"… that, according to unnamed sources, a small group of backbench Tory MPs are considering making an official complaint about political bias in the royal family, citing Her Royal Highness's apparent decision to go into Labour.
"And now we go live, to James Windsor-Arselich, standing outside The Palace for no apparent reason, for some breaking news."
"… Well you could've told me before, that it was undone! Shit, no time! Just film me from the waist up, fer Chrissakes!
"Thank you Quentin.
"Hi, James Windsor-Arselich here, your royal correspondent. And the breaking news is that Her Royal Highness is still in labour, just as she was when I reported an hour ago, and an hour before that. However, this is the biggest news story since the last big story, so I shall now pad out my moment in the limelight, and attempt to justify my wages as a royal correspondent, by interviewing random Typical British Citizens, plucked entirely at random from the crowd of ardent royalists outside The Palace. Here's a man dressed in a suit made from Union Flags; a Typical British Citizen, as I'm sure you'll all agree.
"Ho there, Typical British Citizen, are you—a Typical British Citizen whose appearance doesn't in any way make your answer to this question a foregone conclusion—happy about the forthcoming royal birth?"
"Well, I did give careful consideration to the situation, weighing up the pros and cons of being ecstatic about a couple I don't know having a baby, but as a supporter of the right of one family to be praised, privileged and lauded to the high heavens for their ability to be born to privileged parents, I have to say that I'm extremely happy that Their Royal Highnesses have come within hours of managing the extremely difficult trick of reproducing in the same fashion as every other mammal on the planet. It's a miracle, it really is! Furthermore…"
"How interesting. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to interrupt you, as I've been told that the studio have some breaking news.
"Over to you, Quentin."
"Thank you James.
"Breaking news. According to information received from our royal correspondent, James Windsor-Arselich, we can tell you that Her Royal Highness is reported, by reporters reporting outside The Palace, using information sent by palace spokespeople in an email to newsdesks everywhere, to still be in labour. Stay tuned for more details.
"In other news, Iceland declared war on Bermuda this afternoon, and immediately fired five nuclear missiles, as a result of which, some people are reported to have died; a small alien spacecraft has landed on the Champs-Élysées, Paris, France; and Washington DC has seceded from the Union.
"A reminder of today's headlines: Her Royal Highness is in labour.
"And now we hand over to your local newsdesk, so that your local reporters can have a chance at constructing tenuous links between local events and the impending royal birth."
Some hours later…
"… complaints from Labour backbenchers about leaked plans by Her Royal Highness, a long-time devotee of classical music, to enrol her child in a Conservatory.
"And now we go live, to James Windsor-Arselich, standing outside The Palace for no apparent reason, for some breaking news."
"… been stood here like a lemon for twelve bloody hours! You'll be hearing from the union about overtime payments, I can tell you that. Would it kill you to at least provide a decent cup of coffee now and ag… We're what? On air? Oh f…
"Thank you Quentin.
"Hi, James Windsor-Arselich here, your royal correspondent. Yes, this just in from Palace representatives, via an email I got from the newsdesk (Thanks, Quentin); Her Royal Highness has given birth. What's more, we can confirm that it's a baby! Let's see if we can get a feeling for the Typical British Citizen's response to this miracle-birth, by interviewing this lady who's been sleeping in a tent in Hyde Park for the last three days, waiting for news of the royal birth…
"Ho there, Typical British Citizen. How do you feel about the royal birth?"
"Well, speaking as a Typical British Citizen who, like all other citizens of this fine country, thinks it perfectly reasonable to hitch-hike four-hundred miles and sleep in a tent so that I can be within a few hundred yards of a woman giving birth, I can hardly think how to express my joy. And you've confirmed that it's a baby, did I hear you say? Oh what marvellous news! And just to think; I was within a few hundred yards when it happened! That'll be something to tell the grandkids, eh.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and wave this flag and cheer in the general direction of some palace windows."
"So there you have it. Proof positive that the Typical British Citizen is ecstatic about the birth of the royal baby, which, I repeat, we can confirm to be a baby.
"Back to Quentin Potato-Snack, who will repeat what I've just told you in the newsroom."
"Thank you James.
"Today's major headline; Her Royal Highness has given birth to what palace officials have confirmed is a baby. Typical British Citizens are said to be ecstatic.
"Other news. Foreign Office officials are treating "with extreme scepticism," claims that every building on Bermuda has mysteriously burnt to the ground. "Bermuda Triangle stories are old-hat," says a spokesman. French scientists have announced the sudden discovery of a Faster-Than-Light space-drive small enough to fit into a Citroen 2CV. Washington DC has closed its borders with the United States, giving U.S. citizens twenty-four hours to leave, or face internment as spies. The pope has come out of the closet, revealing that he's a homosexual.
