And now for the second only-slightly-used post of the weekend.
Really, these babies aren’t even used. They were owned by a 96 year-old grandmother who only read them once or twice a month to make sure the allusions weren’t creaky. Here goes:
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I’ve been dealing with/reading comments by non-Americans a lot lately. This is not about Iraq, or Bush, or anything like that. This is about Americans.
I hear the same arguments from them over and over. I used to hear these arguments from my wife (a non-American, for those who aren’t in the know), but either I’ve convinced her that I’m right, or argued her into knowing not to bring it up anymore.
To get the effect, you have to imagine a lot of clucking of the tongue and wagging of the head:
“Why do you need 34 kinds of peanut butter/pasta/rice/cereal/chocolate bar/etc.? It’s overkill and ridiculous. In fact, it’s exactly what’s wrong with America. Americans are such consumers that they’re not happy with 3 kinds of cereal like the rest of the world lives with. Who could possibly NEED all this variety? It’s embarrasing and gauche. Just like America.â€
And etcetera.
And, of course, I don’t understand the complaint. Why is it a bad thing that there are lots of choices? You don’t HAVE to buy every kind of granola bar, but you have the choice.
And what’s the deal with worrying about what you NEED? If “need†were the only criterion involved, then we’d all live in caves and eat berries and leaves, along with the occasional fish.
Americans don’t need 24 hour supermarkets, banks that open on weekends, decent service at restaurants, lots of variety in clothes and food, or general convenience. We don’t need it, but we don’t see why we shouldn’t have it.
I’ll never buy every every kind of orange juice on the market, but I think it’s a good thing that Mary can buy Calcium-Enriched No-Pulp Made-from-Concentrate, while Carlos gets his Pasteurized Not-From-Concentrate Medium-Pulp Low-Acid.
On the surface, I understand why it seems ludicrous. I really do. But when you leave the surface and ask, “what’s really wrong with it?†the answer is “nothing.â€
The same thing goes for complaints about 24 hour supermarkets or restaurants. The same thing goes for drive-through anything.
And there’s more. I once had a very heated argument with a Danish guy who thought it was horrible that Americans get their food boxed up to go at a restaurant.
This is just so crude and unsophisticated. And again, I can see where he’s coming from, but I think that attitude is elitist and wasteful. Yeah, we have bigger servings here (not necessarily a good thing), but we also box ‘em up and take ‘em home.
He was horrified to learn this new sign of American brutishness.
Do I seem to be in a bad mood?
“And etcetera”?
You see, that’s what’s wrong with Americans—they’re such monoglots that they don’t even know the *one* language. While the rest of the world takes the time and effort to learn several languages, and to speak and write each one well, Americans are happy to barely know enough of one to order their Big Macs with fries.
Unrestrained microwaves…I like that bit.
Now I’m afraid to leave any appliances unattended. What if they’re all secretly plotting against me when I’m gone.
I think it’s called “envy”. That, and the feeling, bubbling just under the surface, that Europeans are inherently superior to us horrible Americans and therefore we don’t “deserve” our material well-being.
EdM: I agree that the “brutish yanks take their leftovers home” thing smacks of a (ridiculous) sense of superiority.
Bruce:
I like saying “and etcetera.” It just has a certain resignedness to it that feels right, especially when I’m making it stand as its own sentence and paragraph (which is already breaking a million rules).
I also say, “the hoi polloi,” which annoys some of the very few people who know what it means in English and also know what it means in Greek.
Lately I’ve been thinking about Fowler, even though I DO have opinions, so am not in his happy, to be envied, class of people:
“The English speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know & condemn; (4) those who know & approve; and (5) those who know & distinguish. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, & are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes” – Francis George Fowler
Some of this attitude (“why isn’t what the rest of the world has good enough for you?”) reminds me of the sentiment expressed by my fellow neighbors when one of our own moves away (just because they want to live somewhere else).
The movee invariably has reasons like needing more space, worrying about the schools in our area, property value, etc. Of course, we’re the ones left behind with the things s/he is discarding, so while we silently nod along (most of the time), what we’re thinking is “so you’re too good for us, then.”
Rob: my point was mainly just that some petty people will latch onto any characteristic, no matter how insignificant, and use it to denigrate a group. They will make broad generalizations without regard to accuracy *or* relevance. FWIW, I also say “the hoi poloi”, but through ignorance rather than preference. I also violate other rules. Like writing sentence fragments. Every time I see “Please RSVP” (I’m waiting for “Please respond with your RSVP”), I laugh—I don’t get angry or try to correct the sender.
Phil: when I quit one job, I made a point of telling my soon-to-be-ex coworkers that my departure should not be taken as a negative commentary on the employer. I’m not entirely sure why I bothered to reassure them. I’ve moved a few times, and haven’t made the round of neighbors to do similar. I guess some of them must think their neighborhood isn’t good enough for me. When others have left before me, I just assumed they had some good reasons to leave, and I didn’t take it personally. Maybe I should have.
Bruce, I gotcha. I know you weren’t really abusing me for that. I just sort of went off on a tangent. You know how bloggers are.
Having seen one blogger, I can safely say that yes, I know what they’re like.
Love this new POV on Americans. I’m curious…do you get this too many choices/too much convenience complaint from all foreigners regardless of where they are from? I don’t think I’ve encountered this sort of complaint much at all. Specifically I don’t hear it from Chinese immigrants, including my own family (from Taiwan). The most common complaints are the many oddities of the English language, how wasteful Americans are and that the US is too boring because stores and restaurants close too EARLY. Nothing about cereal choices or drive thrus. In fact, look at a Chinese restaurant’s menu and their hours of operation and you can see that culturally, the Chinese might be further down the choice and convenience spectrum than Americans.
I haven’t seen/heard much of that particular complaint (too many choices) either, but I’ve run into many other complaints from foreigners about Americans, and wasn’t surprised to hear that one. For that matter, I’ve heard a lot of ignorant complaints from Americans about foreigners, and from foreigners about foreigners of another source.
The English language *is* full of oddities, largely because it’s an amalgam. However, as I used to tell my students, English has become the de facto lingua franca.
Americans certainly do tend to be wasteful (with plenty of exceptions). I think this is largely a matter of wealth. We have so much, wasting a bit doesn’t bother us. For instance, I used to worry about certain people taking long showers, wasting fuel to heat so much water. Then I noticed that our total family gas use in the summer (showers & dish washing) cost about $4/mo. It’s just not worth worrying about.
AFAICT, all of the “Chinese” restaurants I frequent are run by Americans.
Cathy, I get it from Europeans and their spawn (Aussie, Kiwis, maybe the occasional white S. African).
Bruce: Interestingly, the main complaint that the Danish guy had was that we weren’t wasteful enough. We should throw away our food, not take it home.