Americans are NOT stupid

[Batman]

FACT

 

[dinger]

"the reality couldn't be further from the truth" - I'm sure that was meant to be ironic, wasn't it?

[Ohio Saint]

To be fair, you have to do some editing to achieve that effect.

 

 

About 5 minutes should do it.

[Whitey Grandad]

I'd like to see the same questions asked in Birmingham, or Leicester, or Liverpool, or...

[Ohio Saint]

I'd like to see the same questions asked in Birmingham, or Leicester, or Liverpool, or...

 

TBF, even that lot would do better in an honest test. Seriously.

[Goalie66]

All true having lived in the USa my kids used to laugh because they were told they spoke such good ENGLISH..so much better than the Germans whose English was not good !!!

[WindsorSaint]

I was asked where I was from when in a bar in upstate New York, and when I answered England, I was asked "is that in New Jersey?"...

[Shufty Zubrik]

Over the years I tired of telling them I was from Southampton and having to explain basic geography. It was just much easier to say I came from London but that invited the inevitable "hey. do you know the Queen". Face palm thingy

[Whitey Grandad]

Probably ignorance rather than stupidity.

[Whitey Grandad]

I might add that every American that I have met has been unfailingly polite and friendly.

[Clapham Saint]

On a secondment to a New York firm it transpired that one of the girls in their office (a qualified accountant so you'd like to think that she wasn't a complete moron), believed that the only currencies in the world were US$, UK£ and HK$.

 

As these were the only currencies which appeared on the investment reports that she audited she assumed they were the only ones in existence.

 

She'd also assumed that Canadian $ were the same as US $.

[View From The Top]

Whilst Americans tend to be the most polite and courteous people you could ever wish to meet they are, without doubt, thick as fu.ck.

 

I was once asked where I learnt to speak English and when I replied England they were confused as they though we spoke British. I should add that said person wasn't uneducated.

 

When in Rome, in St Marks Sq, an American stood next to us said to her friends "Gee, just think what Disney could do with this place". Sums it up for me.

 

I used to love going to the States, and did so often, but cannot ever see me returning to a country where the right to arm people with assault rifles is deemed more important than the right to healthcare.

[Colinjb]

I'm not so worried about our own education system now....

 

I'm sure that has been edited to emphasise the bad. Nonetheless every American I have met seems to be at least a little ignorant/uneducated about some relatively straightforward things. Particularly when it comes to the rest of the world. Even the chavs down my local understand the concept of a 'mosque.'

 

Did lol when the guy described Al Qaeda as an offshoot of the Masons....

[hutch]

I might add that every American that I have met has been unfailingly polite and friendly.

You weren't at the England USA game in Rustenburg in 2010 then?

[Barry Sanchez]

An example of when you are top dog the natives in that land become fat, ignorant and lazy.

[Barry Sanchez]

As for the polite bit, I'm sure everyone knows in their company the thick as **** blond who smiles because she does not known whats going on bar when its happy hour and when she is meeting someone in the hotel later on.

[WindsorSaint]

I have traveled around quite a bit in the Sates, and on home territory I have found that Americans are very polite and extremely helpful (with the possible exception of Manhattan). In the South when they say "have a nice day" it is normally said with warmth and meaning!

 

Americans abroad, however...

[Barry Sanchez]

There are arseholes everywhere in my humble.

[sussexsaint]

I have traveled around quite a bit in the Sates, and on home territory I have found that Americans are very polite and extremely helpful (with the possible exception of Manhattan). In the South when they say "have a nice day" it is normally said with warmth and meaning!

 

Americans abroad, however...

 

 

Agree with that, my wife and I spent some time living in Madison Wisconsin. We were stopped in the street as we had British accents, but pretty much everyone we met was polite and well meaning. i was struck by the sincerity with which they said' have a nice day'. Some of that wouldn't go amiss over here. When a chap at the work said he liked my tie I said ' yeah I know its a bit much' - he was bemused, he meant he actually liked my tie, as opposed to the p*ss take you would have gotten here.

