What aspects of American culture are often misunderstood? (1 Viewer)

[Malcolm R]

American children seemed to have no issues with the accents in the "Harry Potter" films.

I agree, it's the parents not the kids with the issues.

 

[Lew Crippen]

The short answer is that there would be a big demand for their events if there were no international competetion.

But Lew, without that travel, how much demand would there be for their events? In America, there is enough demand, and so much money to be made here, it's not worthwhile for them to travel overseas. It's not about arrogance or anything like that, it's about where the demand is. While there is some touring for international meets, Olympics, World Cup, etc., athletes in American professional sports have to be careful how much of that they do. If they get injured in a game like that and it ends their careers, they could lose millions of dollars.

Good question—I was only addressing the issue on travel in that it has been suggested that we don’t play international sports so much due to the size of our country (Australia is more or less the same size as continental U.S.), something that I think is erroneous and your specific questions as to the amount of travel and number of games in some of their core sports and ours.

Cricket and rugby players make nowhere near the money that our football and baseball players make. One obvious reason that you have already mentioned is population size. It is kind of hard to make domestic comparisons, because the two sports mentioned are played at the highest level only internationally.

The Aussies play three kinds of football: rugby, rugby league and Aussie rules, which is played nowhere else (nearly nowhere else). Further Aussie Rules is largely confined to the state of Victoria (with a big nod to South Australia), though it has spread across the country in recent years. This Friday, my Collingwood (a Melbourne suburb) Magpies will play Brisbane at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in their Grand Final (the Super Bowl). The MCG will be packed and it is a very big stadium. But aside from the finals, Aussie Rules draws very well during the regular season and has reasonable TV ratings.

Rugby Leauge, which is mostly played in New South Wales (Sydney) and Queensland does not draw as large crowds as they used to, but it is still very popular and most people who live in Sydney will be aligned to a team—I lived in Balmain and regrettably the Balmain Tigers were a team that was assimilated into another Sydney area team.

Rugby is not quite so popular in Australia as it is in New Zealand, where it is the national sport and pretty much everyone plays or follows a team—but the highest level of the game is played by the national sides, so comparisons are difficult.

Cricket is played by state sides in Australia, but the matches are not particularly well attended. Mosgt people will follow their state sides on TV and in the papers.

I would suggest that all countries have a set of core sports that draw well locally and otherwise, competition is international. For example although the PGA does well here, tennis players really need to travel internationally, as do swimmers, soccer players track & field athletes and cyclists (and a host of other sports).

You are right that we can support more core sports than the Aussies or Kiwis, but for the ones we don’t care about—those guys and gals go elsewhere.

Your point on injury is not a valid comparison for cricket and rugby—the international level is where the money is made.

 

[andrew markworthy]

The original accents seem to be from the southern England area

Not quite! The accents in e.g. Monty Python or the central characters in Harry Potter (with the exception of Hagrid) are from quite a few places (Richard Harris was Irish, for example), but all the characters are speaking what would be loosely called 'middle class' English. This avoids regional colloquial expressions and isn't very heavily accented. I seriously doubt if any American could have problems with this accent.

Incidentally, after Received Pronunciation English (i.e. the way the Queen speaks) the easiest to understand Brit accent is probably the so-called 'Manchester accent', which is middle class English spoken by someone from the north of England.

The accents you guys seem to have problems with are:

(a) Geordie (from the North East of England - if it's any consolation most Brits have problems with a thick Geordie accent).

(b) Glaswegian (i.e. from Glasgow, though the Edinburgh working class accent - see Trainspotting - is also pretty hard going).

(c) Cockney (and why do so many Americans confuse this with an Australian accent?).

(d) Liverpudlian (i.e. the Beatles' accent)

The vowels in particular are pronounced differently, and I think that, along with regional variants of common words, creates the difficulty. However, the same could be said of a lot of American accents, but Brits have no trouble with these.

 

[Michael Reuben]

(c) Cockney (and why do so many Americans confuse this with an Australian accent?)

I have no idea; they sound nothing alike to me. Then again, I've been watching EastEnders for 15 years.

M.

 

[Keith Mickunas]

Perhaps because these sportsman (many of whom are millionaires) aren't pampered like petulant, spoilt children or don't insist on travelling in their own private jets everywhere, they are happy to interact with sportsmen and women from other countries.

is really shortsighted. You have to look at the big picture and understand just what is going on in American sports to see why international interest just isn't there.

 

[Nick Sievers]

Indeed, the Rugby World Cup is in Australia next month - even the US is fielding a team

I'm going to their first game which is against France. It is expected to be a joke game.

 

[Lew Crippen]

(c) Cockney (and why do so many Americans confuse this with an Australian accent?).

A question for which I have no answer other than practice. I will point out that a good many Aussies and Kiwis have difficulty distinguishing between American and Canadian accents—something that always puzzles me.