"A reminder of today's most important news; Her Royal Highness has given birth to a baby.
"And now over to your local newsrooms, where lots of couples who have had babies today will be asked patronising questions, with the implication that the most significant aspect of their experience is that it happened on the same day as Their Royal Highnesses'."
Meanwhile, later that day…
"… in the face of complaints from the all-party Christian Coalition that calling the monarch a "queen" gives the impression to impressionable young minds that it's perfectly respectable to be a cross-dressing homosexual. The petition contained fewer signatures than had been expected, however, as several Catholic members decided, after careful thought, that God doesn't really hate homosexuals after all.
"And now we go live, to James Windsor-Arselich, standing outside The Palace for no apparent reason, for some breaking news."
"Hello, is that the Daily Express? James Windsor-Arselich, here. I'd like to apply for that job of Science Reporter you advertised. Qualifications? Well, O-level English and twenty-five years' experience as a royal correspondent. Oh that's brilliant, thanks! Yes, I certainly can start on Monday. Hold on a sec—What's that? Shit, okay—Got to go; I'm on air!
"Thank you Quentin.
"Hi, James Windsor-Arselich here, your royal correspondent.
"And the latest-breaking news is that the royal baby is a boy. Yes, the royal baby has a penis! It is confirmed that not only is the royal baby a baby, but that we can now be confident that it has a gender. It is a member of the half of the human species which has testicles, although it may take some years for those to become apparent, by which time it will be inappropriate to discuss them.
"Let's ask this young lady in the I Heart The Queen T-shirt what she, as a Typical British Citizen, thinks of the news that the royal baby has dangly-bits.
"Ho there, Typical British Citizen. What do you think of the startling news that the royal baby, as an owner of external sex-organs, can now be categorised as a member of a gender?"
"Well obviously, as a Typical British Citizen who, like all upstanding British citizens, is happy to fawn over members of an over-privileged elite, I am delighted that it's a boy. I'd be just as delighted if it were a girl, mind, but well, it's a boy! Woohoo!"
"Well, there you have it. Proof, if it were needed, that the royal baby's gender is extremely important news to Typical British Citizens everywhere.
"Now, back to Quentin at the newsdesk, where he will inform you that the royal baby is a boy."
"Thank you James.
"Surprising news from The Palace: the royal baby has a gender, and may now be referred to as 'he,' although we have no name for him as yet.
"Later on tonight, there will be an extended edition of Newstalk. The first hour will feature a panel of journalists lamenting the lack of privacy given by journalists to the royal family these days. The second hour, in light of the entirely unexpected news of the family's latest addition having genitalia of one sort or another, will feature a documentary about royal genitalia through the ages. Here's a clip of that, to whet your appetite…"
"In other news, inhabitants of Nova Scotia expressed concern, tonight, about a large cloud of what appears to be radioactive ash, drifting toward their state from the south. The Prime Minister, speaking from Vancouver, urged citizens to 'remain calm.' Amazing photographs from the Curiosity rover on Mars show what a NASA spokeswoman described as 'a boulder which looks startlingly like a Citroen 2CV, even down to the dodgy two-tone paint-job and patches of rust.' Rumours that the alleged boulder was in motion were neither confirmed nor denied. The Washington Air Force claim to have shot down a U.S. spy-plane. 'Marriage has always been between one man and another man,' says the Vatican. 'Heterosexuality is ruining traditional marriage,' they continue. Bill Donohue was 'not available for interviews.'
"A reminder of our main story. The royal baby has a todger.
"And now to your local newsroom, where reporters will find ever-more pathetic excuses to discuss the royal penis-ownership, rather than focus on depressing news like your county's largest three employers' laying-off of half their work-force and out-sourcing their work to a sweat-shop in downtown Mumbai."
A couple of days later…
"… expressed deep concern over rumours that retail-giant Asda's clothing subsidiary, George, has been implicated in various backdoor product-placement deals with high-up government officials—
"We interrupt this story, to bring you breaking news from James Windsor-Arselich, standing outside The Palace for no apparent reason."
"… place an order for two rubber stamps please. One to say 'causes cancer,' the other to say 'cures cancer.' Can I pick them up before Monday? Thanks. Bye.
"Thank you Quentin.
"Hi, James Windsor-Arselich here, your royal correspondent.
"Yes, big news here at the palace. The royal baby has a name; George™ Alexander Louis. Let's ask this Typical British Citizen over here—the man with the Prince-Of -Wales feathers tattooed on his chest—what he thinks of the startling idea that a baby has been given a name by its parents.
