About the European and American generalization questions.
Aug 28th, 2001, 07:41 AM
#1
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About the European and American generalization questions.
They are a waste of time for many reasons. First, there is no such thing as a "typical" <BR>American or European, so don't inquire about these fictional people. I find it strange that certain groups of people can be characterized as rude, insensitive, or overweight. Many people draw conclusions about the French after a two day visit to the Eiffel Tower. If they meet a rude Frenchmen the whole country is considered to be rude. Some Europeans walk past hundreds of Americans a day, and if one is loud he or she will be considered a "typical" loud American. I've lived in Massachusetts, Texas, Illinois, Scotland, Australia, Norway, <BR>and even a short stint in Brazil. If I've learned anything, it's that people are the same everywhere. Only the terrain is different. As this message board proves, there are petty, insensitive jealous people everywhere who feel the need to put others down to feel better about themselves. My advice to travellers is to smile and make an effort to speak a little of the language. Yes <BR>you may run into someone rude, but what do you expect? We all have rude people in our neighborhoods, so why wouldn't London, New York, or Paris have them too. As for the questions about whether certain countries will "like us?". My answer is not everyone will. But the overwhelming majority will be <BR>very accomodating if you are polite, smile, and don't demand that their culture be altered to meet your preferences.
Aug 28th, 2001, 09:07 AM
#6
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Oh come on! There are threads for polite informative information exchange - and they are fairly obvious -and there are threads for us to get our teeth into and get a little debating out of our system. <BR> <BR>Generalisations create fun discussions and pass the time whilst we're sitting at our desks pretending to work! <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>
Aug 28th, 2001, 09:24 AM
#9
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My apologies Dan. In England, and indeed in English, it's perfectly common and acceptable to use the word 'whilst'. It just rather depends on the sentence construction and grammatical implications. <BR> <BR>Sorry, does this make me sound like a pompous ass again...?!?!
Aug 28th, 2001, 09:48 AM
#11
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From my point of view, main "conflicts" here have several ways of beeing interpreted, but from what I´ve seen, and read, there´s one that has never been referred. <BR>The sensibility towards language and facial movements. <BR>What I mean, is that sometimes, if someone uses a determinate vocabulary, or tries to be for example ironic, the message doesn´t get through the same way to everybody. <BR>You see, if you were speaking face to face, you could by facial expressions understand in a second, the real sense of it all, but using the net, that contact does not exist, so you´ve got to take care with what you write, and reenforce the idea using things like...( ironic )...( joking )...and others. <BR>The other thing is the " cultural value" of certain expressions used here. <BR>For some people, asking when will something be... may be a "logical" question, while to others that can be offensive, due to cultural differences that tend to be neutralized by the net, but in real they aren´t.
