BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » National Stereotypes

Irene Adler · August 9, 2012 9:15 pm

The Doctor wrote:
Sydney Olympics in 2000 (best Olympic Games ever, of course).

You surely mean... the best after Barcelona 1992

Sorry, I couldn't help it...

The Doctor · August 10, 2012 12:28 am

Uh, Barcelona.. Caballe acknowledging Mercury's illness and then singing, gosh, singing, made me feel so deeply and cry so hard, I was just about dying.. will never forget that moment. Music is indeed one of our greatest cultural achievements!

Smoggy_London_Air · August 10, 2012 3:56 am

*Third best after Los Angeles

sherlockskitty · August 10, 2012 5:44 am

hey, what happened to the Athens Olympics? I'm such a mythology nut, I think that was the most beautiful as far as the scenery was concerned. and the stories!! And Pegasus flew in the opening ceremonies. That was a sweet sight for mine eyes.

Irene Adler · August 10, 2012 6:39 am

All of them had beautiful things, that's true. And Athens was great, yes (I also love mythology, Kitty).

But you can imagine, I have a special place in my heart for Barcelona '92. I was only 15 and though I am not close to Barcelona, I lived that Olympics very closely. And the Opening ceremony, with the archer lighting the cauldron, and La Fura dels Baus, and Caballé... I don't know, for me it was very special.

Mattlocked · September 2, 2012 12:30 pm

Found another one about Germans:
In my opinion we are the winners in "finding stupid German titles for foreign tv-shows or movies".
I know there are several "good examples", just don't remember any special right now.
Just the latest:

Bottle Shock with Alan Rickman will be on German TV in September (interested? einsfestival, 08.09. 22:00 Uhr and 09.09. 1:30 Uhr)
They call it: Bottle Shock - Die Chardonnay Cowboys.
OMG.... *shake head*

Did you find examples in your countries, too? IF translated? (I wonder why we have to do this all the time. "Bottle Shock" e.g. should be quite enough....?)

Davina · September 2, 2012 1:05 pm

Here that might be mistaken for Chardonnay that is of very poor quality. 'Cowboys' is a term used for builders and other tradesmen who do very poor or shoddy work, or some times none of the work they are paid for. Such people can work here without all the formal training and qualifications you would need to have in Germany.

Banbha · September 2, 2012 1:22 pm

veecee wrote:
BTW, when I first saw Moriarty entering the Tower, I thought he was posing as an American. Anyone else have that impression?

Yes. My first impression was that and my next was, "Gawd, they sure do think we're tacky idiots."

Banbha · September 2, 2012 1:30 pm

ancientsgate wrote:
We're so physically isolated from most of the rest of the world here in the States, most of us don't get that much opportunity to interact with foreigners/tourists, so I have no idea how we're perceived down at street level. Exception to that would be in downtown NYC or LA or San Francisco or DC or Chicago, I suppose. People who live or work there have a more per capita possibility of running into someone from another country.

Where I live, we have loads of Canadian tourists every summer, lots of license plates from Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I hope they find us friendly enough. I haven't heard otherwise. It helps to speak the language, of course.

I've visited NYC (Manhattan) a few times and have been treated very well by people on the streets there. Granted, I'm an American, just like then, but lost is lost, and when someone's lost in NYC, they're l-o-s-t. Asking for directions or help, I've never gotten an iota of attitude from the natives. Which I think is very nice.

I live in Michigan and I feel like we're kind of a Canadian/American melting pot though I've worked with Canadians and we do have to get over each other's stereotypes a little bit. 99% of the time it's good for a laugh, but there is always that one person who gets offended by trivial things.

I've been training a lot of our new hires at the hospital this summer, and one of them is a nice girl from Dublin who married an American man also working for the hospital. She's lovely but when she repeated my American accent back to me, she made me sound like a Texan (she said we sound twangy) so yeah, I think that's the stereotype quite a few people from across the pond have of us. I can assure you, to Americans, the Midwestern accent sounds nothing like a Texan accent. No way.

Banbha · September 2, 2012 1:31 pm

Dramagod wrote:
I know it's not even my turn but I'll say this quick before Smoggy beats me up. My stereotype of americans is that they're all over-weight trucker cap wearing slobs, who do nothing but sit in front of their TVs with a Jumbo size bucket of KFC in their lap and watch The Jerry Springer Show.