"Ho there, Typical British Citizen. What do you think of the royal baby being given a name by which he will be addressed, rather than being called "Oi You" for all of his life?"
"Well obviously I, like any good Typical British Citizen who would gladly lick dog-shit off Prince Charles's flip-flop, if only he'd let me, am extremely glad that our future monarch has a name by which he will be known. Mind you, I'm never going to need to call him by it, as I'm not likely to meet him personally—and if I do, I'll have to call him Your Highness—but he should have a personal identifying label which his family and friends and other people who are worthy and well-born enough to need it, may address him. And anyway it's him; the royal baby; of course it's important. Because he's the royal baby. Umm. Is this live? Oh my, I'm on telly!"
"Thank you.
"And there we have it, Quentin. Undeniable proof that the Typical British Citizen thinks nothing is more important than the royal baby's new name. And now back to you in the studio, so that you may break the same news that I just broke."
"Thank you James.
"Palace news now, and it has been confirmed that the royal baby, who you may remember is a 'him,' with a penis, now has a name. George Alexander Louis. Not, as reported earlier, George Tee-Emm Alexander Louis, which was, a palace spokesman told us, 'a typo.'
"In other news, a three-hundred-foot feathered snake saved Nova Scotia from becoming a radioactive wasteland, last night. When asked his name, he said 'Quetzalcoatl, but you can call me the One True God.' Unemployment levels in France are at an all-time high, as more French firms outsource their work to a sweat-shop in the Beta Centauri system. Tensions rise as the U.S. Navy blockade the Potomac, and a Washingtonian spy-ring is uncovered in Philadelphia. Cardinal Keith O'Brien today defended his statement, made yesterday, that 'Hitler was a heterosexual, and look how well that went,' as 'not hate-speech, but a statement of fact.'
"But back to our main story. The royal baby has a name. After a short break so that your local news reporters can coo over the new royal name, we'll be back with an unscheduled hour-long phone-in special, so that you can call us to tell us how cute you think the royal baby's name is…"
—Daz
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That’s 10 minutes of my life I’m never going to get back, so thankx for that, Daz, mate …
My pleasure, as always…
Slow day there? 😉
Not a fan of royalty then? 🙂
Thanks for that, it encapsulated the total waste of time that has been news coverage lately. So some woman had a baby, it was a boy and she and her hubby have called it George. So fucking what!
Cue next year and the exciting revelation that the most common name for boys is now George.
Seems like you Brits have your own real-life version of The Truman Show.
Bloody democracy-seeking, privilege-hating, ordinary-people promoting Republicans. You’re all traitors for wanting Tony Brown (or is that Gordon Blair?) for our Head of State rather than somebody who was born to the role because they have special blue genes. The Royal Family only costs you 0.0000005 pence per person a year to maintain their royal palaces. I’d say that’s a bargain at any price (especially at 0.0000005 pence per person per year). Prince Phillip may be a racist, but at least he promotes good old fashioned British racism, and Prince Charles may think magic water is real medicine, but at least he keeps the people of Cornwall employed (and you can’t get more British than the people of Cornwall). Just because you’ve forgotten what Prince Edward looks like, doesn’t mean he isn’t very special, or that Prince Andrew shouldn’t be paid for playing golf while pretending to promote British trade abroad.
You’re all just jealous because you haven’t got magnificent ears, or get to play with helicopters, or can’t call people P****s without everybody jumping to your defence. But you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face when the hangman puts the noose around your necks.
Damn! That’s what we saw in the news in the backward half of the former empire — and you put us through it again? Fortunately, we had our own royalty until the presidential elections ended. Now that Mitt Romney’s hopes for helping our nation have been dashed, we have to admit that the brains in the family belonged to his wife’s horse (who was the highlight of the Olympics here in the U.S.), somewhat like your royal family, I’m sure..
You obviously weren’t directing your report to us, because you forgot to explain that Mumbai had a different name years ago — a fact that hasn’t sunk in here yet. That’s why our reporters used to always say “Zimbabwe-Rhodesia”. I looked it up once and never could find that city, but I’m sure it’s in Africa somewhere.
Biting my tongue – just wanted you to know it.
Please Master Digby, look down your nose at me some more. How can your superior self even bare to share a country with dolts like me. Bombay is Mumbai now? You don’t say! Would you condescend to inform this backward idiot from the wrong side of the Atlantic of some more factoids that no one here but The Great Mister Digby knows.
I have to assume that Mr. tojap doesn’t read Yahoo News or many of the other online news services then. You apparently don’t find it the least bit demeaning that their reporters feel obliged to repeatedly explain the obvious?
