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.

Oh my god I am cringing at your dozy Brit work colleagues doing that with the towels. Bloody hell!

And that is crazy to get slung into a Kenyan jail over towels.

My DP worked in Germany for years and learned German there. He has got lots of stories of his German colleagues and friends telling him to go and buy something and the word was x, when it was something rude. He ended up fluent but his mates said he sounded gay because apparently the way he spoke German with his quite voice was effeminate.

He knows lots of fabulous German swear words which he has taught me.

My father says that all the fucking time PD. Makes me want to kill him.

When the Americans laughed at my fortnight I felt like I was the country mouse visiting the sophisticated town mice.

Compounded by the fact I had flown in the day before, the airline had left my luggage on Boston, and so I had to go to this meeting with yesterday's contact lenses welded to my eyes, hair of insanity, the jeans and crappy top I had travelled in and flip flops.

For a Brit NOTHING is funnier than 'fanny pack'

Or the phrase 'kick you in the fanny' which makes my face shrivel.

Sorry

The towel thing was quite funny. Once if was explained to me...

Here's another thing every single American household has: a wall-mounted squarish telephone with a curly lead several yards long to allow the receiver to be held handsfree between the chin and the shoulder and a conversation to continue while unpacking shopping (from brown paper bags) or cooking or painting toe nails.
Must be true, I've seen it on TV

Roseanne had one of those phones....

Oh yes, fanny pack

even funnies as I have an Aunt Fanny

'that's it, slide your fanny right over'

....said to me by a cab driver last time I was in NY. I would have hoped that aged 46 I'd have matured but nope. Still funny.

Yup. Still funny

The American ring tone scares the shit out if me.

All those horror films.

If you judged the UK by what you saw on TV...

Everyone would always live in the same village/street that they grew up in. Someone moving in would be referred to as a "newcomer" for at least 20 years.

"Someone moving in would be referred to as a "newcomer" for at least 20 years."

Where I live in the UK it is like that

We looked around a house and asked if the owners were moving out of the area, they said yes and named a village 4 miles away!

Trills, I've been here for 20 years and I'm most certainly a newcomer

Americans
extreme either size 0 or size 28
loud
insular
polarised
loaded or skint
hardly get any holiday leave
live in mansions or on a trailer park
v v right wing
carry guns

The difference is that us brits are crap at selling ourselves whereas the US are really good at it.

You would have to be daft to think that what you see in British TV is true to life, American TV is just much more convincing.

(my stereotype: Americans are good at selling, Brits are crap at it)

Disclaimer: I have worked a lot with sales people in both the UK and the US and I think this is actually true.

Well, that's the whole point of stereotypes, isn't it: there is a kernel of truth in a lot of them...

Americans think nothing of driving for absolute hours to, say, go to the cinema
Americans don't walk anyway - unless it's a 'work-out'
Americans all love and adore European fashion
Americans aspire to driving certain European high-end cars

I've witnessed all of the above. Some of the time. From some people.

I was once stopped by a police car for walking in Bel Air

Americans will drive 3 hours at the drop of a hat, and back again the same day.

Brits going anywhere over half an hour away requires long discussions in the pub over "should you take the A303 past Stonehenge?".

I live round the corner from where I grew up but I'm a newcomer because my parents didn't grow up here. If still here my grand children may be considered local :)

Used to be a solicitor and in my youth did some criminal cases, requiring court appearances. Had conversation today with DS18 who said " So did you ever get attacked in court Mum?" "No". "Well it's not like on the telly then , is it?"
No. It's not.

Re: the midwife thing mentioned earlier, I chose to do a midwife birth at NYC's only birthing centre, and routinely had to explain to people what a midwife was. My sister-in-law thought they were just bastions of the local community, unqualified in any medical sense, but particularly interested in babies and childcare (and my sister-in-law is a smart woman).

Americans care far less about fashion trends. Go to the suburbs of NYC of a weekend, and it seems that most people are dressed in Lululemon pants, jeans or leggings, likely paired with a sweatshirt embossed with the name of the college they attended.

Even normal seeming Americans will talk about 'God' without embarrassment.

stopgap Which burbs are you going to?!! I don't know one woman who would be caught dead, outside her own in-home gym, in a sweatshirt with her college name on.

And I've never had a conversation about God either. That maybe because all of my friends are Jewish and I'm not though.

Having just seen The World's End, then obviously the entire British nation pretty much lives in the pub.

In desperate need of a pint now = a British one!