Is it at all acceptable to ascribe certain traits/characteristics to different nations - as in the old chestnut "Germans have no sense of humour"

[emkana]

What do you think?

Are there national traits or are there only individuals?

and they nick the sunbeds

My German friend recently described a friend of hers (another German person) as being "so very German" - not in a complimentary way! Made me laugh and I had to point out to her that I would never dare to say it, but it seemed ok coming from her!

no doubt all the other countries have something they say about us.

Well i do this ALL the time but I think it is generally frowned upon.Finns are alcoholics, germans are obsessed with order and totally without humour,french men are all lecherous etc.etc.I could go on,indeed I do..

I didn't really want to talk the Germans here - bearing in mind that I'm German myself - it was just an example!

oh well do me a favour and leave my sunbed alone when you are on hols

hellymelly, but in what company would you say it? Just in front of immediate family? Or even at work?

helly - carry on, what others?

It's a very fine line.

Nothing wrong with a bit of friendly joshing.

It's the whole "thin end of the wedge" / overstepping the mark thing which is a problem to define.

Look if you can't be bothered to get up early enough then that's not my problem

Well I think there's some truth in them, some exaggeration and some piss-take. If you're asking if it's racist then I'd say no.

swedes, sex-mad they are.

The Dutch speak very loudly i think, about 10 decibels above normal. Anyone else notice that?

And DH (scottish) is the least 'tight' bloke I've ever met!

This thread is brought on btw by dh not being able to talk about someone of a different nationality without saying "oh well he's French so that explains it" or something along those lines, and it gets on my nerves, which he can't understand

Well the German=efficiency works well for car sales. DH veers between Audis and BMWs.

yeah emkan but he does have a point

It's only since living in Spain that I understand how much like the Germans we are. I have a lot of German friends here and yet when I was a teacher they used to drive me mad.

In answer to the original question, it probably isn't acceptable or rather shouldn't be. Although most nationalities do it i would assume.

I think there are national traits [I came across a lot when I was teaching] but it is a sweeping generalisation and not set in stone.

Dara O'Briain did a brilliant sketch on this during his live shows. He started by getting a random country from a audience member, then a couple of character traits, good and bad. He said by the end of his show we'd all be convinced that any time someone mention Estonians (for example) we'd all be nodding and thinking, yeah, really honest people but no sense of humour, or whatever random things he had assigned to them. It was all a bit of a laugh but he was right in the fact that rightly or wrongly we love to stereotype.

Emkana, that sounds annoying though. You can't have a conversation without the person being dismissed? Sounds a bit tedious to me.

This thread makes me want to sing...
"And all the world over each nation's the same
They've simply no notion of playing the game
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won
And they practice before hand which spoils all the fun"

Depends. If he's talking about a love of brioche or something,he may have a point!

aah, emkana, you've sucked us in with your german example, we're lost now.

Friend was pg with ds2, went to hospital and was told that she was not in labour. She assured them that she was, but was sent home. Her dh drove her home and then turned round and drove her back to the hospital by which time she'd given birth on the back seat.

But then, she is German and wouldn't be proved wrong?!?!

I would of course not say that to her or her dh. Agreed it with all our (english) mutual friends though

And I ascribe my love of bottom jokes to my anglo saxon background - aren't germans (also anglo saxon or this is really pointless!) said to be obsessed with bottoms and everything that comes out of them too?

I think it is a very grey area - my FIL is incredibly offensive, comes back from his holiday each year insulting the host nationality (mostly lazy/greedy/money-grabbing Spaniards, along the lines of well you know what they're all like).

But in a jokey way perfectly acceptable IMO.

The Italians cant drive without tooting their horn and gesticulating madly at everyone else