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americans talk too loud
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Jun 4, 2014 10:33
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 20:54 |
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Used to live in SF and San Antonio and had gastropubs in both place (using that name), so they definitely exist in the US Been in the UK for 18 months and definitely notice the difference in how much people drink, but it is easily enough avoided by not going to the pub every night, heh
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Jun 4, 2014 12:22
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:I've never heard anything being called a "gastropub" in America. Really? I live in Alabama and we have gastropubs.
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Jun 4, 2014 15:46
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No one really uses the term "Gastropub" unironically any more though. Basically, 10-15+ years ago most pubs in the UK didn't really care about serving decent food, although you'd get the odd food-focused pub. Then, they realised they could make more money if they served decent food, so it became a lot more normal for your standard pub to serve OK to decent food. Gastropub was coined to referred to those that were particularly pretentious about this and could often be spotted by serving food on chopping boards or square plates with over the top presentation. Out of this, it's now much easier to find decent food in a pub than it was 10-15 years ago. Even our cheap chain pubs (Wetherspoons, etc) serve half decent food at good prices. But, our low/mid range "restaurants" (this includes pubs) have never been of the same quality as the low/mid range US eating establishments (including bars, where the food is often of good quality). This is one of the reasons British food has a bad reputation. We just don't have the Applebees, Chillis, Cheesecake Factory, etc type range of restaurants. Those we do have (TGI Fridays, Frankie & Bennies) are relatively expensive and are a novelty "American" style of restaurant.
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Jun 4, 2014 16:11
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lol "culture"
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Jun 4, 2014 16:17
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Any good reason why? Especially when you consider how many notable chefs the UK has produced?
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Jun 4, 2014 17:09
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Liar posted:Any good reason why? Especially when you consider how many notable chefs the UK has produced? Saying that, "Little Chef", a popular (but increasingly unfashionable) roadside restaurant chain was revamped by Heston Blumenthal a while ago with mixed success. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Chef#Heston_Blumenthal
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Jun 4, 2014 18:52
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Ewan posted:This is one of the reasons British food has a bad reputation. We just don't have the Applebees, Chillis, Cheesecake Factory, etc type range of restaurants. Those we do have (TGI Fridays, Frankie & Bennies) are relatively expensive and are a novelty "American" style of restaurant. British food has a bad rep because you *don't* have those lovely restaurants? Also I've never heard of Frankie and Bennies..maybe that one is your guy's fault? My grandma talks about eating eels and hiding from hitler's bombers or whatever, so that's sortof a culture clash. Hitler's dead granny and eels are gross unless prepared by japanese sushi man.
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Jun 4, 2014 19:09
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:I've never heard anything being called a "gastropub" in America. Chicago is choked with them. Come by some time and enjoy a nice Orval with your goat cheek in framboise reduction.
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Jun 4, 2014 20:05
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Depending on where in the US you are from, you might find it a tad jarring that people in London don't really talk to or acknowledge strangers. I'm a Londoner and when I visit the US I'm struck by people saying 'good morning' etc. in the the street or striking up conversation at a bus stop/train platform. We don't really do that so don't be offended if you get ignored more than you are used to. That said, nobody is going to properly freak out if you try to initiate a conversation or anything. Please do not attempt to co-opt local slang, its painful and unnecessary. We are familiar with all of your slang so you can just use that. You can use the tube or buses to get pretty much anywhere you like, and this is the default mode of transport for most people in London. Public transport doesn't carry any of the stigma it (seems to) have in the US, and I think most people here are much more reluctant to pay for taxis as the default mode of city transport - they aren't cheap. Aside from these little things I don't think you are going to experience anything close to culture shock, the UK and especially London are so similar to the US in many regards that its hardly worth worrying about. Half-jokingly: for our sake, consider talking more quietly than you perhaps would like to.
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Jun 4, 2014 20:08
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Captain Mediocre posted:Depending on where in the US you are from, you might find it a tad jarring that people in London don't really talk to or acknowledge strangers. I'm a Londoner and when I visit the US I'm struck by people saying 'good morning' etc. in the the street or striking up conversation at a bus stop/train platform. We don't really do that so don't be offended if you get ignored more than you are used to. That said, nobody is going to properly freak out if you try to initiate a conversation or anything. When we get our first "hot" day, a lot of the newspapers will use phrases such as SCORCHER! and have lots of gratuitous pictures of girls in bikinis. Similarly, any period of bad weather will get the news going, such as snow which tends to cause our entire infrastructure to grind to a halt.
