Imhornet:

Personally, I don't agree that you need to be "instructed" or reviled because of your opinion and some of us here actually do appreciate hearing it.

I am also happy to see that you are not feeling so self-important (or is it attention-starved?) that you felt the need to "announce" your return (or your departure for that matter) as a separate post.

>I am also happy to see that you are not feeling so self-important (or is it attention-starved?) that you felt the need to "announce" your return (or your departure for that matter) as a separate post.<

What is this about?

<i>&quot;London is us. When I travel, I want different culture, different language, different art, architecture, design scenery, etc.&quot;</i>

On my first trip to London, the thing that surprised me the most was just how multi-cultural it was.

On the surface there me be a lot of similarities between London and some of our large cities since many of our US cities had their roots in Britain. But if you delve a little deeper, you understand the history and evolution of London.

&quot;Let's see. People look the same, dress the same and speak the same. Many of the stores are the same as we see at home. The culture is the same. The food is he same. Their great books and art are our great books and art. The building and store fronts mostly look the same.&quot;

You obviously saw London through different eyes than I do. Or perhaps I have a more discerning eye. Look the same, yes perhaps but there are slight differences in how we dress and mannerisms.

As far as speaking the same I beg to differ! I'll give you same language, but the accents, manner in which things are said and difference in many words is significantly different.

There are also many differences in food. I don't remember an English breakfast, bangers and mash, or many other dishes peculiar to London/England in the US.

Many of the stores are quite different as well. I find the boutique and specialty shops terrific, since I find practically every mall in the US identical as far as the stores are concerned. Small, inviting book shops have disappeared, thanks to the huge chains, etc.

Culture the same. To some degree yes, but I don't recall a royal family, a parliament, the ecstatic enthusiasm for football (soccer) or many other differences from the US.

The buildings and storefronts are not the same for the most part. We are a tear down and rebuild society, the British are not. I appreciate the &quot;oldness&quot; and history they preserve in the buildings and stores.

Sorry IH, but I disagree with you completely. I still find London unique in comparison to any US city I've visited, and I've been to most of the majors.

It would be lovely if you would allow me to disagree!

I can see where you get a lot of your insights on London, Imhornet, but one where I have to respectfully disagree to some point is &quot;When I travel i want different culture, different language...&quot; as if you did not experience that in the UK - especially in London, the place is becoming more and more ethnically diverse all the time. I visited there the first time in 1994 and have returned 3 additional times, and each time I hear more non-English spoken and encounter more non-English residents, Even outside London &amp; the other large cities. The last time I was there (in 2004), my mom and I were in a taxi and the driver agreed with us when we obseved that 10 years from now, the only people speaking English as a first language in London will be the taxi drivers and American tourists.

Me, desptie, or pehaps for, the reason yuo stated, I absolutely LOVE London, it's my secodn favorite place int eh world (after edinburgh).

Well one must understand that because of the EU regulations, any citizen of the EU can get a work permit or whatever is needed to work in other EU countries. I ran into this problem a couple of weeks ago in Dublin where many of the waiters did not speak English (or Irish for that matter) but languages such as Rumanian, Polish etc. I suppose the same thing is happening in London and in the UK but locals will have to comment on that.

Imhornet,

I think you’ll find that your first three comments were the controversial ones, the rest have received no interest. These were your personal opinion, other more seasoned visitors have disagreed with you – Why would this bother you?

As you say yourself you we’re there on a brief visit and that was for business – how much of London could you actually see, visit for a vacation I think you’ll be surprised.

From a personal point of view - as a Brit living in the US I disagree that we ‘speak the same language’.

Had 20th century technology not interceded, it is very possible the languages would have drifted much further apart and perhaps the languages might have really become somewhat different much as Norwegian is different from Danish, American would be different from English...

