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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to shout 'you dirty, horrible being'

100 replies

storminabuttercup · 18/07/2012 22:26

Well actually replace being with fucker but it's nearly the holidays innit?

The young lad next door has got a horrid habit, we've lived here 4 years and I'm sure it's new but he does that horrid snorting sound followed by a spit. It's fucking disgusting. It's every night, outside and I can hear it. It makes me gag. He'll be at it again first thing.

WIBU to shout 'oi, do you have to do that? you dirty fucker'

Bleugh.

OP posts:
EclecticShock · 18/07/2012 23:19

It's not just a time thing... That's oversimplifying it.

StellarforStar · 18/07/2012 23:19

Well, I'm working class and very common and it makes me want to vomit.

The upside to this is that if anyone ever spat on me, then I would immediately puke up on them, thus rendering the culture argument moot.

Y'know, being English and common and all that.

EduStudent · 18/07/2012 23:23

My DF does this every single day as part of his morning routine. Even though he's doing it in the bathroom, I can hear it from my room with all the doors shut. Grim grim grim.

Cultural tolerance swings both ways. Recognising that something like spitting is not part of one culture is equally as important as recognising that it is part of another.

5madthings · 18/07/2012 23:24

it is disgusting, my ds2 has been spitting recently, when playing football! not with the snorting tho. apparently 'all the footballers do it' i dont care if they do he is NOT allowed to and when he did it out the front the other day i brought him and said i wont allow him to play outside until he learns some manners!

as an aside is it cultural, only i was quite shocked by an elderly woman near me who did it in the street the other day, i know she is visiting her dil and has come overfrom India? i think and she doesnt speak english, but it really shocked me to see an elderly woman spit in the street, but have seen her since and she does it quite often! so maybe it is is cultural?

WorraLiberty · 18/07/2012 23:25

Look. When you visit or move to another country, the decent thing to do is to find out what is/isn't acceptable and do your best to adhere to it.

There will always be cultural and religious differences and with tolerance on both sides, these can become accepted and 'normalised' as many things have.

Spitting however is not one of those things and nor should it be.

It's selfish, dirty and disgusting. Anyone with a genuine need to spit can do it into a tissue so they do not impact on those around them.

If anyone of any culture living in the UK thinks they have the right to over rule this and spit on pavements/in public places, they are selfish filthy bastards imo.

I can't put it any clearer than that and it doesn't matter what 'class' MN decides to put me in.

SoleSource · 18/07/2012 23:26

On the spot fines for spitting or some other enforcable tough measure, I see people of all cultures and colours spitting here in B'ham. It is vile.

WorraLiberty · 18/07/2012 23:27

5mad yes especially in India, Hong Kong and Africa.

But again, they should find out what is/isn't acceptable in other countries they visit and at least make an effort to use a tissue here.

creativepebble · 18/07/2012 23:30

I am so with Worra on this. I just wish I could be as succinct.

5madthings · 18/07/2012 23:31

well that explains it then, it isnt helping my case with ds2 who sees this woman most days and as i said she frequently spits in the street! so me telling him its rude and bad manners and quite frankly disgusting and then he sees a nice old lady doing it kind of undermines me somewhat! perhaps her son and dil will tell her its not ok!

MrsTerryPratchett · 18/07/2012 23:31

When you visit or move to another country, the decent thing to do is to find out what is/isn't acceptable and do your best to adhere to it. I have lived in several other countries and traveled in more and can say, with no equivocation that the absolute worst at learning about the host country, learning the language and 'fitting in' are the English. Without a shadow of a doubt. The Israelis run a close second.

WorraLiberty · 18/07/2012 23:38

That's very true MrsT but it doesn't make it right.

Even when you go on a package holiday the reps will tell you if something is considered totally unacceptable in the country you're visiting.

5mad, when I was growing up during the 70's we had a lot of Indian people move to our area all at once and many of them (mainly the older men and women) would hoik up really loudly in the street and spit. I remember being amazed and disgusted at the same time (I was about 7yrs old)...but my Mum explained that they were from a country where that was considered normal so I understood...although I was no less disgusted.

After a few years, I don't remember any of them doing it so they obviously learnt it wasn't the done thing in England.

Spitting went back to being the pass time of teenage skin head boys!

MrsTerryPratchett · 18/07/2012 23:48

True Worra but it pisses me off when it is frequently the same people. People who think it is fine to eat fish and chips in Italy and not learn Italian, then go home and talk about Pakistani people not learning English. Grrr. I actually had someone tell me that they moved to Canada because the UK was 'full of immigrants'. What, like you, you mean?

