To my UK friends: don't lump all us americans together.

[TheRightToArmBears]

You think you've got it bad? I'm fucking Irish.


Anyway, everone has stereotypesfor everyone else. If I meet people from a country where we have no stereotypes for (say, Hungary), I feel the need to invent them just for the sake of it.

Those crazy Hungarians, they're going to set fire to my dog right after they read this. because y'know, they're like that.

 

[BuchalBainne]

You think you've got it bad? I'm fucking Irish.

I know what you mean there. I have given up on talking on XBL, as most people can't go more than 2 seconds without taking the piss out of my think accent.
Also, I'm from Cavan and that doesn't help either. :L

 

[Daniel Armstrong]

I'm from Newcastle, England.

Therefore (as described by wikipedia); Geordie

Geordie often features as one of the UK's most popular accents.In a newspaper survey, the Geordie accent was found to be the "most attractive in England"

Cheryl Cole, most sexiest woman ever, therefore In my own knowledge...

Geordies = SUPER RACE

Also Newcastle United = SUPER TEAM

Typical Geordie behavior plus we have our own dialect, sometimes I would go as far as to say the 'Rednecks' of the United Kingdom, but we are smart. Yes we are. YES WE ARE *sigh*

 

[Treblaine]

when I was hanging out with some London youths when I was 15. They were completely baffled by the fact that I didn?t speak with a ?southern American accent? even though I grew up on a ranch.

Ever considered the possibility you were just hanging around with idiots?

And 15 year olds at that... there is a reason they aren't considered old enough to vote.

 

[Terramax]

Americans get stereotyped like every other country? This is an outrage!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Its a neighbourly thing too, the English rib on Scots/welsh and Irish, the Yanks (ho ho, generalisation!) rib the Canadians and in France its a legal requirement to take the piss out of the Belgiums.

Oh aye, there's not a day when I don't take the piss out of the English. Mostly while talking to my English friends.

How do you make an Irish Cocktail? Put a potato in a pint of Guinness.

This is the thing with the Welsh-Scottish-Irish-English-French connection. We rip into each other something rotten (Like American-Canada, but NOT America-Mexico), but if you lay into one of us, we'll tag-team the smeg out of you.

Apart from France, which runs away smelling of onions.

 

[d4rkxy13x]

In my eyes, everyone is ignorant of accent changes in any other country.

I myself am English and I wouldn't be able to differentiate American accents even though I have friends from about 20 states.

You could probably go up to (almost) anyone and ask them what a (for example) French accent, you'll likely get either the "ah, oui Monsieur" or the "Aw haw haww" (I call it the French Elvis) even though there are the however many dialects of French depending on where you go in the country.

It's all a matter of what stereotypes you've learnt about each country.

A lot of people can tell you the British stereotype is either Posh, James Bond, Star Wars villain/General film villain accent, or my personal favourite, The Farmer "Ooh Ahh", the Wurzels, "We all drive tractors accent"

On your "British English" yeah, most of us (well me) are more annoyed of the spelling and some of the pronunciation.
For example:-
Colour, not color
Aluminium (Al-oo-min-e-um) not (Al-oo-min-um)... okay, not much difference in those two.. but, you know, my point still stands

If any of this doesn't make sense or I've botched the explanation I'll be happy to try again

I, being both French and English, but residing in France, have experienced both of these stereotypes, and now all my friends thing people in Britain are ginger, have bad teeth end a terrible sense of humour. As you say, there are incredible amounts of accents and different types of people in both of the countries, for example, we in Brittany (north west), find all Parisians are rich tourists, even though we are from the same country. The southern "Marseillais" accent is absolutely incomprehensible if you don't understand the accentuations used.
Coming from Manchester, and having lived in the same village as Cantona and Rooney, know that "as a fact" everyone in my village is filthy rich, ad that all people from Manchester drink beer all the time.
The accent from Manchester is incredible, however, since most words are cut, and sounds slighty like a mix of "Australian" and English.

 

[AWAR]

Meeh, Americans-British, they are all the same to me...

 

[DisturbiaWolf13]

Yeah...guilty, what am i meant to say? However i do contest your point over the ''proper'' English thing, I do believe that the proper English accent is the...English version (how absurd) but yes, of course dialects change over the years but I stand by my opinion that the English language is used in more of a proper way over here than in the USA (for the most part of course)

 

[Mr.Lucifer]

Its usually typical in any country to lump all people of a nation together.

