Obligatory Americans on BBC Radio

[salymap]

I have two separate groups of American relatives. My mother's sister married an American in 1919 and I have many first and second cousins from that union. More recently another young relative moved to Greenwich,CT and her children are already little US citizens.
I appreciate all the posts but surely more unites us than divides us. Language difficulties are usually sorted, with a laugh in our case, but don't ask a visitor for a rubber when you really mean eraser

[Richard Tarleton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Snelling_Hadaway

The biography of a remarkable American, also my great grandfather. My 9x great grandfather emigrated to Massachusetts from Dorset in 1634 and founded a dynasty there.

[kernelbogey]

[...] Language difficulties are usually sorted, with a laugh in our case, but don't ask a visitor for a rubber when you really mean eraser....

... or, as I once did, say loudly to a British colleague in front of forty American supersexed teenagers 'I'll knock you up in the morning'.

[Mary Chambers]

An American of my upbringing would be embarrassed to ask where the toilets are!

So would I, because I consider 'toilets' a horrible genteelism. I never use the word. 'Lavatory' is the word I'd prefer to use, but that has no more to do with the primary function than 'bathroom' has. It seems euphemisms are in almost universal use.

It took me many years to realise that Americans weren't fairly represented by Disney and bad films. I was born at the beginning of WW2, and that was the image I was brought up with, because it was all we saw. Since then I've met educated Americans, so have changed my opinions. I still feel some resentment about a certain amount of cultural colonisation, but I suppose it's only fair - it's not as if the British weren't once the colonisers!

[Hornspieler]

Well said, KB!

[Serial_Apologist]

Many of our views over here are I think coloured by our perceptions of the politics, culture and religious aspects of provincial life in the States, and we wonder at it. But at the same time, so do many Americans whom one meets and happily greets, especially within the world of jazz. The impression I glean from American "experts" on radio programmes such as Womens Hour is that in most cases they bring their insights into those things that are wrong in American culture, from which, to my antennae, they often come across as intellectual refugees, offering invaluable warnings of what could be in this country, too, without our critical faculties firmly in control, unsubject to unexamined, unwarranted prejudices. I frequently feel great sympathy toward those they leave behind: it's a big country to be lost in.

[DracoM]

Wise words, serial-apologist

[charles t]

(Estelle Full Member, sic) 'I hope that you forgive the intrusions--mine, and those American "experts!" I find you a tolerant people, and very welcoming to visitors (as long as they return home!).'

Speaking of which...during a stay at a B&B in Bradford-on-Avon, I asked the proprietor if I could substitute from her Set In Stone breakfast menu - orange juice instead of grapefruit.

"No, because it would ruin the integrity of the breakfast."

[french frank]

"No, because it would ruin the integrity of the breakfast."

It reminds me of a Bristol legend - Caroline's Cake Shop - which served dainty, meat-and-two-veg lunches to local shopworkers. Their NO DEVIATIONS FROM THE MENU intimidated all customers from asking..

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Many of our views over here are I think coloured by our perceptions of the politics, culture and religious aspects of provincial life in the States, and we wonder at it. But at the same time, so do many Americans whom one meets and happily greets, especially within the world of jazz. The impression I glean from American "experts" on radio programmes such as Womens Hour is that in most cases they bring their insights into those things that are wrong in American culture, from which, to my antennae, they often come across as intellectual refugees, offering invaluable warnings of what could be in this country, too, without our critical faculties firmly in control, unsubject to unexamined, unwarranted prejudices. I frequently feel great sympathy toward those they leave behind: it's a big country to be lost in.

[Estelle]

Reading in this thread your admissions of American family connections and experiences gained from travel in the U.S. is a heartwarming experience for me that effectively counteracts the occasional whiff of annoyance with Americans I read now and again. I can only raise the point that, with the exception of the 1.1 % of the population who are native American or native Pacific Islanders, we Americans all arrived here from somewhere else! For example, I am descended from Italians, Germans, and Englishmen and am married to an immigrant from Germany. No wonder our American English sounds funny!

My first visit to the U.K. occurred in July, 1976. I remember laughing at the sign "Traffic Diversion Ahead." "Where are the dancing girls and the brass band?" was my immediate reaction! (As our British visitors know, we use the term "detour.") On the Fourth of July in Eastbourne an English couple came up to our party and congratulated us on our bicentenary of the Declaration of Independence. (I was actually the only native-born American among our party.) I was enormously touched that someone would be so kind, apparently after having overheard me speak, and remember it to this day.

I appreciate your reflections above. No one with a computer and an internet connection can be very seriously lost in America (in any sense of the word)!

[prokkyshosty]

deplaning

No tangent on Americans and language would be complete without George Carlin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a26ZmLn39wY

(apologies in advance for the NSFW four-letter ...err... Americanisms).

[Serial_Apologist]

Reading in this thread your admissions of American family connections and experiences gained from travel in the U.S. is a heartwarming experience for me that effectively counteracts the occasional whiff of annoyance with Americans I read now and again. I can only raise the point that, with the exception of the 1.1 % of the population who are native American or native Pacific Islanders, we Americans all arrived here from somewhere else! For example, I am descended from Italians, Germans, and Englishmen and am married to an immigrant from Germany. No wonder our American English sounds funny!

My first visit to the U.K. occurred in July, 1976. I remember laughing at the sign "Traffic Diversion Ahead." "Where are the dancing girls and the brass band?" was my immediate reaction! (As our British visitors know, we use the term "detour.") On the Fourth of July in Eastbourne an English couple came up to our party and congratulated us on our bicentenary of the Declaration of Independence. (I was actually the only native-born American among our party.) I was enormously touched that someone would be so kind, apparently after having overheard me speak, and remember it to this day.

I appreciate your reflections above. No one with a computer and an internet connection can be very seriously lost in America (in any sense of the word)!

I wonder what you would have made of the roadside sign I saw some years ago here which read, "New Laid Eggs Drive Up Here"? Or the one you passed near Bawtry on the "old" A1 which read, "Slow Children Crossing"!

[Don Petter]

I wonder what you would have made of the roadside sign I saw some years ago here which read, "New Laid Eggs Drive Up Here"? Or the one you passed near Bawtry on the "old" A1 which read, "Slow Children Crossing"!

There's one near here which says 'Slow - Pupils Crossing' which does indeed make it hard to see things clearly.

[Chris Newman]

I saw a large sign affixed to a tree near a chalk quarry: "SLOW PLANT CROSSING".

Someone had neatly chalked "BEWARE TRIFFIDS!!" underneath