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Jun 4, 2014 21:07
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-Potential water issues: ie 2-tap designs, low shower pressure, and hard water. The first two can be avoided by living in a newish building. -Pubs are wonderful, and everywhere. -Better/safer drivers. -'Pudding' has several meanings - be careful! -The standard UK grocery stores are similar in quality to the nicer US ones. Ie like Harris Teeter, not Food Lion. -Get used to smaller appliances. Dominoes fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jun 4, 2014 |
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Jun 4, 2014 21:35
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These last three posts have given me serious deja-vu from my time living in Japan. Not talking to strangers? check. Unless talking to strangers involves talking about weather? check. Public transport not having any sort of stigma? check. Nice grocery stores? check. Said water issues? check. Just switch out izakayas for pubs, and Japanese for English, and it will be easy-peasy.
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Jun 4, 2014 22:16
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Ferdinand the Bull posted:Just switch out izakayas for pubs, and Japanese for English, and it will be easy-peasy. I heard that in Japan it's considered rude to blow your nose. In the UK, if you're sniffing away, it's considered rude not to. You will probably find our shops (stores) really small. Oh, and if you go outside of London, shops close at like 5.30pm.
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Jun 5, 2014 00:01
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N-52 latitude means huge seasonal swings in daylight. The winter's no fun, but at least it doesn't get terribly cold.
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Jun 5, 2014 00:08
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madlilnerd posted:I heard that in Japan it's considered rude to blow your nose. In the UK, if you're sniffing away, it's considered rude not to.
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Jun 5, 2014 01:22
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Sunday afternoon/evening should be prime Tesco time - pretty frustrating.
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Jun 5, 2014 01:36
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Alright. In your opinions then, what is the coolest / least obnoxious, and has rent towards the cheaper side of things in London? I know it's an expensive city, so I say cheap 'relatively'.
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Jun 5, 2014 03:40
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Ferdinand the Bull posted:Alright. In your opinions then, what is the coolest / least obnoxious, and has rent towards the cheaper side of things in London? It's hard to offer a blanket list of 'cheap' areas that fit your personal taste, especially if you're planning to flatshare, because good available rooms crop up all over the place with pretty extreme differences in rent. If you literally just want some place names to kick off your search though personally I think you could do much worse than Whitechapel/Mile End/Bow. The east end generally tends to have some cheaper rents considering how close to the heart of the city it is. It's certainly not posh and lots of it isn't very trendy, but it is very well connected and most of it isn't too crime-y. If you want to go even cheaper, you'd want to be looking further out in south London, but the transport links get a bit lovely south of the river and large parts of it don't have a great reputation for safety. It kind of goes without saying but living anywhere near the centre of the city is going to cost a lot, even just for a bedroom. If you're on a tight budget don't rule out the suburbs because the tube makes a huge area surrounding London viable living space without compromising too much of the city lifestyle. Of course these are all generalizations and you shouldn't take my word as gospel. Captain Mediocre fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Jun 5, 2014 |
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Jun 5, 2014 03:53
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Going the other direction, from an American who has spent time in Europe and has friends over there: The US is a loving huge country. Seriously, look at a map. You could fit Europe from Lisbon to Petersburg in here. There are 300+ million of us. Please stop assuming we're all the same. Sure we're more culturally homogeneous than continental Europe, but gently caress me there is more than just NY and LA. If you really want to figure out what makes this place tick and why we do what we do, spend some time in the parts of the country that aren't frequent subjects of TV and movies, and do so with an open mind. Also, yes, our electrical infrastructure is above ground. It works for us.
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Jun 5, 2014 07:55
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All the streets in the UK seem narrow and constricting. Also depressing and rainy.