I suppose that the reporter has to explain that the ecliptic is where eclipses take place so that you too can understand the great mysteries of science (http://news.yahoo.com/moons-close-encounters-venus-saturn-jupiter-explained-195834495.html). Why else would you be defending these clowns?
Have you already forgotten Zimbabwe-Rhodesia? There wasn’t a television network of newspaper that didn’t use exactly that phrase — or possibly you’re post-Mugabe.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t educated in Mississippi, and I do find this kind of reporting offensive. I regret that you don’t think it deserves ridicule.
To be fair, my first encounters with the word “ecliptic” were all either on The Sky At Night or in science fiction novels, so I’d say it’s not exactly a well-known term. And although I’d guessed at the etymology, the article you link to is the first confirmation of my guess that I’ve ever come across—and it could conceivably been the other way around. (Oh, and Fojap is a “her,” by the way. 🙂 )
That said, I’m sorry Fojap, but the USA does have a reputation in the rest of the world for being remarkably insular. (In general, that is. No-one, and certainly not I—or, I expect, Daniel—is suggesting that we should pre-judge people based on such nebulous generalities.)
A few examples which come to mind:
You’d be amazed how often it’s been assumed, by USians, on my telling them that I’m British or English, that I live in London. On this basis, I assume that all USians live in Washington, yes?
I have been lectured on my “bad spelling” by several USians over the years, with one going so far as to trawl through six months’ of posts, listing every mistake they spotted, and sending me the list in one of the most rudely condescending emails I’ve ever received. Need I mention that a good 95% of those “mistakes” were British variants?
I’ve been lectured about my rights under the constitution on many occasions, both under the assumption that I must be USian and even, a few times, when the person knew I’m not USian.
I’ve been told—and I kid ye not—to refer to coloured Britons as African Americans.
Does a film or documentary really need to, for instance, show both a stock-image of the Eiffel Tower and and an on-screen message saying “Paris, France,” in order to avoid confusion with Paris, Texas? if it is needed, then it’s a sad reflection on educational standards in the USA. If not, then it’s sad reflection on US media organisations which assume that it is, and also patronising as all hell.
And on the subject of such bad education and/or media patronisation, did you know that the title of the first harry potter novel was HP And The Philosopher’s Stone in the rest of the English-speaking world? It was changed, regardless of the fact that “Philosopher’s stone” is an actual historical reference, to “Sorcerer’s Stone” in the US, because it was assumed that USian readers would think it was a book on philosophy.
Again, The Madness Of King George III had the regnal number dropped in the USA, because potential viewers might think it was the third of a trilogy.
I’ve run across one personally, and have read accounts of several, cases of British novels which, when published in the USA, had their language Americanised to the point where you would think the author was born in Chicago. Not just spellings, but whole words; flat to apartment, bonnet (of a car) to hood, even brand-names, like Reddy Brek to Granola,* as it seems to be assumed by the publisher that USian readers are too stupid or uninformed to know such things or work them out from context. (With the result, of course, if the practice is continued, that the readership will inevitably become uninformed, given that the media which should be informing them of other cultures is, instead, blanketing them in a cosy US-centred fog.)
(*How do I know what Granola is? Because publishers in my own country leave the word in and allow me to work it out from context.)
Mostly, it has to be said, it’s little things. (The assumption one is USian until one actually says otherwise is, perhaps, the commonest.) But they do add up, and such occurrences are much rarer when dealing with people from other English-speaking countries.
You hit another of my minor peaves — Harry Potter. Before we were allowed to read it over here, they had to “correct” the spellings and change the title of the first book, fearing that Americans are complete ignoramuses who wouldn’t understand what a philosopher’s stone is. They were right about most readers not having a clue that Nicolas Flamel was a real alchemist who died (1418) long before he discovered the philosopher’s stone. After all those corrections, they seem to have forgotten that some of us might scratch our heads at the mention of a bonnet, boot, torch, lift, or lorry. The real headturner was the line about driving on the verge (‘shoulder’ to my fellow Americans). It left most readers wondering “on the verge of what?” — madness?
For the record, the ecliptic is the plane of earth’s orbit (often conflated with that plane’s intersection with the medieval idea of a celestial sphere — or maybe I should have said “the plane of the sun’s orbit around the earth”). It defines the circle of the zodiac and is where you look to see the zodiac light (well outside city lights). The intersection of the planes of the earth’s orbit and the moon’s orbit is a line, which when it passes through the sun, marks an eclipse, making the name appropriate. Sorry — it’s the schoolmarm in me.
I’m glad that someone else out there knows about Paris, Texas. Now I don’t have to feel so stupid when I mention the movie by the same name.
Your synopsis of education in the backwater U.S. is pretty much on the mark. It’s how we manage to elect our politicians. But Canada seems to have followed in our electoral footsteps too. What’s their excuse?