However, since we all watch many of the same shows on the telly and see many of the same flicks in theatres (cinemas) and pay huge amounts of money for gas (petrol), I really have very little difficulty when riding up on an elevator (lift) in London and listening in on conversations (naughty naughty of me no doubt) understanding exactly what is being said just as I am sure if you were to ride the New York City subway (underground) and listen in on conversations, you wouldhave little difficulty understanding so like it or not, the languages indeed are the same today (IMHO of course)...

xyz123 - you sound like a people watcher to me:-) Join the club!

Well, I do manage the gas/petrol, wing/fender, sneakers/trainers differences, well most of the time - the problems I have are now generally with pronunciation, yogurt, tomato, aluminium for example, they trip me up purely because when I use the US pronunciation they sound false to me.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to repeat a whole comment simply because I’ve used the British pronunciation of a word.

you mean leftenant for lieutenant...shedule for skedule (spelling off but tried to get sounds correct) or mobi(long i)le for mobil...of course the best way to trip any of us up is to ask what is the last letter of the alphabet...we say zee in the US you guys say zed!

Of course, we all hate waiting on lines oops I mean queues.

But there is one thing I see in supermarkets in London that I wish they would adopt in the US....the check out is 1 long (or short) queue and the cashiers sit at their registers; I don't understand why American supermarkets have separate lines for each cashier and of course I always get on the slowet one!

QUEUE!!!!

When, during a conversation about a visit to Six Flags, I used the word ‘queue’ instead of 'waiting in line' a good friend of mine asked what a queue was and she asked again the next couple of times we met - and yet – we both use Netflix and what do you save your choices in?????

Yes! A queue!

Have you seen the handheld scanners that shoppers use while they shop and pack their own groceries in their trolley/cart as they go through the store/supermarket - loved it and miss it still.

To imhornet--I wonder what prompted you to both misread and feel the need to make an insulting comment to my alternate viewpoint. I assume--clearly incorrectly--that your post was made to express your thoughts on the subject and to invite other's responses.
You also seem to have misunderstood ira's tongue in cheek humor using an &quot;English&quot; way of commenting...but as I said, it appears that you were not really inviting responses.....Your kind of vitriolic comment about other posters made me very hesitant to further respond to you, but the few on this board who seem to have a need to be cyber bullies need to be told clearly that they make participating here a poorer experice, sad to say.

&quot;Imhornet, you would have been better served to have tacked your 9. through 13. onto this thread or to have given your follow up post a more illuminating title than &quot;London Review.&quot;

I did that because I accidentally posted the original comments on the general European board rather than on the UK board.

I really laugh at you people who say that Londoon is vastly different. If that's true, then what does that make Venice, Rome or Paris? Get a grip, people.

Lastly, people who talk about the differences between US and British English are largely misinformed as to the reason. It is not just because Americans don't speak like Brits. Even Brits don't speak like Brits - at least the ones of 250 years ago. Both American and British &quot;received&quot; English have drifted significantly over the years. There is much in American speech that is more like the Britain of 250 years ago than in current Britain. Many linguistics experts, in fact, say that there are small isolated pockets of the US here the speech is more like that of England English of 250 years ago that what is currently spoken in England.

I find the entire thread interesting. I have long known that Fodor's discussion boards are largely diminated by posting Nazis who go into a frothing fury at anyone who does not toe their dogmatic party line. One of their firm rules that you are not allowed to criticize anything. If you don't agree that everything in Europe is WONDERFUL GREAT COLOSSAL and better than anything in the US in the past, present and future, then you become a target.

OK, I knew that already. But what really surprises me is the sensitivity of their petty intolerance. Not only do you offend their delicate little sensibilities by criticizing something, they become just as enraged if you merely like it and don't love it. There is a good doctoral thesis in this for some aspiring clinical psychology student. Ira, alone, would be worth 200 pages.

Actually I was trying to be humorous (or is it humourous?) in discussing the language differences or lack thereof.

Let me ask those who have travelled to both countries a simple question...do you really have a great deal of difficulty understanding what is being said, even with the few words that are different or pronounced differently or spelled (centre, theatre, humour, tyre) differently? Don't Americans watch many of the British soap operats or whatever they are called and have no difficulty understanding? Same with Brits; I watch British telly all the time when I am in London and many of the shows are American anyway.

