If I ever judged the UK by what I saw on TV when I lived in the US

[Tee2072]

Everyone in the UK would either speak with a Cockney or RP accent.

They would all either live in an over crowded terrace or a huge country estate.

All the schools would be crap.

The populace would spend their entire lives in pubs.

Now, I never believed any of that, being a relatively smart human being.

So am I being unreasonable to wonder how come I'm constantly battling US TV stereotypes here on MN?

It's a thread about many many many threads.

Talking about grits (what is that anyway?) I suppose americans have their own stereotypes based on My Cousin Vinny, brash types from the Bronx or New Jersey (or wherever they were from) and backwards yokels from the deep south.

at okra.

My SIL has an american fridge as well, it is badly designed and seems to have no room in it. Mine is fabulous though, massive double doors fridge, and a huge drawer underneath which is the freezer, 1700 quids worth courtesy of mumsnet. Which was great at the time because I could say to my family 'SEE - it's worth me spending hours talking shite on mumsnet'

Think it's ground up corn? (sounds delicious, I know) You can have it many different ways, but the best way is with loads of butter and cheese.... Mmmmm....

My dad is from New Jersey/Brooklyn, and he fits the My Cousin Vinny stereotype 100%!

Okra: the only food in the world not improved by frying.

I have never ruined clothes in a US washing machine.

Tumble driers rule. And aren't actually that bad to run. Look at the facts, not the propaganda!

LeGavrOrf stop rubbing it in! I want a free massive fridge too!!

Tee YES! I so desperately miss having a proper drier. No ironing, and when it's really cold out, you can chuck your clothes in for a couple of minutes, and then you're nice and toasty....

Oh god, now I'm just glaring at my stupid all-in-one shitty steam drier that doesn't do anything right.

Fair enough Tee, but they are more damaging to clothes. It is the central agitator thing actually 'beating' the clothes around the drum. I've seen studies on it and clothes do pick up damage like stretching, small holes, etc more quickly.

Oh reggie I would love to have a dad like Vinny

Some american accents are brilliant. The new jersey one, working class Boston, southern accents and the germanic wisconsin type accents.

Tee I am from the same town in Georgia as Joanne Woodward. DH and I slept in the same bed that she and Paul slept in (not at the same time, however.)

God, you wouldn't. It's mortifying.

He has one volume, which is ear-splitting, he thinks that if someone is from a foreign country, he just needs to talk slowly and even more loudly (as if such a thing were possible), and he starts fights with anyone he doesn't like the look of. "You lookin' at me?! You lookin' at me?"

I think there is a lot if truth in the stereotype about Americans (the US type) having massive cars. I remember one of the B&B proprietors in California shaking her head in bafflement that we were going to squeeze our luggage into, and I quote, "that itty-bitty little car". It was a family sized saloon and there were only 2 of us (pre kids). There were also shocked news stories about "gas" hitting the dollar mark. H and I were pissing ourselves laughing because it had tipped a dollar per GALLON (this was 10 yrs ago). It has to be said, with all those massive SUVs and pick-ups hurtling past me on the highways, I have never felt less safe in a perfectly sensible family sized car.

Tumble driers have ruined a fair few clothing items in my experience. Washing machines much less so. I am pretty paranoid about TDing now.

Le Gav - I wss in Nashville and surrounding areas for a work training course about 15 years ago. I didn't see that much of the place but I can lay a wooden floor!

The thing that amused me most was the sign on the factory gate "All guns must be checked with security" I was supposedly coming from "war torn Belfast", as one of the locals said and they were surprised that this shocked me. I also got to stay in a hotel with a lake inside where a boat travelled round the bars on the "lake shore" inside!

They were shocked because I drank 3 frozen margaritas - therefore proving their stereotypes about the Irish and drink!

Haha at the wooden floor

I used to go to Florida a lot for work, was astonished at how the people were quite happy to drink and drive. Would go out for dinner with my co workers, they would sink a fair few beers and then merrily drive home, which I thought was a bit shocking.

Most striking memory of the place was the humidity and my crazy hair in reaction to it.

And I remember the Americans pissing themselves at me when I used the word fortnight in a business meeting, they said it sounded like a word from Shakespeare. I had no idea that Americans didn't use the term.

LaGavrOrf - My favourite is when one person says something like 'shall we table this' about a tricky point, and half the room thinks you mean thrash it out now and half thinks you mean put it to one side.

I laughed when my Florida workmates came to England for a meeting. On the way to work they went past a cattery. They asked 'what on earth is a cattery'. I just looked at them and said it is where you put your cats when you go at home, what do Americans do. They just said we leave the, at home, they're just cats.

Oh my, I am late to this thread, but cumON, Tee, you Americans have got it easy - try being a German in the UK .

I never left my cat alone, when I had one...for more than 4 nights.

I agree. They are cats. Big bowls of food and water and a litter tray. Sorted 'til you get back!

Orf the first thing I was handed to type up when I got my first UK PA job was a set of minutes that referred to 'tabling' things. I was so confused as they went on to discuss the item further!

No thanks PD.

I always feel the Germans are unfairly maligned about the whole towels on sunbeds thing. In my experience its the Brits who are rabid and obsessed with it.

On my last day at work where I trained, I arrived to find every surface of the office covered in huge bathtowels... I looked a bit like this - did not have a clue what they were on about - while all my colleagues where looking at me expectantly and like this: .

My lack of response and puzzlement just confirmed my typical German lack of sense of humour. I had to explain that never ever having been on a package holiday, I had never ever been guilty of the heinous crime of sunbed-claiming-with-towel.

They did give me a rather lovely, huge and fluffy beach towel as a going away present .

Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread.

I grew up between the States and Germany and have had many, many memorable conversations on both sides of the Atlantic about the relative merit of the other side.

'Do you come from East or West Germany?' - Ehm, seeing that this was in 1976, there war really only one side I could come from...

'Do you have indoor plumbing? Hot AND cold water?' -

'Why do you want to go back home? Why do you not want to stay in The Best Country In The World? - I was asked this at the end of a lovely summer I spent in California aged 14. Wanting to go back home to my family and returning to school and seeing my friends did NOT explain why I was rejecting The Best Country In The World in such an outrageous and insulting manner by turning my back on it!!

I love the US of A and all who reside in her, really

LaGavrOrf, I once stayed in a hotel with DH where a whole group of Germans AND Brits had been thrown into jail overnight after a fight over sunbed and claiming-with-towels. A Nairobi jail... surely no sunbed is worth that!

And I remember the Americans pissing themselves at me when I used the word fortnight in a business meeting, they said it sounded like a word from Shakespeare. I had no idea that Americans didn't use the term.

Same happened to me on our last US roadtrip. When I got home and related this to a group of friends, one of my friends said "se'night" used to be common parlance for a week, which was a new one on me. Then I felt kindred spirit with the baffled American.

Stereotypes: toe-curling patriotism and respect for authority.
Their conviction that the US is the best at everything.
Too much whooping, crying in public, self confidence.
1960s type tweeness over bodily functions eg bathroom means a toilet.

Has anybody quoted "Americans and Britains are seperated by a common language" yet?

So true.

My boys think the American use of the word 'pants' is just phantastically hilarious - easily pleased boys; the only thing funnier is a good fart joke