Hi, I really don’t want a fight today. I’m feeling just awful. I just found out that my email has been shutdown because I shared a provider with Edward Snowden, so if you could be a bit gentle on me, I’d appreciate it.
Daz, do have any idea what it is like to be an immigrant? It was really, really difficult. I came back to the U.S. when I found myself thinking of suicide because I was just so lonely. I called the suicide hotline and the woman on the other end complained about my accent. That was, perhaps, the final straw. It’s hard to be sure. During the last six months there had been a series of things. One day, my husband said to me, “I thought I was marrying an independent, self-confident woman. Now I realize I was mistaken.” It was like he held up a mirror and I saw a reflection of myself the way I had been when we met. It was scary to me how much I had changed.
I know it’s hard to conceive of bigotry against people from the U.S. because we haven’t been trained to see it. But when you’re an immigrant it’s like a state of being permanently insecure and out of place. It’s not really different if you’re from the U.S. or any other country. People meet you. They don’t like the way you dress. They don’t like the way you speak. They don’t like your accent. Really, I had to buy a whole new wardrobe. I called it my Canadian camouflage. Pullovers and loose fitting khaki pants. No miniskirts. No color. No flash. Then they find out where you’re from and they lump a whole bunch of stereotypes on you. We’re ignorant. Uneducated. We have no culture. We like (American) football. We like guns. Almost none of this actually describes me. These stereotypes made it difficult for me to find a job, they made it impossible to make friends. So, yes, these stereotypes upset me.
I’m not going to justify any of the things you’ve said that people from the U.S. have said to you. Yes, that is terribly ignorant. I’m also not going to tell you all the stupid things Englishmen have said to me because it’s beside the point. (Though one of them did say if things didn’t work out with the Canadian to give him a call – and I’ve toyed with the idea.) Do you really think Europeans never say stupid things?
Once on a website to practice foreign languages, I wanted to have some exchanges with a Belgian. He said he liked mystery novels and I recommended one of my favorites, The Moonstone by Wilke Collins. He said he didn’t want to read American novels because he didn’t want to learn a debased form of English. Since he was so snotty, I didn’t bother to tell him that Collins was English. (Excellent novel, by the way, and available on Gutenberg.)
Do you know when they show Canadian tv shows in France they dub them or subtitle them? That drives the Canadians nuts.
Once a French student came to study in Quebec. She wanted to see Native Canadians, so a group of people drove to a nearby town that has a large native population. She said, “Where are the teepees?” Almost no one lives in teepees today and the Huron never did. The Quebecois laughed about this story for weeks.
I could tell a lot of dumb-French-in-Quebec stories.
I’m not saying that to abuse the French. I like France so much I have every intention of going back there in about a month. I’m actively angling for a way to live in Paris for a year or two.
I’ve met Englishmen who didn’t know that Canada was officially bilingual and had a large minority of Francophones. An English boyfriend of mine thought that Canada was still a colony and that he could go get medical treatment there for free. The last religious person I dated was an Englishman and is one of the reasons that I’ll only date atheists now. I got sick of hearing about things I just had to admit were “miracles.” And I really, really hate English aristocrats and I’ve got some reasons for that that I’m not going to discuss right now.
And all of that is meaningless. I don’t know if I should delete that last paragraph or not. I don’t want a contest about what country is better or worse. It’s stupid and pointless. I read an exchange you had with Diana a couple of weeks ago and I was going to weigh in on your side but I wasn’t up for an argument that day and you seemed to be holding your own anyway.
(Just for the record, I still have very fond thoughts of that one Englishman. It’s hard to respond to your list of stupid things people from the U.S. do without pointing out that everyone does stupid, ignorant things.)
I guess I’m just trying to ask you to put yourself in my shoes. These stereotypes do hurt real people. On someone else’s blog, there was a discussion about a statement that Helen Mirren said about how she resented that in Hollywood movies the villains are often English. She didn’t like that people in the U.S. see the English as snobby and cold. I can’t blame her. If I were in her shoes I wouldn’t like it either. Now, I could say in response, “Look how badly this snobby English aristocrat treated me. That’s why we think the English should play villains.” But how would that be fair to anyone except the one man who treated me badly. It doesn’t address the actress’ complaint.
I could give a couple of other analogies, but they feel like overstating the case.
Different people respond differently. Some English actors like playing villains. Perhaps had I been in a happier marriage, if I had been a more successful person in terms of career, came from a wealthier family, or anything that might have made me feel less small and vulnerable, those stereotypes wouldn’t have bothered me so much, but I was vulnerable and they did hurt, very much – and not in an abstract way. As I said, I had no friends, and no job for a long time either. In many ways, the entire experience scarred me. I’m not the same person, and the sad thing is I like the old me better.
