Things I think are true about America based on Tv and Film

[PennyHasNoSurname]

People sort of pick at their food with just a fork - putting it on, scraping it off, moving it round the plate before putting it back on again and eating half of whats on the fork. Food must be stone cold by the end.

Nobody says goodbye on the phone. Now I know us Brits are painfully polite to a fault but "see you later" or "bye" is basic?

Everyone eats out of packets / dried goods. Of which they have 3000 of in their basement

School finishes at about 11am. University is called School (isnt that confusing?!)

[Davros]

You must have blood tests before you can get married.
Everything taken to the pawn shop is still there whenever you want it back (Glenn Miller's trombone, the typewriter in The Lost Weekend).
Someone explain to me - do the kids go to summer camp while the parents are at work or do the parents send them while they, the parents, are on holiday?

[DadOnIce]

People with stalls selling stuff in the street, like fruit and veg - their sole role in life is to get everything knocked over as the baddies' car/ motorbike screams past, and wave their fists at them. They will just be picking everything up again and getting it straight when the cops' pursuit vehicle zooms past, upsetting the produce once again. At this point, the stallholder must stand in the street and do "ahhh, mamma mia" style frustrated gestures, like shrugging and stamping and open-handed "gimme a break" gestures as he stares angrily after the car.

[BayLeaves]

Detectives, intelligence agents, corporate lawyers and other similar professionals usually don't have partners or kids.

The ones who do have kids only spend a few minutes with them once a week or so, even then it's only when they bump into them by chance, because they're too busy working from 7am - 2am. (Although there's always plenty of time for long lunches with colleagues or love interests)

When you get home from your 19 hour workday, you have some leftover Chinese takeaway at 2.30am then you get about 3 hours of sleep before continuing to work on the case.

[AlisonWunderland]

Every alley contains a dumpster (a skip)
All dumpsters contain either an old mattress or a pile of empty cardboard boxes.
Jumping out a window into one of these dumpsters is perfectly safe, and you will never land on concrete blocks, broken glass or used nappies

[Barbedwirelove]

They never have a 'it's nearly pay day fridge' ie empty apart from a few manky and forlorn mushrooms.

Their fridges are always full to the brim of beer, huge bowls of prepared salad (complete with servers), whole cheesecakes and all sorts of other yummy things and fruit that you never, ever see anyone eat.

[NeverNic]

Or something like speak later. What I found unsettling that the people I spoke to in the us on the phone would hang up at the end of their sentence rather than pause for you.

[NeverNic]

OP - having worked for an American bank before (in the uk) I can confirm that hanging up without a goodbye is a thing! It took me a very long time to get over that. If they are leaving a message with you, it's very common. There are other phrases they end with like a quick thanks at the end of a sentence or a customer service / concierge will end with a version of have a nice day. Of course this is a generalisation but very common in my experience X

[poppetsocks]

If you are invited for tea there will always be a big bowl of mash in the middle of the table passed over to you, which is the only thing you eat.
If you go shopping for clothes you must try on every outfit whilst doing mad poses/dancing etc regardless of who is in there without embarrassment.
School dinners are always a carton of milk and some kind of sludge and bread roll,
The cool kid at school always sits under a tree playing guitar.

[magratvonlipwig]

People either live in a huge house with a garden which they call a yard, or a squalid flat with no hygeine.
In the 80's every child had a private landline in their bedroom
Policemen survive on donuts

[BobandKate0]

Bowls of chilli.
You can get them anywhere,every corner store has a little table and stool for the cops to sit at ,even thou there's no menu.
Also everyone orders off menu in restaurants.
And every bar has a bottle of scotch with a regulars name on it .
All ex cops run a burger van or work the door in a plush hotel.

I may have been watching too much columbo.
But i have yet to find a british ex- cop working,don't they all go off to spain to chat with the crooks they failed to catch.

[kickassangel]

Housing is SO much cheaper than in the UK. There are regional variations, of course, but San Francisco (vv expensive compared to the US) is comparable to the SE of England, outside of London.

I live in the midwest. My house is HUGE - more than double the size of the last place in the UK, but about 1/3 of the cost. For the same price, in a commuter town in Kent, I can get a 2 bedroom flat.

