Brit Reacts to 7 Myths British People Believe About America - Part 2

For many Americans, irony is our first language and sarcasm is our second. For some, it's the other way around. Very few don't speak either - at least where I've lived.

Years ago, when I worked in hotels, I met a very nice English family whose eldest son was starting college here in the Midwest. They'd brought their younger two kids along, and one of those boys was excitedly talking about how he couldn't wait to go see Disneyworld. My heart sank when I heard that, and I ended up pulling the parents aside and asking them about it. They did indeed confirm that they intended to move their son into his dorm, and then the entire family was going to "pop down" to Florida and speed the weekend there before coming back before their son had his orientation on Monday. I felt awful, but I had to break it to them - the ONLY way that would be possible would be for them to leave immediately and fly down there, and then fly back early in the morning on Monday. Those poor folks had no idea how big this country really is and that driving down there would take a full 24 or so hours if they only stopped for food, gas, and restroom breaks. I felt bad for the two younger kids.

My sister met a couple from Great Britain. They were in Connecticut and their plans for the day included seeing the Statue of Liberty and then the Grand Canyon. After wiping the tears of laughter away she got out a map (the 80’s) and explained reality. Yes, Americans are friendly and helped them understand over lunch

I was bantering with a bunch of Brits in a chat room once— one of them snarked at me and I cheerfully snarked right back. All of a sudden everyone was “ handling “ me— “ Oh, don’t get angry, Kelly, we’re just joking, Kelly, we’re so sorry, Kelly.” I said, “ … you guys really do think Americans don’t get sarcasm, do you?” ( I then explained that as Person 1 was clearly being faux- hostile to me, the appropriate response would be to be faux- indignant. Guess I overshot my mark.)

A side note about the pools- part of the issue is the weather. A lot of the US experiences all 4 seasons and in the Midwest we see all 4 seasons in their extremes with a range of -20F to 120F. So, it's not just keeping a pool clean, it's going through the process every year of basically decommissioning it before the harsh winter then getting the whole thing back up and running in the late spring.

I think that sarcasm translates particularly badly across cultures. When I lived in the UK, I was constantly frustrated by people missing my sarcasm entirely. They were frequently assuming that (what I thought of as) obviously ironic statements were actually uttered in earnest, and I ran into other North Americans who had the same complaint. At first I thought this was just a nasty side-effect of the "Americans don't understand irony" myth, but I've come to believe that it's a bit more complicated than that. I think that the subtle 'tells' we use to understand when others are joking just don't translate very well cross-culturally -- even sometimes within our own nations! My housemate and I are both from the New York metropolitan area, and we had a friend from Nebraska who seemed utterly incapable of understanding when we were joking, even when it seemed incredibly obvious to both of us. But I don't think he was humorless, precisely. I think that he just didn't have the same 'tells,' which left him unable to determine when we were being sarcastic. The gulf between the US and the UK is even wider; hence, people are even more prone to missing irony.

The "Americans are rude" one made me laugh, cause there was a moment I had in a UK Discord server I hang out in where I was chatting with some of my good friends on there, and they found out I was American and was completely surprised. I asked them why they were so shocked to find out about my nationality and they said "don't take this the wrong way, but you were too nice for me to believe you were American" and I laughed at them for that to this day XD

Growing up in Hawaii I didn't realize how big the Mainland was. I drove from Phoenix, Arizona to Connecticut. I stopped in Fort Collins, Colorado to visit a high school buddy. It was a 18 hour drive and was exhausted. But then it started snowing in Colorado, the first time I ever saw snow fall from the sky. I postponed my journey by 2 days and decided to drive straight from Ft. Collins to Connecticut in one go. It took 36 hours! I had a job interview I was trying to make. This was back in 1998 when I was 21 years old. I only think I made it because I was ignorant and it was a pre-gps world. I kept telling my self it was only a few more hours. I do not recommend, especially the danger I caused to everyone else on the Interstate by being a sleep-deprived prideful asshole. I did get the Job though.