5madthings · 18/07/2012 23:50

ds2 is just ten and is of the opinion that as wayne rooney does it that it is then ok Hmm bloody footballers!

it is being drilled into his head that it is not ok, its a new thing for him to do, but as i have revoked his playing out priviledge every time i see him doing it i imagine it will be short lived! he likes to play out!

WorraLiberty · 19/07/2012 00:44

I agree with that too MrsT although I would add there's a difference between not learning Italian for a week's holiday and not learning English (or any other language) when you've actually gone to live in that country.

One example of this is the school that I'm a Governor at, has in the past had to pay £90 an hour out of the limited school budget to hire an interpreter to communicate with the parents of a pupil when they've lived here for nearly 5 years.

Rather than pay this, the Head normally asks the parents if they can bring an English speaking friend or relative along...but if they can't it does smart a bit after so many years in this country.

When I go abroad for a week or two I do my best to learn the basics...like please, thank you, hello, goodbye etc....

But if I lived in a non English speaking country for any amount of time, I'd learn a lot more than that rather than develop an unhealthy sense of entitlement.

brdgrl · 19/07/2012 00:44

Right...cultures change and adapt. That doesn't mean that the host "culture" stays the same, secure at the top of the evolutionary chain, whilst all incoming marginal elements vanish or are suppressed. Actually, it means that the host culture adapts as well, becoming more hybrid as it absorbs elements of the new strands that enter into public life.

Now, you may be entitled to argue that public spitting is a bit of cultural adaptation you would prefer not to see, and you'd get a lot of support for that viewpoint.

But the "act British or go home" (or its cousins, the "love it or leave it"/"if you're going to live here speak the language") attitude is really kind of nasty, and it is a rhetorical fallacy, as there is no one monolithic "UK culture" in the first place. Whatever the Empire would have had you believe.

WorraLiberty · 19/07/2012 00:48

Sorry but I think that's bollocks to be honest.

One of the most wonderful things about the UK is how diverse and tolerant we are as a nation.

But simple things like spitting into a tissue and learning the language of the country you choose to live in, is a pretty basic thing imo.

It's got nothing to do with an 'Act British or go home' attitude.

brdgrl · 19/07/2012 01:00

Yes, well, we are never going to agree, as I think what you have said is bollocks as well.

It's got nothing to do with an 'Act British or go home' attitude.
It has everything to do with that.

learning the language of the country you choose to live in
The UK is a multilingual set of countries. Some of those countries have, historically, widely used languages other than English. In others, there are large populations of residents who use another language.

Do you not think that there are "British" attitudes and customs which seem just as disgusting to people who come here from elsewhere? ANd things that are practiced here as cultural norms that DO harm other people, the environment, offend sensibilities, etc - but no, they seem "normal" to those raised with those practices.

One of the most wonderful things about the UK is how diverse and tolerant we are as a nation.
People do tend to say that, don't they, usually when they are expressing intolerant viewpoints...

SoleSource · 19/07/2012 01:12

I think you're deluded brd Grin keep going.....

NapaCab · 19/07/2012 01:40

He should move to China. It's entirely acceptable to snort back phlegm and spit it out there, although the spitting is optional if you can't find a suitable place / receptacle. They actually find it disgusting that we blow our noses and then put the dirty hanky / tissue back in our pockets!

I was on an internal flight from Beijing to another city in China once on a pretty small plane and the amount of hoiking of snot and snorting of phlegm from fellow passengers nearly turned my stomach inside out. Yuck... one of my all time least favorite travel experiences!

SoleSource · 19/07/2012 01:54

LOL NapaCab OMG Grin and yuck

MrsTerryPratchett · 19/07/2012 02:36

Sorry Worra should have been more plain. These were people who lived in Italy when I lived there, actually for more years than I did.

Original poster
storminabuttercup · 19/07/2012 02:51

Oh heck it's all gone sour. I fell to sleep on sofa with the tv on Blush

I'm back to clarify that this young lad is indeed British, he was actually born in that house to two British parents. So certainly not a culture thing at all.

Although this thread seems to have moved on a bit now.

OP posts:
MrsTerryPratchett · 19/07/2012 05:15

storm you can't go leaving the thread. You know how these things can escalate on MN. Grin

EasilyBored · 19/07/2012 06:58

It's foul. Utterly disgusting and unnecessary. When someone does it near me in town I have to fight the urge to vomit on their shoes. I couldn't give a crap if they do it because it's cultural, because they have a chest infection or because they think it's cool. It's ALL ducking vile and sorry and makes me dry heave.

I also don't really but the cultural thing- the biggest offenders round here are young white men who also walk around with their hands stuck down the front of their tracksuit bottoms. Incidentally that's another vile habit.

EasilyBored · 19/07/2012 06:59

Meant to say fucking vile and dirty. Stupid phone.