Poll: What kind of Foreign are you?

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

I'm from Ireland, one of the many countries that spell colour right. Also, to ask how "foreign" people are is possibly the most arrogant question I have ever heard.

To be fair, I think it's meant in jest.

Fair enough, maybe it was.

 

[Alcamonic]

Swedish. I have to admit that the option "Polish" made me chuckle. As if it's something neither American nor foreigner.
If you want to know, I prefer to write with ou in colour and armour, I also drink tea everyday.
Maybe I'm a British wannabe, haha.

 

[Gigano]

The Danish [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Danish-Escapists] kind.

I do have a few Anglophile tendencies though, especially when it comes to language, furniture, and ale.

 

[killcheese]

Im 1/2 native american and i live in america, so yes i am.

 

[Dr Snakeman]

I was under the impression that Americans were the dominant nationality, possibly followed by British.

'American' is not a nationality, as America is a continent (or even two), not a country.

Not this crap again. I am sick of people getting nitpicky over semantics.

We citizens of the United States are called Americans, and the country is called America in casual speech. It's an informal way of referring to the country. This is not going to change.

Anyway, I live in America.

And I gotta say, I'm surprised. I had thought we were in the majority on this site, or at least #2 behind the Brits.

 

[StrangerQ]

Finnish.
I got lured to the site by ZP, though.

Finnish too and i too got lured here by ZP.

First i found Zp and watched some videos. Then i lost adress for over 6 months after i googled ZP by "swearing australian game critic" and got back here. Afterwards i took my own little hole here at community side

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

Yeah, I'm American. A long long long long time ago, my ancestors hauled over here from the UK vicinity and Russia, but that was forever ago. I sort of wish I had real culture to go back to, or whatever...yeah.

 

[Dr Snakeman]

I'm from Ireland, one of the many countries that spell colour right. Also, to ask how "foreign" people are is possibly the most arrogant question I have ever heard.

To be fair, I think it's meant in jest.

Fair enough, maybe it was.

Or, you know, since the OP already mentioned that this is an American-based site, you kind of are foreign.

It makes perfect sense to me; since this is the internet, you use the country of origin of the site to determine "foreign-ness".

There's no need to gripe about it. Also, both forms of "color" are correct.

[sub][sub]Yours just looks funny XD[/sub][/sub]

 

[Dr Snakeman]

The best kind of foreign.... a 'Foreigner.'


{USA}

Words cannot properly express how happy I am that you posted that.

All I can say is that you just made me... Hot Blooded!

 

[Marik Bentusi]

German representative here.

 

[Gralian]

Sorry mate, can't say i came to this site through the British gravitation effect of a fellow Briton.

I think it might be worth mentioning that there's a lot of Europeans on the site as well, and they may choose to speak British English as opposed to American English. Though since they probably learned the language through American television, that point is moot.

 

[Stephanos132]

English first, british second.

 

[SirDeadly]

No, I'm Australian and proud of it.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I'm Welsh, 'EY BUTT!
Welsh, English and Scottish, if we're being precise.

 

[eggmiester]

I! AM A PADDY!!

or irish. whatever ya want ta call it. bet there aren't many of us on here, are there? we're as rare as leprechauns!

i couldn't be arsed to read all the comments, so if another paddy has already posted on here, or if there are a lot of paddy's on here...
'wince' sorry.

slan go foill!

 

[Sherlock/]

I was under the impression that Americans were the dominant nationality, possibly followed by British.

'American' is not a nationality, as America is a continent (or even two), not a country.

On a brighter note, when i see 'foreign' i read it as non-Korean. It's a starcraft thing. =)

Yes there are numerous countries in the Americas, but only one has "America" in its name, and uses the common soubriquet "American" as a demonym. You call yourself Korean and there's two of them, even if one's not particularly tasteful.

Just as I don't call myself a United-Kingdomite, and Britain is only part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (And its Dominions & Territories Overseas).

Do I want to het into this now? Hmm, I think I do.

"but only one has "America" in its name" Are the citizens of South Africa the only Africans? Are the Swiss not Europeans because their country is not part of the European Union?

"uses the common soubriquet "American" as a demonym" Citing common use as a justification, oh dear. I would argue that it's use is most often tachnically correct, as citizens of the USA are from the Americas. You though, literally call it a nationality.

"You call yourself Korean and there's two of them" Ah, you've got me there. Although in jest, I did make a similar mistake to the one of you I was pointing out in the very same post. My apologies, I meant South Korea.

Your last line doesn't seem to support the point you are trying to make. Or I simply don't understand it. Might be the language barrier, seeing as I had to look up both soubriquet and demonym earlier. You an I might call ourselves Europeans, though it is not our nationality.

My last sentence is just speaking about how I might refer to myself as British, but the country I live in is commonly referred to as the United Kingdom (or sometimes simply (Great) Britain), which is a shortening of United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. It's a simplification for the sake of comprehensibility, essentially.

No, certainly, South Africans are not the only "Africans" but they don't refer to their nationality that way; all the people with their roots in South Africa, that I know, at least, refer to themselves as South Africans, as does the international media. Whereas, whatever message of linguistic imperialism it sends, "American" refers to a citizen of the United States, and to refer to them otherwise would be linguistically clumsy at best.

Yes, I'm just making the point that everyone understands that when in common speech a person refers to themselves as "American", they mean "a resident/citizen of the United States of America", while if one says they're Swiss, it doesn't exclude them from being European, if not citizens of the European Union, but that's a geographical rather than a political name, and not a demonym.

As much as I admire precision in speech, ultimately a language is a consensus between its speakers, and "American" is the accepted demonym for citizens of the USA.

Fair enough, i must concede language is a consensus, and in that light your use of American was not wrong. I suppose the 'message of linguistic imperialism' sparked my resistence.

I severely dislike this mechanism where commonly made errors are accepted into a language as correct by majority vote, as it were. Unfortunately my opinion is still unable to change facts.

 

[Hungry Donner]

I was born and raised in the US.

My mother was born in the US as well and is of Germanic Jewish stock. She lived in the US for some periods of her life but much of her early schooling was in Italy and her last years of high school were in South Africa.

My father was born in England and is of English and Welsh stock. At an early age his family moved to South Africa and he lived there until coming to the US for grad school (along with my mother who was coming for college).

So I grew up in a household with a very global perspective and in fact I got my MA in education with the hopes of teaching high school global studies.

 

[Vonnis]

I think that in most countries where English isn't the first language, people are taught British spelling, which is why you see so many u's and such.

 

[thylasos]

Fair enough, i must concede language is a consensus, and in that light your use of American was not wrong. I suppose the 'message of linguistic imperialism' sparked my resistence.

I severely dislike this mechanism where commonly made errors are accepted into a language as correct by majority vote, as it were. Unfortunately my opinion is still unable to change facts.

I would entirely agree with that; it's this sort of thing that fuels anglophone monolingualism and the arrogance entailed therein.

What I'm trying to say is, I entirely sympathise with your point, as that tremendously rare thing: a Brit who speaks three languages, and understands the benefits of precision, but can also appreciate linguistic idiosyncracies, so long as they have some merit, be it through etymology or otherwise.