How Not To Be American

[seldear]

This person is a Speshul American Snowflake!

Only Americans Speak English! TRUFAX!

When confronted by their misconception, however...they bravely press on, missing the point, insisting that only Americans speak English properly, and trying to tell everyone that, oh, it was just a rant and shouldn't have been taken seriously, and you're being MEEEEEEEEAN to me!

Uh, yeah. Sure. Uhuh. Right.

--

Dear Person From America,

When you sound and behave like an idiot, people will treat you like you're an idiot.

When you sound and behave like an ignorant and close-minded American, people are going to treat you with contempt - both people from outside America (yes, Virginia, there is a world 'outside America'), and Americans who don't enjoy being advertised as arrogant twits by one of their own.

Do you need me to translate that into 'proper English' for you?

Comments

[slm76.livejournal.com]

I always just laugh and remind them that "football" is a game where you kick the "ball" with your "foot."

American football, of which I am a fan, is really rugby with pads *g*

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

The spelling isn't an issue so much; it's the idea that the only right way is the American one. That everyone else is wrong and should adjust to America.

[sleekuk.livejournal.com]

That is very funny :)
I can't be bothered to open all the threads so I've just been scrolling through the initial comments.

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

It's like watching a trainwreck: s/he just digs hirself in deeper with every attempt to avoid saying, "Okay, so I didn't realise that people in other countries speak different variants of my language and that the same words may have different meanings. Oops. My bad."

[slm76.livejournal.com]

And you see why I go crazy every time I come across an example of this arrogance? I think some folks think that I make this sort of stuff up. After all, how can any American really be that ignorant? Sadly, it might be less than 5% of the population who think that way, but they give the rest of the country a bad name.

It doesn't help that the American government continues this myth that English is only spoken in the USA. I'm going to have to take an English test when I apply for Naturalization. Seriously. There are a few exemptions, but having English as your first language is NOT one of them.

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know that certain Americans can be among the most stupidly rigid people in the world. Some of them are even educated. Actually, sometimes the edumacated ones are the worst, because they think they know, so they're not willing to admit that they're actually ignorant.

And LOL on the English test for the British citizen. This would be like, hm, teaching a fish to swim, perhaps? Then again, I can see that they might worry that you're, say, a Pakistani person who speaks mostly Pakistani but was born in the UK and is trying to get a foothold in America.

Still...oh, the irony.

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

One can be edumacated out of ignorance.

Alas, for stupidity, there is no cure.

[angelsasha.livejournal.com]

Lol, that's just precious! Reminds me of an American customer on my company's forums who was under the impression that he doesn't speak American English, it's us Brits who speak English American.

https://www.serif.com/forum/ViewThread.asp?Thread=41159#267804

English American?! I laughed, because it was that or cry...

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

Ah, the egocentricity of America...