Actually, the only times I have difficulty in London are in some restaurants with non English speaking waiters or waiters from such places as India (no offense meant) who have some difficulty with my NY accent.

Again, as I said, this one fact alone makes London seem less foreign to Americans than other countries.

You know, in many respects, Germany is somewhat more like America than is Britain. Much of Germany is ultra modern and Germans certainly embrace American efficiency when it comes to things like fast foods much quicker than do Brits, at least that's the way it seems to me (an opinion of course)...but I never feel at home in Germany. Why? Because I don't speak one bloody word of German...well a couple (guten tag, auf wiedersain or however it is spelled and of course the most important toiletten (30 cents please)). I can't watch the telly unless the movies that are shown are sub-titled in German and shown in the original language (happens a lot in Holland but no so much in German)..when I check into a German hotel, the first thing I want to know is what English language television will be available (invariably the BBC).

We all have to lighten up a bit; after all it's no longer 1776 and supposedly we are all friends.

Imhomet: I (for one) agree with your comments. I think your point is, compared to some other European cities, London is perhaps the least different from a major US city. It is unique and distinguishable, but compared to some of the other cities you mentioned, it is less different. Why that comment is so hard to accept, I have no idea. Don't let the Fodorcultists get you down....

Hmmm...well I might as well join the fray..!

1) As a Londoner I don't like hearing that my beloved home isn't unique but I'm not going to get down to petty squabbles about why it is unique IN SOME WAYS.

2) I have long loved the States but have never been anywhere like New York or Chicago or Boston. My argument? Well I live in a big, cosmopolitan, expensive city - so why would I want to holiday somewhere the same? Which kind of puts me in your camp, Imhornet!

3) I have also long put forth my objection that 'Europe' be lumped together as though it were one 'nation'. There is little cohesion across Europe other than shared borders and thus it has evolved that we in the UK have more in common with the US than our continental neighbours (and age-old enemies!!)

I love London and I think that it is special, but if you live in the States and you want to experience VERY differing culture (though some may disagree that culture is the right word! - ha ha!) then London isn't the place to go. Maybe it's the language thing, who knows, but there are fewer noticeable differences here than elsewhere.

&gt;I did that because I accidentally posted the original comments on the general European board rather than on the UK board.&lt;

Speaking of misinformed, perhaps you need a refresher in the Fodors FAQ's for posting. There is no separate UK Board. All comments are posted to the European forum. Selecting a country only feeds the clunky and ineffective search feature.

Tallulah, I have always agreed with you on this subject:

&quot;I have also long put forth my objection that 'Europe' be lumped together as though it were one 'nation'. There is little cohesion across Europe other than shared borders and thus it has evolved that we in the UK have more in common with the US than our continental neighbours (and age-old enemies!!)&quot;

However, beginning with our trip in 2002 (post EU), Britons are identifying themselves as Europeans more and mre frequently. I made it a point to ask taxi drivers, hotel personnel, waiters, etc. in London what their personal opinion was of the Euro, the EU, etc. Almost all of them said they consider themselves Europeans first, and Britons second. I was very surprised, as I had been prepared instead for a sort of &quot;grand old flag&quot; waving and union jack mentality.

Do you think my admittedly small and unscientific sample does not represent a significant line of thinking in the UK? Does the European vs. Briton argument divide along class lines? I would love to hear about this from your point of view.

kswl's experience certainly surprises me, at least as regards taxi drivers. A lot of other service personnel in London are quite likely to be from elsewhere in the EU anyway, but I think the general feeling is that while EU membership is an unavoidable necessity, it isn't more inspiring than that. I'd accept that more British people than one might imagine from the tabloids have some sense of sharing something with other EU members, but the idea of a sense of 'European' identity taking precedence over a British one (when there is already a hugely complicated issue over British vs English identity) seems far too ambitious. I doubt if it's true of any of the EU countries outside, say, Belgium (which has its own problems).