I’ve read enough of your posts, including some older ones, to have this idea that you’re a socially conscious person. You realize that these stereotypes are not harmful to people who are secure and comfortable? You understand that I’m a failure in life? Divorced. Unemployed. Officially mentally ill. It’s not uncommon on the left here for people to look down their nose at their own countrymen, those poor, uneducated, benighted people. I’m not in a position to look down my nose at anyone.
I don’t know, Daz. Maybe I should apologize for being such a pain. I like your music posts immensely. I like some of your other posts and, therefore, am inclined to like you as well, but I do seem to get my feelings hurt around here. Usually it’s just one or the other and I go away or stay. I keep feeling tempted to come back here, but it always seems to end badly, with me feeling lonely, sad, alienated and depressed.
Two more things:
Daz, I’ve been assuming for a number of months that you’re English. I could explain why, but it’s mainly circumstantial, primarily word choice, and I could easily be wrong. Pardon me if you’re actually something else.
Daniel Digby, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Yahoo News. I have a subscription to the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine (not Harper’s Bazaar), and the New Republic. At various times in the past, I’ve had subscriptions to the Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American and the Comics Journal, and Le Devoir when I lived in Canada. I regularly check the New York Review of Books website and some tech oriented websites like Ars Technica. I like listening to a science podcast from Canada in French called Année lumière. Sometimes I try to remind myself to read a French paper, but I forget too often, so perhaps it wouldn’t be right to claim it as “regular” reading. I am aware that this is not “typical” fare for someone from the U.S. On the other hand, I couldn’t be from anyplace else, either.
Currently, I live in Baltimore, Maryland, which, Daz, is a southern state, but it didn’t secede during the Civil War, so it has some aspects of southern culture without all the Confederacy stuff. I’m in my late forties, if you didn’t guess from my musical taste, so I’ve been around the block a bit.
Sorry about your isolation; it’s just that I like being treated like a snob even if I am one. Perhaps we can stay on a more even keel. In spite of what seems to be a persistent cynical theme in my writing, the world has some really bright spots, which is why we both follow Daz. Please just accept me for who I am — a gun-toting redneck who guzzles beer while watching Sunday afternoon football. (Actually, the only football I ever played was rugby and association football.)
By the way, I find nothing wrong with being uneducated, but I do see something very wrong with news organizations and politicians who pander to it.
I fell a little behind while you finished your last piece before mine. I grew up in East Tennessee in the shadows of Appalachia. My first introduction to fine literature was from the girl next door who knew all the Rawhide and Bloody Bones stories. I feel very much a part of that, but of course, I’ve moved on.
Daniel Digby, I hope so too. There is one good side to being prickly, thin skinned and short tempered: things tend to get out in the open and almost never become grudges.
I’m actually a misplaced New Yorker, but much of my family call themselves rednecks. Mainly in Virginia, but as I was explaining to someone earlier yesterday, I have family scattered from Vermont to Florida. They do seem to be mainly on the East Coast, however. When I was in grad school, which I didn’t finish, some of my classmates called me “white trash.” I don’t hold anything against anyone on account of birth.
I hope Daz doesn’t mind a complete thread derailment….
My great grandfather was shot to death by a sheriff in East Tennessee during a poker game. I thought it was a colorful story and mistakenly told it to my classmates in grad school, which is how I got labeled. He was from western North Carolina.
I’m a bit rushed at present, but yes I’m English (with a bit of Welsh thrown in), and no I don’t mind derailments. Specifically, I don’t mind off-topic conversation on threads which aren’t busy with discussion of whatever the topic was. Almost every blog creates a semi-unique mix of people whose only communication with each other is via that blog; to expect them to not begin to talk amongst themselves, as it were, would be to expect them to be not people any more. It’s what people do, and I’m happy to facilitate it.
To the point we were discussing: it’s not that others don’t do it; it’s that it’s done a lot more by USians. By all means be patriotic, but patriotism, as opposed to nationalism, demands that one see the faults in one’s country and want to fix them or at least have them fixed.
Daz, I feel a bit like you’ve missed my point. I’m not especially patriotic. I totally agree about wanting to have things fixed. If you think I’m the sort of self-satisfied person that buries her head in the sand, you’ve totally misread me. As I see it, I just happened to be born here. This isn’t the best place in the world. It’s not the worst either. Did it shape me? Yes. How could it not?