This goes with the whole "you can drive anywhere in the US in a day" thing. I spent a semester in college at a small university in London and for my winter break, I went on a 10 day hiking tour of northern Scotland and the Orkney Islands. There were 15 people on the trip from a variety of different countries, but there was one other American. I was 23, from the Midwest and in the UK for school. The other guy was probably in his 40s, from South Carolina, and in the UK for business. When we were all introducing ourselves, the immediate assumption was that this dude and I knew each other. Caveat: there was only one Brit on the trip, but EVERYONE was certain we HAD to know each other. Sooooo, it's not just Brits... Also, it's worth noting that there were four Aussies on the trip; a couple and then two dudes who were in their gap year. I got frustrated that no one believed the other American and I couldn't possibly have known each other and pointed out that it would be like insisting that the couple from Canberra and the dudes from Perth knew each other bc they were all from Australia. There was a long silence and then we all started laughing. It was an excellent trip, and we all learned a LOT about assumptions and differences. I still talk to a couple of the people from time to time, even though it's been more than 20 years. Yay!

As a lifelong American, I can tell you that sarcasm is the most common “second language” that we have. And my family watched British comedies from the time that I was a kid until I was all grown up. Some were from different time periods so I’m sure they were reruns. We really enjoyed, “Fawlty Towers”, “Are You being Served”, “Blackadder”, Keeping Up Appearances” etc. But we also really loved reruns of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.

As an American, I would say that my fellow Americans, not including myself, seem to have trouble with "dry" humor. It's the delivery more than anything else, I think. If a joke is said with little to no inflection, it's not always easily understood to be a joke. Case in point, as a teenager, I had an English teacher who had a very dry monotone delivery of his jokes and I was the only person in class who would laugh. Side note: I quickly became his favorite because of that 😂

There was a show on the History Channel called " How the States Got Their Shapes" that covers a lot of accents and how both geography and histoy influenced them. It depended on who settled there and at what time they did so. You should check that out.

Thomas Sowell explained how a language will thrive where it is transplanted when it dies out in its place of origin. Many phrases we use came from England hundreds of years ago

I live in Louisiana and we have about six different accents according to where you live. We have Cajun, Texan, Southern, urban, New Orleans, French and more recently Hispanic. My great great grandparents were from Franc e and French phrases have been handed down throughout the generations. Louisiana was also under Spanish, English and French rule. We also have large areas of people of German descent. Not to mention the indigenous people and their languages. So we have lots of dialects in our state.

As a few folks mentioned, one of the biggest things about the USA is the variation, the "melting pot". It is a huge country with widely different cultural influences in the many different regions. I don't recall much futbol where I grew up in Southern California but it was hugely popular where I live now in Hawaii. And the driving distances he mentioned didn't even mention how long it would take to drive to Alaska or the fact that it would take 5 hours by plane to get to Hawaii from the West Coast.

I absolutely adore British humor. I have lots of fond memories of watching "Keeping Up Appearances" with my Dad.

We nerds do get your humor! Just some of the Britcoms that have become classics here in the states on PBS: Are You Being Served, Keeping Up Appearances, the Vicar of Dibley, As Time Goes By, Waiting for God, & Last of the Summer Wine. We know which Doctor goes with which companions, we can quote Monty Python, and most of us identify "Yackety Sax" first as the Benny Hill theme.

I had moved from North Carolina to Alaska and we decided to drive all the way up and it was no joke. It took us about 6 days to get to California (but we also took our time to sight see). It also took us the same amount from there to Alaska. But the one thing that most people don't take into consideration is time. If you are traveling to one side of the country to the other the time zones F you over. You're basically losing time if you travel from west to east but gain time if you go from east to west.

An American here...I played soccer as a little girl, and my brother broke a lot of records in high school on the soccer team. I never think of it in terms of professional sports, but it's really popular as a school/kid sport. And it always amazes me the size of other countries. lol! I'll probably never visit all the states since it's just so spread out! :). And being from the Midwest...I must say we're very nice! And British humor, uh yeah. I'll have to check that video out. I don't get it, though I've watched many British shows and loved them (dramas/mysteries).

As an American who has moved around a lot, pools are more prevalent in warmer climates. Places like FL or CA mostly have a pool with a house. Once you go somewhere with snow, they are rare (as snow damages them and upkeep is high for short seasons). They are also rare in desert climates because water is expensive (like AZ and NV)