 

The thing was, as time went on it started to feel a little 'shallow' , we ended up being really good mates with French Dutch and German people who worked there, never had a sense of 'Europe' as an entity before before we worked there - they got our humour completely, unlike the Americans

[Barry Sanchez]

Having backpacked and travelled quite a few places the Yanks are the same as everywhere else simply more ignorant ******s as there are more of them, we are looking at moving to Grand Rapids, Michigan in a few years, will see after September when our first baby arrives.

[solentstars]

Agree with that, my wife and I spent some time living in Madison Wisconsin. We were stopped in the street as we had British accents, but pretty much everyone we met was polite and well meaning. i was struck by the sincerity with which they said' have a nice day'. Some of that wouldn't go amiss over here. When a chap at the work said he liked my tie I said ' yeah I know its a bit much' - he was bemused, he meant he actually liked my tie, as opposed to the p*ss take you would have gotten here.

 

The thing was, as time went on it started to feel a little 'shallow' , we ended up being really good mates with French Dutch and German people who worked there, never had a sense of 'Europe' as an entity before before we worked there - they got our humour completely, unlike the Americans

 

Agree and I found a lot of Americans did not know about what was happening in other states.saying that I find the same here about Europe even though I found most people no different from us .

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[ottery st mary]

:rolleyes:Ask the same questions on this forum........similar result

[pap]

Americans are infectiously optimistic people, and some of the smartest people I know hail from there, but not many of them are very clued up on things. I reckon part of it is state brainwashing. They make their kids pledge allegiance to the state every day, not really the act of a confident nation, but I reckon it makes a difference.

 

Some Americans are genuinely shocked when they learn very basic stuff about the rest of the world ( the amount of people I've seen go wide-eyed when I explain the simplistic pricing model of the NHS is amazing ). That said, a lot of people are more clued up about what's really going on in their own country, and you'll get different answers from people depending on their cultural and economic backgrounds.

 

What's definitely true is that it's a lot easier to coast in the US. I went over to train someone five years ago. The dude was earning 100K plus, started work at 9:30am, did f**k all for a couple of hours, took a two hour lunch, ready for another gruelling 2 hour session of doing f**k all before doing the offs at 16:30.

 

I actually asked him at one point "are you some kind of hologram that the company can only afford to power until half past four in the afternoon?".

 

No aptitude or real interest in the job, and he is far from an isolated example. I think a big part of why Americans are perceived as thick is because the country is all too willing to give the thick or feckless a living, which means more of them get to spend their vast disposable income visiting Burr-Ming-Ham.

[Barry Sanchez]

Americans are infectiously optimistic people, and some of the smartest people I know hail from there, but not many of them are very clued up on things. I reckon part of it is state brainwashing. They make their kids pledge allegiance to the state every day, not really the act of a confident nation, but I reckon it makes a difference.

 

Some Americans are genuinely shocked when they learn very basic stuff about the rest of the world ( the amount of people I've seen go wide-eyed when I explain the simplistic pricing model of the NHS is amazing ). That said, a lot of people are more clued up about what's really going on in their own country, and you'll get different answers from people depending on their cultural and economic backgrounds.

 

What's definitely true is that it's a lot easier to coast in the US. I went over to train someone five years ago. The dude was earning 100K plus, started work at 9:30am, did f**k all for a couple of hours, took a two hour lunch, ready for another gruelling 2 hour session of doing f**k all before doing the offs at 16:30.

 

I actually asked him at one point "are you some kind of hologram that the company can only afford to power until half past four in the afternoon?".

 

No aptitude or real interest in the job, and he is far from an isolated example. I think a big part of why Americans are perceived as thick is because the country is all too willing to give the thick or feckless a living, which means more of them get to spend their vast disposable income visiting Burr-Ming-Ham.

