Subtle differences between the US and the UK that baffle me/you/us.

demagogue on 2/12/2012 at 09:51

Here's another thing:
(http://www.bbcamerica.com/mind-the-gap/2012/05/15/10-things-americans-do-that-drive-brits-nuts/)
(http://www.bbcamerica.com/mind-the-gap/2012/05/17/10-things-brits-do-that-drive-americans-nuts/)
(This was also interesting: (http://ideas.time.com/2011/11/09/the-difference-between-american-and-british-humour/))

Common theme seems to be Americans are always so damn chipper, optimistic, & don't get irony, that and don't think it's creepy to hang a giant flag off your house ... And they want to reward the good guy go-getter instead of (like our ostensible Brit counterpart) just accepting our shit lot in life with an mock eye-roll, grumble, and get on with it, and don't be too sincere unless absolutely backed into it.

------------------------

Edit: If I had to pin down an ugly side about American culture to me, it'd be when my parents used to drag me to volunteering for teen & preteen beauty pageants to help a family friend. It's a cliche by now, but seriously those are the most messed up people, all like the etiquette instructor in Borat. Inhumanly sincere and bright at the same time sincerely believing your soul is damned to hell without so much as an eyebrow raise of irony. I remember our elderly Republican Congressman was one of the judges for these preteen prepubescent girls way-overacting and weirdly over-sexualized and sex-less at the same time -- hard to explain, but it's like it'd be scandalous to think about sex and mention anything like it, it's all "innocent", but it's clearly at the center of what they're after... in the whole Freudian-Victorian repression sublimation way. It just seemed so transparently toying with taboos behind a flimsy facade of respectability that was (a little too willfully) ironclad to them.

Reconciling that Congressman being one of the most socially conservative -- he gave some whole spiel about good old-fashioned wholesome American values & whatnot (I don't recall whether an actual prayer happened, I think so, but God & Jesus were definitely talked about) -- but reconciling that with judging prepubescent sexuality, and really getting into his role with gusto at that, was just too much cognitive dissonance for me to handle sitting in a whole audience full of those people and take it seriously. How it could be so transparent & them so willfully not see it was beyond me. Ugh, I feel dirty just thinking about the whole spectacle haha and want to run away from it even in my memory... (Also possibly worth mentioning that family friend was also one of the most socially conservative, homophobic, and clearly flaming gay persons that I know.)

Edit2: Ok I showed mine. Can you show yours? Does anybody have any stories, doesn't necessarily have to be an "ugly" side of British culture (unless it's a great story), but anyway of the culture being taken too far to be taken seriously?

june gloom on 2/12/2012 at 11:15

Quote Posted by Subjective Effect

I suspect you mean our penchant for verbosity.

It's the difference between delivering a message in scrawled crayon on a crumpled page from a common jotter, and a finely inked letter, on good paper, in the proper envelope, waxed and sealed, proffered by a delightful French tart upon a silver platter.

Both do the job, only one in the correct manner.

I swear to God I'm never sure if you just play this crap up because I'm always accusing you of being the stereotypical wealthy rich Brit snob or if you actually are this insufferably snotty

SubJeff on 2/12/2012 at 11:28

I think you should go and find out what PHP stands for.

And then do away with your pallet of crayons lest you earn yourself the finest of thrashings.

On this note (a sidestep, I concede) let me link you to one of my favourite drinking and eating establishments:

(http://www.powderkegdiplomacy.co.uk/gallery.html)

Vasquez on 2/12/2012 at 11:52

I'm baffled by how bad the american version of Coupling is. Of course the original is always better, but in this case the US version is completely embarrassingly horrible, even though it seemed (by the bits I could watch) they copied everything from dialogue to camera angles from the UK version and only changed the actors.

SubJeff on 2/12/2012 at 11:58

You should see the US version of The Inbetweeners. It's so bad I have no words.

But I understand, from chaps I trust on these matters, that the US version of The Office has now surpassed the UK version. I never really watched the UK version due to a momentary aversion to all TV so I have no personal opinion on it. Yet.

DarkForge on 3/12/2012 at 08:28

Quote Posted by frozenman

This isn't a thorough observation- but I've always been curious about how the British seem to phrase conversational questions in a particular way. You might hear something like "It's not like he robbed a bank, did he?" vs. "He didn't rob a bank" I don't know how to describe this linguistically, but whenever I watch British TV it jumps out at me and I can't unhear it.

Honestly I've always just viewed things like that as some alternative way of stating something that one can just randomly use. Not once have I ever considered that to be a "British thing".

faetal on 3/12/2012 at 19:09

One other thing just came to mind. What's the deal with the word "addicting" being used instead of addictive? Not sure if a US thing or just a global internet-sourced neologism adapted from sloppy conjugation by a non English speaker or what.

nickie on 3/12/2012 at 19:57

A quick glance at a wiki something suggests it's 'non-standard outside the US'. It's pretty horrible, regardless.

I've recently been introduced to text twist. The Yahoo version doesn't work so I've been using the MSN version.

I find it interesting in the words it 'knows' and the words it doesn't. For instance, it knows pike but doesn't know bream. It doesn't know cosh - surely most of us know a cosh when we use one. But I've learnt some new words and my assumptions of US spelling aren't as assumpting as they were. Which is good.

Sulphur on 3/12/2012 at 20:25

On the subject of alternate suffixes for words like addictive, what's with people using 'orientated' instead of 'oriented'? As in, 'action-orientated'. I've noticed it with writing in both the US and the UK. Is this some sort of subtle Eastern-related stigma at work? :laff:

nicked on 3/12/2012 at 20:34

Orientated sounds more correct to me, because it's from Orientation. Oriention just sounds silly.