OMG, rude. *adjusts cap, gnaws on chicken bone*

Really though, I don't resemble this stereotype at all. Jerry Springer makes me ashamed to be American. I'm a vegetarian who hates large corporations like KFC because they support factory farming which is cruelty to animals disguised as commerce and sucks the life out of our environment. I wouldn't be caught dead in a trucker cap (though truck stops while on a road trip, in the middle of the night, are great fun) and...er...I am a little overweight and I do sit in front of my TV a lot. Or rather, my computer. But in my defense I work a very physically demanding job, and because of my commitment to vegetarianism, I've lost weight and continue to.

Not all Americans are stupid slobs. Some are, not all.

My stereotype of Scandinavians is that they're all snobby Volvo drivers with homes furnished exclusively by IKEA. Which I know is not reality, and that Finland is not even part of Scandinavia, but there you go.

veecee · September 2, 2012 8:29 pm

Banbha wrote:
ancientsgate wrote:
We're so physically isolated from most of the rest of the world here in the States, most of us don't get that much opportunity to interact with foreigners/tourists, so I have no idea how we're perceived down at street level. Exception to that would be in downtown NYC or LA or San Francisco or DC or Chicago, I suppose. People who live or work there have a more per capita possibility of running into someone from another country.

Where I live, we have loads of Canadian tourists every summer, lots of license plates from Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I hope they find us friendly enough. I haven't heard otherwise. It helps to speak the language, of course.

I've visited NYC (Manhattan) a few times and have been treated very well by people on the streets there. Granted, I'm an American, just like then, but lost is lost, and when someone's lost in NYC, they're l-o-s-t. Asking for directions or help, I've never gotten an iota of attitude from the natives. Which I think is very nice.
I live in Michigan and I feel like we're kind of a Canadian/American melting pot though I've worked with Canadians and we do have to get over each other's stereotypes a little bit. 99% of the time it's good for a laugh, but there is always that one person who gets offended by trivial things.

I've been training a lot of our new hires at the hospital this summer, and one of them is a nice girl from Dublin who married an American man also working for the hospital. She's lovely but when she repeated my American accent back to me, she made me sound like a Texan (she said we sound twangy) so yeah, I think that's the stereotype quite a few people from across the pond have of us. I can assure you, to Americans, the Midwestern accent sounds nothing like a Texan accent. No way.

I'm not from Michigan originally, but my accent is very similar. Many of us "suffer" from the "Northern Cities Vowel Shift." I cringe when I hear my own recorded voice, although I can speak without the NCVS when I want. According to this article (link below), though , many of us NCVS speakers are not aware of our own accent. Well, I guess that is true of speakers all over.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2012/08/northern_cities_vowel_shift_how_americans_in_the_great_lakes_region_are_revolutionizing_english_.html

Davina · September 2, 2012 9:11 pm

Interesting article, even though I'm not American or Canadian. Funny to read someone saying about only living 100 miles away. Here that is seen as a really long way. We would fully expect people to have very different accents, even dialects, if they lived that far apart.

Banbha · September 3, 2012 12:07 am

Davina wrote:
Interesting article, even though I'm not American or Canadian. Funny to read someone saying about only living 100 miles away. Here that is seen as a really long way. We would fully expect people to have very different accents, even dialects, if they lived that far apart.

Well, I am fairly near Chicago, IL, close enough to drive there and back in a day though I think it is still over 100 miles away from me) and many of them have a very distinct accent from me. I feel like as I go south--Indiana and such--the accent changes as well. There are also regional names for common objects. Here in Michigan, if you're American and call a soft drink (Coke, Pepsi, Sprite) a "soda" they will laugh at you. It's called a "pop" here. I've lived all over the USA from Pittsburgh, PA to San Diego, CA and I've always had to adjust to the region. And Pittsburgh English is VERY distinct, so much so that I had trouble understanding some people simply because of words used. (If you're interested, look up Pittsburghese on YouTube.)