Exactly how to talk about cultural differences is an interesting question. You may have noticed a pattern in my boyfriends, a disproportionate number are foreign. Friends tease me about it and have speculated about why. I don’t have a thing for accents or anything like that. I usually joke that men from the U.S. don’t like me. There are days I wish it was more of a joke. One result is that I’m used to hearing personal complaints like the ones you’ve made about being treated badly by us. Probably because we’ve never had an exchange that started with that, you can’t imagine how sympathetic I am. I once had a Korean boyfriend who couldn’t have a good time until he’d flopped down on my bed and unburdened himself in a great big rant about every thing that had happened that week, mostly about how awful the U.S. can be. Believe it or not, I didn’t respond defensively because the most important thing at that moment was to attend to his emotional needs. In that case, I was the one who was home and comfortable. He was the one who was struggling.
If you’re feeling angry and upset at people from the U.S., you’re welcome to unburden yourself to me any time you want. As it happens, as I was trying to fall asleep last night, I started thinking about the person who went through your old posts for spelling “errors” and got indignant on your behalf. The combination of arrogance and ignorance is galling. Heck, I read too many nineteenth century British novels as a teenager and sometimes I use British spellings and I get irritated when Firefox or Thunderbird puts that squiggly red line underneath and have thought to myself, “I hope they have British versions.” I got mad when Diana made a statement to the effect of “everybody would want to live in a theocracy, or a near-theocracy, like the U.S.” (That’s not an exact quote but I don’t feel like digging it up right now.) My blood pressure went up so high I nearly had a stroke. I didn’t chime in on your side because I would have been unable to do so without cursing and being entirely inappropriate.
While I was dating the Korean man, I also happened to be friendly with a Korean woman who had moved to the U.S. as a teenager. We had a lot of discussions about the differences between Korea and the U.S. It helped me understand my boyfriend at times. The differences are real. Later, I had a boyfriend who worked for a multinational company in marketing and he told me that the Koreans and the French really do spend more money on their appearance than anyone else.
The differences are real, but it doesn’t help to discuss things when people overstate the case. I don’t feel like I grew up in a “backwater.” Plenty of Koreans are not at all superficial. I’m almost certain that I haven’t given you the impression that I’m unintelligent or uneducated. Do you know what it’s like to have Europeans and Canadians who are not very smart and not at all educated treat you like you’re a moron because you’re from the U.S.? Maybe I’m wrong, but if I were from the Caribbean or Africa and I complained about being treated like a moron because of my country of origin, if I said that I couldn’t get a job because of the assumptions people made about me, would you respond by saying, “But Caribbeans are less educated than we are!” That’s what you’re doing, Daz.
It may be inconvenient, but I’m a human being. Do you even understand the pain that is embodied by the statement, “I was thinking of suicide?” In retrospect it’s hard to see why, but I was madly in love with my ex-husband. I didn’t want to leave him, but I couldn’t live there anymore. We were still in love when I left. It was an extraordinarily painful decision. He wouldn’t move to the U.S. (Yes, Diana was very, very wrong.) He was emotionally stunted, in a way. He had had a terrible childhood. He wasn’t entirely a bad person, but he had a hard time being emotionally generous and supportive. I did seem like a strong person when he met me. If he had moved to New York where I had family and friends and job I liked, I really think I could have lived with his emotional distance. Since I was in a strange place trying to restart my life, I need extra emotional support and encouragement that he just didn’t have in him to give.
He’s the only man I’ve ever loved. I used to hope I’d meet someone else eventually, but at my age it’s not going to happen. Now I’m just getting stupid and sentimental.
I feel like you and I are talking at cross purposes.
By the way, people from the U.S. correct my grammar even when I’m right and I can quote the rule to them. A favorite is criticizing me for using “me” as the object of a preposition. I’ve wondered what prompts people to do that. I hate it, too. Although I’ve gotten used to allowing errors to seep through when writing online that I would have never allowed offline, and sometimes I cringe at my own mistakes if I see them after I hit “Post Comment,” I don’t think I come across as illiterate. I even had a man on a dating site send me a message suggesting that I rephrase what I had written in French because he thought it was inelegant, which it was. My French is very flat and to the point. His sentence contained a grammatical error. I asked if he was a native speaker of French, although I could tell he wasn’t. No, he was from the U.S. So maybe we do have some weird, obnoxious habit. I don’t know what would cause that.
I saw an exchange in the comments section of a photo post. Two people were puzzling about why others get mad when they correct people’s grammar and spelling online. I was tempted to write, “Perhaps because it’s rude.”
I would have been shocked if you weren’t from the U.K. At first I wasn’t sure whether you were Scottish, Welsh or English. I nixed Scottish first. Finally, I settled on English. I’m glad to hear it because, like most people, I love being right. 😉 Is it too nosy to ask where in England? There are local variations to the way people speak. Of course, you like to play with the language quite a bit, don’t you. So you’re probably not representative.
