Ahhhhh... <BR>My "favorite" pet-peave...Stereo-types.

I suppose one stereotype is they have no sense of humor, but anybody who can come up with Monty Python blows that clean out of the water. <BR> <BR>And the infamous stiff upper lip - only way to explain how they took on the Nazis alone and withstood the blitzkrieg. Damned fine showing. <BR> <BR>Hey, let's not leave out Richard Burton when it comes to the Welsh. Do ALL of you have those incredible voices?

I suppose in that sense, Elvira, <BR>you're absolutely right... <BR> <BR>As you know. I'm a great Monty Python fam. (et al) In that fashion, stereo-types abound! <BR> <BR>I guess it's in the delivery. <BR> <BR> <BR>

Tea drinking. Obsessed with weather, soccer and pets. Euro hostile.

<BR>enough said!

Probably one of the best depictions of how some Americans see Brits sometimes was found in the sit-com "The Jeffersons" a number of years back. The script-writers and actors did a superb job with the interactions between George Jefferson and Mr. Bentley, the former being a successful American businessman who was black and the latter being a British man who happened to live in the same luxurious New York high-rise building. Of course, the entire show was really built around cultural stereo-types and it was fiction, but like it's predecessor, the controversial (at the time) "All in the Family", it had a message between all the laughs. And even though that is reaching back some time, stereo-types die very hard.

Oh dear don't you think that stereotypes are just lazy thinking. All human beings have a sense of humour, it's just that different people laugh at different things. Yes, I'm sure that if you look hard, you'll find some British people with bad teeth although I can only remember seeing one example, and I've lived in the US and have seen less than perfect teeth there too. <BR>And of course "all" Americans are grossly overweight, noisy and badly dressed. When you're in Europe you just don't notice the thousands of quiet, slim, nicely dressed and thoroughly delightful ones.

Brits are nicer to their pets than their children. <BR> <BR>Americans are badly dressed? This from a nation full of woman who figure once they hit 50, they are required by law to wear skirts and cardigans at all times. <BR> <BR>My husband's British boss (we were living in the UK at the time) told him to give me a baby, and that would settle me down (not quite sure why I needed to settle down). He also said that "You have to keep American women happy. English women are used to being miserable." <BR> <BR>

When I think of the Welsh I automatically think coal-mining and Richard Burton. My grandfather was 1/2 Welsh 1/2 French and grew up in the coal-mining region in West Virginia. So that's my stereotype. :-)

As a tourist, I think of Brits as the most polite people in the world. However, my friend lives there and complains that they are harder to work with than the Japanese! (He's Japanese, so he can say that.) Brits are, apparently, uptight about protocol and about wording things indirectly so as not to be too direct?

When I think of Brits, I think of other business men in french cuffs on their shirts and uncombed/unbrushed hair..and..why ,oh why, are their teeth so bad. I am gay and find the whole uncomfortable french cuff thing even too "gay" for me. I go there to various parts of the UK and to Wales especially for business. Welsh men are also better lovers than the Irish, Scots or relatives in the rest of the UK especially London. Oops, sorry London men. And why is everything "Cheers"? Although, I must say I was quite excited when a London guy told me that he would knock me up in the morning.

to the top..interesting thread

This is an amusing thread. What I've noticed about stereotypes is how they can sometimes be mutual. I've seen here about British people having no sense of humour. Well, that's exactly what British people say about Americans and especially that they need an irony transplant, BTW that thing about Englishwomen being used to being miserable was obviously irony. The Australians have the soap shy pommie, Britons have the Australian with sweaty armpits and corks round his hat. <BR> Don't you also think that we can reinforce our prejudices by seeing what we care to see. For example, a European will hardly notice a fat fellow European, but if they spot a big fat American it's aha all Americans are obese. An American will see a Briton with bad teeth and aha, all British people have bad teeth. I've lived in the USA and I've seen working class people there with bad teeth. <BR>Let's face it, we are all descended from a small number of ancestors, and all nations have a lot in common, we all worry about the job, the mortgage and the kids. Let's lighten up a bit. <BR>I must put in a word for skirts and cardies though. I'd rather see elderly women dressed like that than exposing their varicose veins in shorts and wearing white gym-shoes.

Hi Alex, a "very interesting" thread. <BR>Michael: In regards to London, I don't "get" the French cuff thing? But my husband did comment on the FULL windsor knot, many of the business men were wearing. I did not notice that either. I was probably trying to figure out the style of clothes that a lot of women were wearing in London. It was very diverse IMO. Judy