English V American
As a British person visiting the U.S., what is the most astounding thing someone over there has said to you?
---------------------------- At an airport I was chatting over beers with some fireman about to take an internal flight. When I said I was flying back to London for a couple of weeks, he replied that he would love to visit London as he wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. I made the observation he could get a train from London to Paris, France so it sounded a great holiday combining the two. He was mortified, but I pointed out that Paris is really quite close to London and frankly how many Europeans could say off the top of their head which state Mt.Rushmore is in?
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In a restaurant in LA a waiter pointed out to us all that he was a law student at UCLA ( as if any of us gave a shit - just bring me my fries ...) and when I asked in my Britrish BBC accent for a glass of iced water, 3 TIMES he asked me to repeat what I had said and 3 times he clearly was at a loss as to what the hell I had said and looked at my partnetr and eventually said ...
' I am not getting this Buddy.'
My friend replied that I was asking for 'Iced warder.'
Oh' he said ' Iced warder - '
And I saw red and answered
' If you want to be a lawyer you had better buck your ideas up.'
He loked horrified at me - but I continued.
'You asked me what I wanted to drink and I answered you. I asked for Iced Water which is not a massive leap from your 'iced warder' - and it DOES NOT sound like a Bacardi Daccari - Bottle of beer - Orange Juice, it doesn't sound like anything else on earth but what I was saying... WATER WATER WATER and yet you couldn't even make that leap and I find that appallingly dumb of you and you want to be a lawyer ???'
He thought I was rude but when I pointed out how dumb he really was and how easy it was yet he was unable to make that leap, he just continued on with serving us and he was not left a tip.
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First class on a British Airways flight from SanFrancisco to New York.
Flight Attendant asked an American passenger if she wanted a drink.
She asked for a Vodka Tonic.
He asked if she wanted ice in that - which was a silly question to ask an American as all Americans use ice.
She trned and squarked -' What ?'
So he repeated ' Would you like ise in that ?' 3 times this happened back and forth as she simply wasn't understanding his English accent.
Eventually the cabin crew was frustrated and barked ' Ice - ice - Ice - you know FROZEN WATER.'
and she complained he was rude to the chief purser - and this was when I got involved and stated I had overheard the whole thing and how he had asked her repeatedly if she wanted ice and the stupoid women couldn't understand an English accent and it all blew over.
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I suppose we see a lot more American films etc. on TV so we hear the accent whereas many Americans only watch and pay attention to everything that is American and have very little knowledge of the rest of the world and while this might be considered a bit thick - stupid, moronic or even elitist - assuming as many Americans do that the whole world evolves around the USA - many are astounded to learn we speak different languages, do NOT take $ and have absolutely nothing in common with America and want nothing to do with America and they absolutely cannot fathom that. They are so brain washed that theirs is the global superpower and how everyone wants to be an American or live in the USA that many are simply blind to the realities and only know America.
Less than 8% of Americans have passports.
America has 8% of the worlds population while using 25% pf the worlds resorces.
25% of the entire worlds prison population - are in American prisons.
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