The Cheezy One said:
funguy2121 said:
Argol228 said:
I fucking hate Americans calling petrol 'gas' it drives me fucking insane
Really? How many wars is your government involved in (that you know of)? How many of the textile plants/electronics factories that build the clothes you're wearing and the PC you're posting on use slave wages and have high suicide rates? How many of your friends can't get a job, or won't be going "to uni" because their parents aren't filthy rich?
The above are things that drive reasonable people "fucking insane." Not dialectical differences that offend you for purely arbitrary reasons.
And I know a few Brits. Y'all aren't as prim and proper as YOU would have us believe. "Petrol." We don't call
petroleum "petrol" because we aren't fucking twats. Perhaps if you ever have to defend yourself in a fist fight you'll drop this illusion that you're a monacle-wearing intellectual.
Ok, I have a lot of problems with this.
(1)Where did the war thing come from? Where did the slave labour thing come from? These are irrelevant comments. He was talking about gasoline and petroleum.
(2)And by the way? Do you have student loans over there? Because I live in a single parent household on a less-than-average income, and I'm going to uni in a couple months.
(3)Oh yes, because language differences are purely arbitrary, aren't they? Maybe everyone should speak English- sorry, American, because that's how it's turning out.
(4)And I know a few Americans. (5)Be glad they are nicer than you to talk to. (6)Wait what? (7)"We don't call petroleum "petrol" because we aren't fucking twats"? (8)So when we shorten a word, we're fucking twats, but when you do it, you're redefining a language? Double standard any?
(9)And where did the "fist fight" come from? Do you think that we never have fights here? I live in Newcastle, by far not the roughest place in the UK, and ever here there are streets you don't walk at night.
(1) No, he was talking about diction driving him "fucking insane." Where did the war come from? Your tax dollars and mine (well, maybe not. Maybe you're an Aussie or a Swede). People really aren't kidding when they say we'll all be speaking Chinese in a few decades. Wonder why? All of the money for education and healthcare is being spent bailing out corrupt banks and war profiteering. Those are things to be driven "fucking insane" by. Losing one's shit over regional dialectical differences is a bright neon sign that one is content to sit on the sidelines and play cynic.
(2) We have student loans. You are about to NOT have student loans, and we won't be far behind you. My sister got her masters in philosophy at Middlesex, right before they cut the philosophy program.
(3) I do know a violinist, if that helps.
(4) The
English in this section makes me laugh, and it's not because of any regional differences. To whit...
(5) Is this an imperative? OK, then I WILL be glad that they are nicer to talk to than I.
(6) Um, Stan's Mom from South Park?
(7) I'm glad we agree!
(8) Actually, no. When I speak to anyone even approaching adulthood I speak to them as an adult, which is to say I give them credit for being able to figure out what I'm saying without having to spell every last nuance out to them Telly-Tubbies-style. I did not say what you stated I said. I said that calling gasoline gas, oil or petroleum isn't inherently inferior, intellectually or otherwise, to calling it "petrol," but that doing so doesn't carry the same effete condescension, particularly when claiming that it drives you batty that other people don't use your diction, as though you are the only speaker of proper English. Perhaps you haven't read my other posts, or perhaps you see this thread as a big America vs. Britain thread. Personally, I hate idiots of all stripes. I hate entitled New Englanders and entitled rich brats from Texas every bit as much as I hate psuedointellectual Brits who think that all Americans or all southerners are ignorant fat jingos. I find the fact that I have to state this for you insulting. If you actually paid attention to what I said, you'd realize that I didn't actually call anyone a twat. I said that most of us don't say "petrol" because most of us aren't twats. Also, most of us can take a joke. Not that I don't love Simon Pegg and a lot of other British comedians, but we have David Cross, John Benjamin and Patton Oswalt, and that's just a few of the LIVING comics. What were we talking about? Right...
(9) I am aware that, overall, our public education system is inferior to yours (for now), but surely you have context clues over there. They aren't just for exams. Also, your police don't have guns. I just wanted to point that out. If one finds oneself on one of these ominous streets of which you speak in Newcastle, one can call an unarmed cop to deal with it. I live between (are you offended I didn't say "betwixt?") Dallas and Fort Worth. In both towns, if a police officer goes down one of the streets equivalent to what you've described without a gun, he or she is going to very quickly become a dead cop.
Look, I've seen James Bond, so I know you have fights over there (I've seen
Black Books, dammit, I know you people get irony!). Seriously though, if you still think I was suggesting that British people don't have fights or face adversity, then I don't know what to tell you, except read it again. Perhaps fortnightly