 

Yanks work massive hours and get crap holidays, God knows where you where, they work 45-50 hours where as we have 35 hour weeks, flexi time, overtime, 30-35 days off a year, they get 14 days!

[OldNick]

It is the arrogance of the British who think Americans are thick. You ask people from the Uk and i doubt many would have a decent knowledge of geography and history....now 100 questions on Eastenders, C list celebs and Neighbours and then you would get full answers.

If you look at it logically, they dont really need to know much about the rest of the world, much like us having to know about Mongolia etc

[StDunko]

I met a good number of thick Americans when travelling. The seem to be a very insular nation that appears to know very little about the rest of the world (bar Israel and Iraq). I was once told that this was because no current affairs from other nations ever made it on to their news.

 

One time I was travelling with a friend and we met some American girls, they asked where my friend was from, when he said New Zealand, they commented on how well he spoke English! We met loads of other people from various other nations, but it was only the American's that were that ignorant.

[pap]

Yanks work massive hours and get crap holidays, God knows where you where, they work 45-50 hours where as we have 35 hour weeks, flexi time, overtime, 30-35 days off a year, they get 14 days!

 

Not my experience; the office was near-deserted at 6pm each evening, just as it was before 9am in the morning. You've got to understand that "work to live" has far more meaning over there. A huge number of Americans plod along in unproductive jobs, utterly unhappy, just to keep providing healthcare to their families. The culture of seniority in skilled labour jobs, coupled with last-in first-out union regulations, mean that younger people have real trouble securing employment in skilled labour jobs because old geezers are taking up space, largely on account of the dental.

 

The holiday thing varies massively from firm to firm, and even within firms, down to an individual contract level. If a firm wants an individual and individual wants four weeks holiday, that can be arranged. A lot of firms also have holiday accrual schemes, just like they do in the UK.

 

The big thing at the moment is the concept of PTO, or Personal Time Off. This replaces all absence. If you're sick, it comes out of PTO. If you go on vacation, it comes out of PTO. You get more PTO than you would holiday.

 

I actually quite like this scheme; sorts out the p!ss-takers who are constantly ill on a Friday or Monday.

[solentstars]

It is the arrogance of the British who think Americans are thick. You ask people from the Uk and i doubt many would have a decent knowledge of geography and history....now 100 questions on Eastenders, C list celebs and Neighbours and then you would get full answers.

If you look at it logically, they dont really need to know much about the rest of the world, much like us having to know about Mongolia etc

I love the fact that they are a very optimistic and positive people unlike us who must be one of the most negative nations despite having so much going for us but we still live in our past of the war years or empire maybe its part of being a island makes us so insular.

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[buctootim]

I met a good number of thick Americans when travelling. The seem to be a very insular nation that appears to know very little about the rest of the world (bar Israel and Iraq). I was once told that this was because no current affairs from other nations ever made it on to their news.

 

One time I was travelling with a friend and we met some American girls, they asked where my friend was from, when he said New Zealand, they commented on how well he spoke English! We met loads of other people from various other nations, but it was only the American's that were that ignorant.

 

You've got to bear in mind that the US is huge. If you are in the mid west it can be almost 1,500 miles just to the US coast let alone abroad. How many Brits know about the internal politics or geography of Poland, Austria or Sweden?

 

 

 

Just read Old Nicks post, sorry for repetition.

[solentstars]

You've got to bear in mind that the US is huge. If you are in the mid west it can be almost 1,500 miles just to the US coast let alone abroad. How many Brits know about the internal politics or geography of Poland, Austria or Sweden?

 

 

 

Just read Old Nicks post, sorry for repetition.

 

That's true

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[Barry Sanchez]

Maybe those positions are in the minority, they probably are as America is not a Union based Country, they were destroyed in the 30's, the workers over there get shafted and are encouraged to in effect work for themselves even though they are in large companies, divide and rule, would of thought a socialist would of despised the American system, I guess your real true self is beginning to show, an individual with no care for your fellow worker.

