they don’t understand it”. The client, who many not even be able to speak Catalan, sticks to Spanish, until it is time to pay.
Storekeeper: un euro seixanta-cinc. (1.65€)
Client: hands over 1.60€
Storekeeper: seixanta-CINC (65)
Client: stare
Storekeeper: manquan els cinc! (you’re missing five)
Client: ¿perdón? (sorry?)
Storekeeper: ¡que le faltan los cinco! (ES, you’re missing five)
Client: I KNEW that for five fuckin’ cents you’d speak Spanish, jodeputa. hands over the five cents

236

Nava, back when I went to Catalonia, many years ago, I went to Mallorca. Took the bus to take me to the train station (I thought, or somewhere), but I stupidly ignored the place where the other tourists stepped down. I thought my stop was at the end of the line. The signs were in Catalan (which I understand so-so), and mallorquín, the local dialect.

And to my dismay, the driver apparently didn’t/wouldn’t speak Spanish, but stuck to mallorquín, to try and make me see that that was the end of line and I had to step down (somewhere empty… piers/port?). He grudgingly let me stay on the bus and dropped me off at the correct location, but it was almost to the point of sign language.

OTOH, the people at Sóller, even if they started speaking in either of those languages, would switch to Spanish when they realized I was a foreigner.

237

Those people always leave me conflicted. I’m not sure whether to smack them or apologize for letting them run around without a muzzle :frowning: and I have a bunch in my family :smack:

238

It was definitely around in the '80s!

Associations with animal food can be weird though. Dr Johnson famously described “oats” in his dictionary: "a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people’ (to which someone replied: “which explains why England has beautiful horses, but Scotland has beautiful women”). I’m sure English peasants wouldn’t have turned down porridge at the time. Who knows what he was on, or what the hang up of the receptionist’s parents was. People eat oats and corn on the cob, as far as I know…

239

I tried to learn what little Catalan I could in my 10 day trip, mostly reading signs and brochures and menus… I could follow it written, but not nearly spoken. The dialect was even more confusing. But it was a good surprise. I expected Catalan and Spanish, but not dialect and Catalan, with Spanish relegated to third language/not included.

The ensaimadas and sleeping in late were worth the confusion, though. :slight_smile:

240

Do Australians really say “G’day” all the time?