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Jun 5, 2014 09:25
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Megadyptes posted:americans talk too loud Part of the way American English works is that you raise your volume when you're interested. British English does this too, but not to the same degree. When we're trying to show someone we're interested in them we talk more loudly. British people are stereotypically reserved and, uh, mildly gnomish to many Americans, in part because Brits don't participate in this. Around people we haven't just met or in day to day situations our volume is very close to British volume (IMO). ----- Most of my experience with British nationals was when I lived in Bangkok. The two biggest differences to me in that context were that 1) your average Briton grew up in a much more blatantly and unapologetically classist society (which both lends graces and causes ugliness) and 2) most Americans (certainly not all!) try very hard to fit in and play along when in foreign situations whereas a Briton is more likely to just go "gently caress it, I'm British and I'm going to act British." These may have not been my number 1 and 2 if I had met British people in England. Scottish and Irish nationals were fairly different. Apparently Welsh men stay in Wales because I only ever met Welsh girls. The Scots and Irish I met were generally more well read than what I expect from an average non-NYC American. Brits were at par. People from the UK are maybe a little better at maintaining a conversation, Americans better at starting one. People from the UK are less prone to that sort of "I'm a big man and I ernt my money"  bullshit that absolutely loving plagues America.Brits are considered (on average) to be notoriously bad customers in the NYC hospitality industry -- demanding, borderline rude, and of course cheap when it comes to tipping. I realize that tipping is rare/non-existent in England but Australians and the Irish figure it out when they visit, and their behavior before that is much less like they're talking to their mulatto houseboy instead of a human being. Anyway, I attribute this to points 1 and 2 in the second paragraph in this post.
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Jun 5, 2014 10:19
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Cyrano4747 posted:Also, yes, our electrical infrastructure is above ground. It works for us. This is pretty stupid IMO but on the other hand it's way easier to fix. Even living in the middle of nowhere power outages were rare and the electric company was quick to fix anything though.
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Jun 5, 2014 10:19
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ghetto wormhole posted:This is pretty stupid IMO but on the other hand it's way easier to fix. Even living in the middle of nowhere power outages were rare and the electric company was quick to fix anything though. It's also way cheaper to build.
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Jun 5, 2014 10:22
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Sheep-Goats posted:It's also way cheaper to build. Honestly my internet goes out 10x more often and the power equally as often living in a city as the power went out growing up on a farm. They'd never put up a DSL node close enough to us though 
my kinda ape fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Jun 5, 2014 |
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Jun 5, 2014 10:27
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Sheep-Goats posted:1) your average Briton grew up in a much more blatantly and unapologetically classist society (which both lends graces and causes ugliness) I hear private schools get mentioned in movies and tv shows a lot; how common are they in Britain? Is it mostly upper class or is it common for middle class families to attend them?
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Jun 5, 2014 11:01
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Terminal Entropy posted:I hear private schools get mentioned in movies and tv shows a lot; how common are they in Britain? Is it mostly upper class or is it common for middle class families to attend them? Private schools cost £10k+ a year to attend, with the most prestigious (confusingly called 'public schools') costing about £33k (at the moment) a year. So these days your private schools are middle class, and it's a combination of upper-middle class, the upper classes, and rich foreigners that attend public schools. A generation ago the fees were much more inline with income and so it was more affordable for middle class families, small business owners, teachers etc. to send their kids to public schools.
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Jun 5, 2014 11:05
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Terminal Entropy posted:I hear private schools get mentioned in movies and tv shows a lot; how common are they in Britain? Is it mostly upper class or is it common for middle class families to attend them? By numbers, only 7% of children go to private schools, but they have a big impact, with over 50% of new doctors, lawyers and other professionals having been privately educated. They are most commonly attended by children of middle class professionals, and academics, from my experience.
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Jun 5, 2014 12:09
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And to clarify, "middle-class" doesn't mean normal or average. It's rich-but-not-aristocracy rich. People are generally reluctant to self-describe as middle class because it carries quite a lot of negative connotations.
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Jun 5, 2014 12:51
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Captain Mediocre posted:And to clarify, "middle-class" doesn't mean normal or average. It's rich-but-not-aristocracy rich. People are generally reluctant to self-describe as middle class because it carries quite a lot of negative connotations. That's actually one of the more interesting clashes mentioned here. In the U.S. "middle class" is very positive and many people who are in reality in poorer or richer classes will think of themselves as middle class. I think something like 90% of Americans consider themselves as such.
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Jun 5, 2014 13:19
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QVC Drinking Game posted:That's actually one of the more interesting clashes mentioned here. In the U.S. "middle class" is very positive and many people who are in reality in poorer or richer classes will think of themselves as middle class. I think something like 90% of Americans consider themselves as such. It seems like about 75% of people (pulling a figure totally out of my arse) in the UK also self-identify as middle class as they aren't part of the aristocracy (so not upper class) and they aren't totally poor. They might be living month-to-month but dammit if they buy hummous then they're doing well.
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Jun 5, 2014 13:32
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tentish klown posted:It seems like about 75% of people (pulling a figure totally out of my arse) in the UK also self-identify as middle class as they aren't part of the aristocracy (so not upper class) and they aren't totally poor. They might be living month-to-month but dammit if they buy hummous then they're doing well. It depends on where you're from and your politics to an extent, but in my experience plenty of people (including career politicians) who I would consider middle class describe/portray themselves as "working class" in order to appear more in touch or less privileged. Aspirations go both ways and its a bit weird.
