Thread: Americans

^ i'm sure i'm not the first to say it but yeah, okay, you can use it.

Originally Posted by crew

something they had absolutely no control over and never will.

Tell that to a hungry mob.

Originally Posted by rtc926

Yeah, here is the article. Ricky Gervais Says British Comedy is Terrible | WorstPreviews.com

Interesting.

He's talking strictly about TV comedy, to be accurate.

Given that people who disagree with him cite 'Little Britain' and 'Blackadder' I can only agree.

The two most overrated comedy shows ever, apart from 'The Young Ones'.

Lenny Henry, Dawn French, Ade Edmonson - the names make me grimace just typing them.


But the US Office is still dire.

you've lost me KK. rather than plucking a single strand of an argument, why not offer up an opinion of your own? there will always be exceptions but what about the trends?

you've seen quite a few trainees over the years, have you not? you've seen people flooding in from across the english-speaking world, have you not? might you share your own observations? contrary or otherwise, it doesn't really matter. i'm not trying to prove a point, just trying to explore an odd phenomenon i've encountered since interacting with 30-odd native english speakers every five weeks for the past three years.

and another thing: when filling out applications for our course there's a box that says "nationality". the vast majority of folks know what this is. the the irish type "irish"; the aussies put "australian"; the canadians enter "canadian" and even the indians admit "indian". do you know what quite a few (15-20%) of the americans put? well, imagine just about anything other than "american". EX: black, hispanic, jewish, half-irish-half-german, italian-japanese, and my favorite, "caucasian". WTF? it pretty obvious americans cannot differentiate between nationality, ethnicity, religion nor race. our little melting pot is great but it would taste a bit better without the pinch of ignorance and dash of embarrassment.

Originally Posted by kenkannif

If you don't like nationalism might be an idea not to slag a country mate

i don't like nationalism but never said i don't think it exists. would you like me to say, "those who hold american passports" or "those who pay tax to the governing bodies that act with authority within the border that surrounds them"?

You mention this shame about being American and ask why it exists, crew.

I'm pretty sure you're in a better postion to speculate in an informed way than I am, both because you're American and because you seem to encounter this more than me.


My uninformed speculation would be because of all the shit wars the US is front and centre of - and because they know how much the world hated Bush (or at best thought he was a sick joke.

Obama has yet to make much of a difference in foreign policy terms.

Some US citizens want to distance themselves from that.


So why do you think it exists?

Originally Posted by kenkannif

sorry was in reference to you slating the UK

it was a compliment. spades are spades with most of the english and their attitudes towards their sorry state of affairs in ol' blighty. with some of the americans, it's either (a) all that glitters is gold or (b) i'm not american. a few us us are left in the middle but IMHO it's not enough. america is a shell of its former self and like all powers that have proceeded it, it will fall from grace. why try to deny the inevitable?

Originally Posted by Cyrille

Some US citizens want to distance themselves from that.

i believe that to be the case as well. this makes me wonder if the germans on holiday say they're austrian. or if the french say they're from monaco. do the israelis say they're german? and what about the south africans? no one likes the south africans. how many of them say they're from zimbabwe?

my point is that i'd venture to say very few of the other nationals actually deny their origins unless under serious duress. again, my circumstances are different from others but from what i've seen personally, too many americans try to justify a sugarcoating on their nationality.