PTO is a disgrace of a system in shor, sorts out the ****takers, you are either a capitalsit or you sure as **** sound like one? What about reasoned management and individual care for the individual?

Edited 21 June, 2013 by Barry Sanchez

[Whitey Grandad]

You've got to bear in mind that the US is huge. If you are in the mid west it can be almost 1,500 miles just to the US coast let alone abroad. How many Brits know about the internal politics or geography of Poland, Austria or Sweden?

 

 

 

Just read Old Nicks post, sorry for repetition.

 

I was talking to a girl in Atlanta who had never seen the sea. It's only about 250 miles away. Also remember Americans in the middle of nowhere are not going to drive an hour or so to visit the nearest town which is exactly like the one they left and where they don't know anybody. Of course a lot of places are named after places in Europe so if you mention a place name you have to qualify it. I bet if you asked similar questions in China, Russia, Argentina or even Australia you would get some dumb looks.

[Lazlo78]

You've got to bear in mind that the US is huge. If you are in the mid west it can be almost 1,500 miles just to the US coast let alone abroad. How many Brits know about the internal politics or geography of Poland, Austria or Sweden?

 

 

 

Just read Old Nicks post, sorry for repetition.

 

It appears to me that there are at least two overall USAs - one along the two coast lines and one in the middle. Generally speaking, the USA along the coast lines is developed, enlightened, secular and can be seen as part of late modernity. Central USA is a fundamentalistic, undereducated, navel-gazing backwaters country reminiscent of some european countries hundreds of years ago. So in that perspective, any sentence that starts with "USA is..." or "Americans are..." is almost always wrong. My above prejudice included

[OldNick]

I was talking to a girl in Atlanta who had never seen the sea. It's only about 250 miles away. Also remember Americans in the middle of nowhere are not going to drive an hour or so to visit the nearest town which is exactly like the one they left and where they don't know anybody. Of course a lot of places are named after places in Europe so if you mention a place name you have to qualify it. I bet if you asked similar questions in China, Russia, Argentina or even Australia you would get some dumb looks.

If most English people met somebody from Boston and asked them 'where are you from?' and the reply was Boston, the majority would say i love visiting America not ever thinking of the English Boston.

[sussexsaint]

Our experience in an American office was that they worked long hours but didn't achieve very much. We were given a pile of scans to analyse and did them in 3 days. The office was pretty uncomfortable after that - we asked someone why and they said ' that was about a months worth of work'... it really really wasn't

[buctootim]

Our experience in an American office was that they worked long hours but didn't achieve very much. We were given a pile of scans to analyse and did them in 3 days. The office was pretty uncomfortable after that - we asked someone why and they said ' that was about a months worth of work'... it really really wasn't

 

My experience too. The US seems to be slipping into the same disease as the UK had in the 1970s, too process oriented, hierachical and not outcome focussed enough. My US colleagues seem to 'do' a lot but what they achieve is less clear. I like them as a people though, still much more upbeat and genuinely nice than many English people who mistake being snidey for humorous irreverence.

[Barry Sanchez]

I love the British/English sense of humour, its one of the true greats exports of this Country.

[jjsaint]

I was talking to a girl in Atlanta who had never seen the sea.

 

I knew a girl from Nebraska who had never eaten seafood of any kind. No fish, no shellfish etc. She was 20 at the time.

[Barry Sanchez]

I once met a Nepali who had never ventured up Everest....................

[pap]

My experience too. The US seems to be slipping into the same disease as the UK had in the 1970s, too process oriented, hierachical and not outcome focussed enough. My US colleagues seem to 'do' a lot but what they achieve is less clear. I like them as a people though, still much more upbeat and genuinely nice than many English people who mistake being snidey for humorous irreverence.