 

[Bob-N]

Ok, back to the original intent of this thread. A couple years ago when we went to Germany for a week, we talked with a local who was travelling on a train from Frankfurt to Munich. Really nice guy and not much stereotypical "Germans" there. When we told him what we had planned for our 7 days in Germany/Austria (basically one city per day), he said he couldn't understand why our "vacations" are so short. He said that if his family was going to as many places as we were, that would have taken at least a month to do it properly. We just responed "that's all we have time for" and we shrugged our shoulders and talked about other stuff.

He's probably right. I think sometimes we in the US do things too quickly and are much faster paced in everything we do including recreational activities.

Ok, back to the originally scheduled thread fart....

 

[Yee-Ming]

I will point out that a good many Aussies and Kiwis have difficulty distinguishing between American and Canadian accents—something that always puzzles me.

Neither can I. I can certainly tell the difference between East and West Coast, and indeed asked someone about her accent -- turned out I was sort-of correct, she was from Vancouver :b The more regional accents are easy, e.g. Texan, Carolinas/Deep South, but the rest turns into a Mid-West blur. Having said that, if I listen out for the "oot"...

I am told there's a clear distinction between Aussie and Kiwi. I haven't figured that one out yet either.

All boils down the practice, I'm sure.

 

[Mark Schermerhorn]

He's probably right. I think sometimes we in the US do things too quickly and are much faster paced in everything we do including recreational activities.

We don't get the European length vacations from work. If I had 6 weeks off like they do I'd take a month to visit what I would normally visit in a week.

 

[Paul_Sjordal]

Lew Crippen writes:

A question for which I have no answer other than practice. I will point out that a good many Aussies and Kiwis have difficulty distinguishing between American and Canadian accents—something that always puzzles me.

You're one up on me. I can't tell the difference between American and Canadian accents unless the Cannuck in question comes from Quebec or Newfoundland.

Then again, I can't tell a Mississippi accent from any other southern accent and the only way I can tell Texan from southern dialects is the hard "R" sounds.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I went to school in North Carolina. I was in a pizza shop one day and the pie was taking much too long to come to the table (1 1/2 hours is too long, even down South). I politely complained to the counterman, but he mistook my Boston accent for rudeness. I forgave him for thinking I was rude (I could have recited the Hail Mary and sounded rude, that's the way a Boston accent is), but what he said next was blasphemey. He said it would be right up, turned away and mumbled "God damned impatient New Yorker" under his breath. Needless to say he got a lesson in the difference between an impatient New Yorker and an insulted Bostonian! It wan't his fault for not recognizing the difference, but you do have to stand up for your principles .

 

[Lew Crippen]

Then again, I can't tell a Mississippi accent from any other southern accent and the only way I can tell Texan from southern dialects is the hard "R" sounds.

And we have two (in very general terms) accents in Texas: to me an East Texas accent sounds nothing like West Texas.

 

[Ashley Seymour]

but he mistook my Boston accent for rudeness. I forgave him for thinking I was rude (I could have recited the Hail Mary and sounded rude, that's the way a Boston accent is), but what he said next was blasphemey. He said it would be right up, turned away and mumbled "God damned impatient New Yorker" under his breath.

I met a guy last week who had an accent I could have diced up and added it to a bowl of chowda. I thought it very fun and not at all rude. It sounded much thicker than a Long Island accent, but to be sure I asked him for the first three digits of his SSN. He said 006 and I knew. I said "Boston," and he said yes. He had moved around the country, Florida, California, and finally Florida, but over 20+ years, he had not made an effort to lose his accent.

 

[JustinCleveland]

Ben buys a truck This is one aspect of America even I don't get.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Justin, unless I'm missing some subtle code here, it sounds like a typical 'filler' item that will be used to fill up a blank space in a newspaper if it's a slack news day. Not very exciting, but fairly typical of bland filler items from around the world. You should try living in a small town in Britain and reading the daily local newspaper there. Then you'd really know what bland is.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I said "Boston," and he said yes. He had moved around the country, Florida, California, and finally Florida, but over 20+ years, he had not made an effort to lose his accent.

I have also lived all over and everyone not from the Boston area thought my accent was really strong and pronounced (I had lost much of it). Anyone who thought that and actually visited my hometown with me soon realized my accent was not strong at all. My friend who came back to Mass. for a visit was telling everyone she knew to stop making fun of my accent because it was nothing compared to the people who live here.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

ive lived in the boston area all my life, and i dont have the accent at all. when i went to college (in boston), a few of my out of state friends didnt believe that i was from here due to the lack of the accent. for me, it is hard to imagine anyone with the accent to appear intelligent, i dont know what it is about it. and if a girl has it, i'm instantly turned off. dont know why.

CJ

 

[JamesHl]

You should try living in a small town in Britain and reading the daily local newspaper there. Then you'd really know what bland is.

But there's always exciting complaints about the town council doing something stupid! Town council!


Yeah!

 

[David C Lin]

I would guess that foreigners might mistakening think Americans like to strut around with their guns like the cowboys in the western movies.

Also, foreigners might think Americans like to eat and are all overweight.

Finally, foreigners probably think many Americans are loudmouth people who will advocate the 'freedom of speech' to all type of environments, even to places where it's not appropriate to be such a loudmouth and inconsiderate person.