So, yes, out of town housing is all huge, often with an acre of land as standard, and far more people can afford it. My nearest neighbours are retired, a teacher, unemployed, self employed builder and part time worker. Yet our house is a mansion that would cost way more than a million pounds in the UK.

And I find the house far easier to keep clean - it's modern, not so much dust, plenty of storage so not much clutter. Everyone can have their own room to relax and watch TV etc, so each room is less full up messy.

[Janey50]

Everyone has fantastic immaculately clean houses,yet no one ever does any housework. And how do they afford these beautiful,huge houses when they all seem to have pretty average paid jobs?!

[SenecaFalls]

I lived in a townhouse in Philadelphia where all the houses on the street had letter slots in the front doors, which was the first time I had encountered it. My dog would go absolutely nuts when the letters hit the floor; he would rage at them and tear them to shreds. I had to get a basket to attach to the door so they wouldn't hit the floor. Where I live now in Florida, all the mailboxes in the neighborhood are clustered at stations dotted throughout. We usually stop on the way in from work to collect.

[NinjaLeprechaun]

Not halfway through a lesson, but halfway through a sentence certainly.
Depending on the subject, in a discussion class they can just pick up the next day where they left off at the end of the last class. At least in Jr High and High School, primary would be a little different.

[kickassangel]

Oh, and I'm a teacher. I haven't yet encountered a RL lesson where the teacher is still half way through the class when the bell goes. That one is weird and makes no sense.

[kickassangel]

I know it was a while ago, but someone mentioned newspapers.

There are NO letterboxes in front doors. It took me a while to get used to. People sometimes have a paper box (like a mail box) by their driveway, or it just gets dumped by someone driving slowly past and throwing it out the window.

Letters are all put in mailboxes, at the end of the drive, or in a cluster at some point.

Driers - where we live, we can dry clothes outside but not have a permanent line put up. However, for 6 months a year it would freeze the clothes solid, so a drier is pretty important. When you buy a house all things like driers/fridge etc are left in the house, not taken with you.

[NinjaLeprechaun]

"Home-time bell always goes off at school in the middle of teacher talking."
In my experience, this one is pretty true. Teachers are obviously trying to use every available minute they have, which is reasonable enough.
Most of them will hold the students until they finish their point, rather than letting them jump up right at the bell, though - which can be frustrating if you have another class to get to.

[EsmeOz]

Home-time bell always goes off at school in the middle of teacher talking. The teacher then sets homework assignment with the response of an en-masse groan.

Opening of films often include a night-time shot of a group of homeless people rubbing their hands around petrol barrels with fires in.

What tosh.

[BertieBotts]

Plug socket being controlled by a wall switch is interesting. I'd never heard of hat before.

I think eating on TV always looks fake because like others said it would be impractical for the actors.

[LucyBabs]

Drinking milk with your dinner is a huge thing in Ireland! Agree about in American films nobody says goodbye when ending a telephone conversation. Over here we say bye at least 6 times

[ScrabbleScream]

When arranging a date theres never a time set. Or a place to meet. Its just "see ya later" and miraculously they are ready when the date turns up/they just know where to turn up.

[ChristineDePisan]

Yes, I didn't mean cut up everything at once (that's what I do when I'm having a TV meal by myself ), but cutting up a couple of bites then switching over cutlery is I'm sure what someone referred to upthread as looking like they spend their whole time pushing their food round the plate (as well as the obvious not eating because it's the 34th take and the food has gone stone cold)

[SenecaFalls]

Actually, quite a few Americans eat in what we refer to as the continental style. It usually means that they have spend some time in Europe. I adopted it when I was a student years ago in the UK; it's much easier once you get used to it, and it is acceptable etiquette in the US.

[00100001]

I don't know anyone that cuts up all their food prior to eating (except when doing it for a child)

[MuttonWasAGoose]

It's actually not good manners to chop up all the food. You're supposed to cut one bite at a time. I will sometimes cut two, because you cut off a slice of the steak/whatever, and then cut off half for one bite, leaving a second bite ready. But to cut the whole steak into bites at once isn't proper manners.