For cultural reference, I grew up in New Jersey. Yes, I have one of the ugliest accents in the English speaking world.
Okay, I’ve written far too much.
I think you maybe got more galled on my behalf than I did. I moderated in real-time chat-rooms for years before I ever became a blogger, so I’m pretty-well hardened to most of the expressions of idiocy and bigotry made possible by the semi-anonymity of the interwebs.
I think I should make it clear here, that neither I nor Daniel (who is USian himself, afer all) is saying that anyone, including you, must be stupid because they’re from the US. That’s putting the cart before the horse. We’re saying that the US tends to produce more of such people than do other developed countries. It is, after all, a supposedly well-educated country, yet a reported forty to fifty percent of its citizens believe the preposterous claim that the Earth is less than ten thousand years old. Hardly a sign of a successful education system. (I take no pride in the fact that such beliefs appear to be on the rise—probably not coincidentally at the same time as the demolishing, by successive governments, of the state education system—in my own country: but the “Bible-believing” religious right (many of them funded, oddly enough, by US-based organisations) do, at least, have much, much less political clout here.)
Regarding your near-suicide, I do feel for you; but it’s not a subject I’m comfortable talking about in public, for personal reasons.
As in “It’s behind me”? I see nothing wrong with such a construction. If someone were to say “It’s behind I,” I would think them either strange (if attempting to speak formally), a pirate, or a native of south-west England. Which, to answer your later question is where I’m from. Somerset, to be more precise, though my early childhood was spent in Devon.
Oh no! That would be Birmingham (UK) in particular, and the west Midlands in general.
As far as being galled goes, you may have noticed I’m a little emotional. In any case, it wasn’t exactly keeping me awake. I was awake and my mind was wandering.
I did get that Daniel was from the U.S. I seemed to have pegged him incorrectly. There’s a large subset of people here who deal with the less attractive parts of the culture by acting snobby. It’s often accompanied by a sort of Anglophilia or Francophilia.
I’ve watched this country become more conservative during my lifetime. It’s frustrating in a way you can’t possibly imagine. I’ve read statistics like the one you’ve quoted. I’m painfully aware of it and have no idea what to do. I can get very angry and frustrated with the left in this country because they insist on doing the same things that have been failing for over thirty years. I guess there are literally more people in this country who call themselves atheists today, but when I was growing up no one discussed religion and having parents who were atheists seemed like no big deal. Sometimes it feels like the South has colonized the rest of the country. I’ve spent some time there because I have family in the South, but I hate it there. Baltimore is bad enough. You couldn’t pay me enough to live in some of those states.
The U.S. is really two countries, not one. When you call the U.S. a developed country, you have to realize you’re only talking about the North. (I feel almost certain that someone is going to come and attack me about this. This subject can start a serious flame war on a U.S. political site.) If it wasn’t for the federal government and money from the North, the South would be a developing country or worse. There’s only one reason I don’t side with the people who would like to see the country split in two, and that’s African Americans. They’re mostly in the South and they’d suffer mightily in a split.
Personally, I’d like to see Northerners get over their fear of being accused of cultural imperialism and set up missionary schools in the South. It’s not going to happen, but I think it’s the only thing that will stop the metastasization of the Southern cancer from destroying the entire country. What you feel the U.S. is doing to your country I feel the South has done to mine.
You might be amused by the following:
My brother-in-law, now an atheist himself, grew up in a conservative, bible-thumping Methodist family. New Jersey is one of our less religious states, but there are atypical pockets. One of them is a very pretty seaside town called Ocean Grove that was founded as a Methodist retreat. The town is officially dry. R’s family has a house there and they have a big family reunion every summer. My sister and R just got back. R’s nieces and nephews, as they’ve been growing up, have started to tell him that they don’t believe in god, but they haven’t told their grandmother yet. On Sunday, Sis and R went to the beach. The twelve-year-old daughter of a friend asked if she could join them saying that she hated going to church. About an hour later, a young adult nephew came out and joined them bringing sandwiches and a bottle of white wine. A little later, a niece came bringing hummus and a bottle of red. The twelve-year-old finally said, “Are you drinking wine?” My sister said, “When you grow up, you can be an atheist, too, and sit on the beach drinking wine instead of going to church.”
I’m only familiar with a handful of English accents and those only because I’ve known someone from a particular place. I don’t think I know what a Birmingham accent sounds like. The aforementioned Englishman, the one I left for the Canadian, (He said it was mistake, but I didn’t believe him.) was from Manchester. On the up side, he had a reasonably diverse bedroom repertoire which, thankfully, did not include whispering sweet nothings.