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Jun 5, 2014 13:39
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Working class and middle class seem to be two tiers of the same class. Both work for their livelihood, just some get better compensated for it.
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Jun 5, 2014 17:11
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Ferdinand the Bull posted:Working class and middle class seem to be two tiers of the same class. Both work for their livelihood, just some get better compensated for it. What do you call people who are rich enough to not have to work for their living, but are not members of the aristocracy?
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Jun 5, 2014 17:34
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tentish klown posted:What do you call people who are rich enough to not have to work for their living, but are not members of the aristocracy? I'd still call those people upper class. I live in Scotland and I have to say I disagree with the notion that people are uncomfortable calling themselves middle class. As far as I'm concerned middle class as it is used today refers to people in "professional" occupations, the sort of things you need a university qualification for, and I don't think where I live that people in those groups would be reluctant to call themselves that. Or at least, I don't think that people would object to that label if you were using it in a non-negative sense.
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Jun 5, 2014 17:47
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Ferdinand the Bull posted:Working class and middle class seem to be two tiers of the same class. Both work for their livelihood, just some get better compensated for it. Not really. There are major differences - both based in reality and social perception - in levels of income, politics, and education. The emergence of a politically powerful middle class based on commerce and educated trades is one of the major developments in the economic and cultural history of Western Europe (and by extension N. America) and is pretty directly responsible for the development of democracy as we understand it today, via the English Civil War, Am. Rev., and French Rev. Hell, the physical organization of the modern English parliament is pretty much a direct result of the development of a middle class distinct from any of the classical three classes of the medieval period. In more modern times (~19th century on) the two have massively different politics, doubly so if you're looking at England, although this gets more and more muddied as you get into the late 20th/early 21st century. edit: my understanding is that the fact that it's semi-pejorative in parts of England has a lot more to do with early 20th century English politics. For true working-class areas, the sorts of places that engaged in wonderful things like coal miners strikes and leaned strongly Socialist, it basically meant social climbers with pretensions of aristocracy. Conversely no bullshit aristocracy never really had the wide-spread stigma in England that you see in the US, so a lot of upwardly mobile middle class preferred to style themselves "upper class" regardless of what their economic realities might be. The US has a different political history so the term has different connotations here, none of which are really pejorative. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Jun 5, 2014 |
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Jun 5, 2014 17:49
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If you are visiting someone's home and they offer you a cup of tea, they don't care whether you drink tea. They're letting it be known that you are welcome, and you can just ask for any appropriate drink. Even if they're out of tea, they'll probably say "I'd offer you a cup of tea, but.." Conversely, if someone stops offering you cups of tea, it means you have outstayed your welcome. England is divided into several administrative regions, such as the North East, the Midlands and East Anglia. No one however actually uses this system. The country is in three parts: London, The North (places you don't like), and The South (places you do like). Vice versa if you live in the north (my prayers go out to you). For instance, it's common in Devon to consider anything past Bristol to be "North". I remember as a child moving to Plymouth from a Cornish village, and every time the topic came up someone would say "Ar, so yer movin' up country then?". The fact that Plymouth was actually due south didn't bother anyone in the least.
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Jun 5, 2014 18:39
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mossyfisk posted:If you are visiting someone's home and they offer you a cup of tea, they don't care whether you drink tea. They're letting it be known that you are welcome, and you can just ask for any appropriate drink. Even if they're out of tea, they'll probably say "I'd offer you a cup of tea, but.." For many Southerners, the North/South divide is something like this (very simplistically - for me the yellow or blue line is probably where I see it):  For people in the North and the Midlands, they see it more as: 
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Jun 5, 2014 18:57
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Ewan posted:The Midlands complicates the perception of what is "The North". To me, as a Southerner, I see "The Midlands" as just the bottom bit of "The North". However, people from the Midlands and from the North see the Midlands as distinct from both the South and the North. The mental line is also not horizontal. That's pretty funny. I think the north of England is pretty cool. That's where the Lake District // the majority of all those badass medeival castles are, right?
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Jun 5, 2014 21:48
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 20:54 |
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That's really weird; I just alway saw it, as a lovely American, like this map and didn't once think that some people considered the midlands just the southern part of the North.
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Jun 6, 2014 01:10
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