 

Can't disagree with that. A good 20% of my workload with big corp is jumping through procedural hoops. Too many directorial positions are just ready made hooks to hang blame on. The net result isn't really that productive. What generally happens is that they get canned, someone else comes in, new revolution, crapload of money spent reversing prior policy or spending cash on lessons learned.

 

If you're a Briton who knows how to put a shift in, you'll do very well in the US.

[dinger]

I once knew a man from Nantucket.

[WindsorSaint]

I once knew a girl from Nantucket...

Edited 21 June, 2013 by WindsorSaint
Beaten to it!

[Barry Sanchez]

Can't disagree with that. A good 20% of my workload with big corp is jumping through procedural hoops. Too many directorial positions are just ready made hooks to hang blame on. The net result isn't really that productive. What generally happens is that they get canned, someone else comes in, new revolution, crapload of money spent reversing prior policy or spending cash on lessons learned.

 

If you're a Briton who knows how to put a shift in, you'll do very well in the US.

 

I thought you were writing just above they dont work, so if you work hard you'll get rewarded? But if you want you can cruise? **** knows what part of America you went to pap.

[hutch]

Who claimed he (or she) could fill up a bucket

[suewhistle]

who went and ****ed in a bucket

The view was enthralling

The taste was appalling

Quite put me off wanting to f**kit

[Bearsy]

sue meets americans in bars + takes them back to her dungeons + drugs them with fine wines. True stories!

[Lord Duckhunter]

Agree with that, my wife and I spent some time living in Madison Wisconsin. We were stopped in the street as we had British accents, but pretty much everyone we met was polite and well meaning. i was struck by the sincerity with which they said' have a nice day'. Some of that wouldn't go amiss over here. When a chap at the work said he liked my tie I said ' yeah I know its a bit much' - he was bemused, he meant he actually liked my tie, as opposed to the p*ss take you would have gotten here.

 

 

 

I agree completely, I spent 4 years working there in the 80's and found them to be polite and sincere . Some Brits love to take the **** out of this "have a nice day" culture, but I found that Americans really do mean it, when you think about it, what a nice way to say goodbye to someone, yet for some reason it's used as a stick to poke fun at them.

 

The big thing I noticed was the optimism and the can do attitude most had. My neighbour was a Geordie, and despite never having done removals before, bought a van on HP and decided to try and do removals. All the neighbours and guys we knew from the bars were all "great idea man" and said they would recommend him and pass the word on. In this country it would have been "you daft ****, what do you know about it". I know that's a bit of a generalisation, but I really was struck on how positive they were about his venture and how much they wanted him to succeed.

 

Generally, they don't know a lot about Europe, but always seemed keen to ask about England when you first meet. The only thing that used to **** me off was half of them thought I was Australian.

[Barry Sanchez]

So you think no one in England has bought a van and decided to put things into it and charge? Come on, please rose tinted glasses or what.

[Bearsy]

they may have done barry, i think the point is that we would be all sneering + mugging them off tho. Take a line through dr.who when he announced on here he was gonna make cheesecocks for living!

[Barry Sanchez]

I agree completely, I spent 4 years working there in the 80's and found them to be polite and sincere . Some Brits love to take the **** out of this "have a nice day" culture, but I found that Americans really do mean it, when you think about it, what a nice way to say goodbye to someone, yet for some reason it's used as a stick to poke fun at them.

 

The big thing I noticed was the optimism and the can do attitude most had. My neighbour was a Geordie, and despite never having done removals before, bought a van on HP and decided to try and do removals. All the neighbours and guys we knew from the bars were all "great idea man" and said they would recommend him and pass the word on. In this country it would have been "you daft ****, what do you know about it". I know that's a bit of a generalisation, but I really was struck on how positive they were about his venture and how much they wanted him to succeed.

 

Generally, they don't know a lot about Europe, but always seemed keen to ask about England when you first meet. The only thing that used to **** me off was half of them thought I was Australian.

 

Being positive only gets you so far, realism is where money is, consistently smiling and saying have a nice day will not disguise you being thick as pig****.