Banbha · September 3, 2012 12:14 am

veecee wrote:
I'm not from Michigan originally, but my accent is very similar. Many of us "suffer" from the "Northern Cities Vowel Shift." I cringe when I hear my own recorded voice, although I can speak without the NCVS when I want. According to this article (link below), though , many of us NCVS speakers are not aware of our own accent. Well, I guess that is true of speakers all over.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2012/08/northern_cities_vowel_shift_how_americans_in_the_great_lakes_region_are_revolutionizing_english_.html

Born in AZ and moved to MI as an infant, moved again when I was 7...I feel like not originally from anywhere, haha, though I guess I've lived in MI the majority of my life. I think because I've been around a few different American accents, I can still hear my own and try to adjust for it. I agree with the article, and there is a very distinct accent around the Great Lakes (though, as I said to Davina, Chicago has their own thing going on) but sorry, I don't care for the nasally vowel shift. With coworkers I tend to slip into more lazy speaking, dropping the ends of my words, not enunciating properly saying things like "jahb" instead of "job," but I don't like how it sounds. That's probably why my new Irish coworker made fun of me and Canadian coworkers have laughed (for example, I say "sahccer" instead of "soccer").

Last edited by Banbha (September 3, 2012 12:21 am)

221B Baker Street · September 3, 2012 9:37 am

Banbha wrote:
Dramagod wrote:
I know it's not even my turn but I'll say this quick before Smoggy beats me up. My stereotype of americans is that they're all over-weight trucker cap wearing slobs, who do nothing but sit in front of their TVs with a Jumbo size bucket of KFC in their lap and watch The Jerry Springer Show.
OMG, rude. *adjusts cap, gnaws on chicken bone*

I had approximately the same stereotype of the Americans, I mean overweight and eating lots of unhealthy food such as crisps or fast-food.
I think most of the stereotypes go from TV and films. In American movies I always watch people eating fast-food. It's just the same as Russian people are always pictured as drunkards in films. Or Spanish are always having siesta .

By the way, my stereotype about the Germans is that they are not generous and are very 'locked', I mean not having close friends and being by themselves most of the time.

ancientsgate · September 3, 2012 12:21 pm

221B Baker Street wrote:
I had approximately the same stereotype of the Americans, I mean overweight and eating lots of unhealthy food such as crisps or fast-food.

*channels Sherlock* Oh, we would never eat crisps..... potato chips, maybe.....

221B Baker Street · September 3, 2012 12:30 pm

ancientsgate wrote:
221B Baker Street wrote:
I had approximately the same stereotype of the Americans, I mean overweight and eating lots of unhealthy food such as crisps or fast-food.
*channels Sherlock* Oh, we would never eat crisps..... potato chips, maybe.....

I thought these words were synonyms, no?

ancientsgate · September 3, 2012 12:51 pm

221B Baker Street wrote:
ancientsgate wrote:
221B Baker Street wrote:
I had approximately the same stereotype of the Americans, I mean overweight and eating lots of unhealthy food such as crisps or fast-food.
*channels Sherlock* Oh, we would never eat crisps..... potato chips, maybe.....
I thought these words were synonyms, no?

Sorry, I was just being a wise ass. Um, yes, crisps and potato chips are the same thing, but in the US, we would never call them crisps. Crisps is a UK thing, and Australia, too, I presume. There's no reason why you should have known that, of course. So we "fat" Americans eat fast food and potato chips.

One thing I've seen clearly from this thread is that almost all of the preconceived notions about Americans come directly from our movies and TV shows, which are exported all around the world. As you can imagine, that made-up, make-believe world is hardly indicative of real life here. The whole idea of what people think we are, do, think, say, etc, coming from those images frankly makes me cringe. Again, not your fault-- I'm just saying.

Last edited by ancientsgate (September 3, 2012 12:52 pm)

Banbha · September 3, 2012 2:05 pm

I agree with ancientsgate. I'm not offended by what's being said here (as I think we're all doing some stereotyping and some of it's quite funny), but I do very much resent how the rest of the world views us. Americans who are the epitome of this stereotype disgust me just as much as they do you, I assure you. Besides, in my opinion, only very interesting, intelligent, and worldly people watch shows like Sherlock.

P.S. I don't think it's bad to enjoy fast food in moderation. I like fries (chips) from time to time and even the occasional Taco Bell run. But it's not meant to be your entire diet, and I think Americans try to pack so much into a day that they don't leave room for the essentials. Like eating properly and sleeping.

hepzibah · September 3, 2012 2:54 pm

The whole chip/crisps/fries thing is so confusing. What Americans call fries, Aussie call chips. And what the English call crisps, we call chips as well. In fact, if it involves a potato and oil, whether hot from a deep fryer or thin and in a package, it is a chip. Or these guys. End of discussion. Not really!

Last edited by hepzibah (September 3, 2012 2:55 pm)