 

[TheBritish]

It is kind of off topic, but it's also really true that Brits tend to be more mocking, the more you like someone I would never say most of the insults I say to my friends to someone who wasn't a friend. That would be just mean This doesn't seeeeeem to translate well to Americans.

Case in point, back when I was a lot younger, I was in New York on the Circle Line Tour ( I think it was called) and me and a few friends were talking at the back to each other and a couple of Americans turned around in front of us and just exclaimed at how mean we were to each other. It took a long time to convince them we were all friends. (This was a long time ago though. Maybe Ya--Those same Americans have changed a bit now )

EDIT: Also, most Brits that I know kind of embrace the British stereotypes and think they're funny themselves. My girlfriend, who lives here but isn't a Brit, often makes fun of me by suggesting that I should be wearing a suit, top hat and moncacle and be drinking tea from the second I wake up

 

[asinann]

I honestly had no idea there was an accent for my region of the US, but when I pronounced a few of the words it was actually there.

 

[Camembert]

Yeah...guilty, what am i meant to say? However i do contest your point over the ''proper'' English thing, I do believe that the proper English accent is the...English version (how absurd) but yes, of course dialects change over the years but I stand by my opinion that the English language is used in more of a proper way over here than in the USA (for the most part of course)

You think the English accent is the proper version? Which English accent would that be, exactly?

Also, anyone who says that the British version of English is the more correct or 'proper' version is in dire need of some linguistics lessons. It is beyond ridiculous to suggest that any standardised dialect or language is in any way less proper than any other.

I honestly had no idea there was an accent for my region of the US, but when I pronounced a few of the words it was actually there.

Every person on this earth (who can speak) has an accent.

 

[inflamessoilwork]

They need to visit the two sides of it, they need to go to Alabama, and then they need to go visit the Bay Area here in California

 

[tehroc]

OT:Sterotyping is natural, look how americans pertray the english in tv shows; We most of the time presented as upper class pricks with bad teeth.

By he way did you go back in time you where and adult then a teenager.

Well at least be pleased that we dont present you all as chavs.

 

[GrinningManiac]

Its a neighbourly thing too, the English rib on Scots/welsh and Irish, the Yanks (ho ho, generalisation!) rib the Canadians and in France its a legal requirement to take the piss out of the Belgiums.

Oh aye, there's not a day when I don't take the piss out of the English. Mostly while talking to my English friends.

Then they call me a potato farmer, and we all laugh. I think once you know the person well enough, it's alright.

I used to make it a stereotype that all Irish were republican, pro-unification and fiercely nationalistic. I thought "sure, there's quite a few of them, but not ALL Irish are like that, right?"

Then I met my History teacher. God almighty.

I think it's funny how he refers to the English/British as "you lot" when the Empire commits attrocities, but "us" when we do something good. I don't think to mention this in case I get punched

 

[sephiroth1991]

OT:Sterotyping is natural, look how americans pertray the english in tv shows; We most of the time presented as upper class pricks with bad teeth.

By he way did you go back in time you where and adult then a teenager.

Well at least be pleased that we dont present you all as chavs.

True, if i had to choose between the two i'm better off with the posh

 

[MellowFellow]

I usually find myself ignoring stereotypical things said by people. Just let them live in their ignorance.

PS: TV Tropes is right when they talk about how people pronounce my home state of Oregon. I get annoyed when people pronounce it Or-y-gun.

 

[DisturbiaWolf13]

Yeah...guilty, what am i meant to say? However i do contest your point over the ''proper'' English thing, I do believe that the proper English accent is the...English version (how absurd) but yes, of course dialects change over the years but I stand by my opinion that the English language is used in more of a proper way over here than in the USA (for the most part of course)

You think the English accent is the proper version? Which English accent would that be, exactly?

Also, anyone who says that the British version of English is the more correct or 'proper' version is in dire need of some linguistics lessons. It is beyond ridiculous to suggest that any standardised dialect or language is in any way less proper than any other.

I honestly had no idea there was an accent for my region of the US, but when I pronounced a few of the words it was actually there.

Every person on this earth (who can speak) has an accent.

Any English accented form of the English language is by definition more English than a non English accented version. That doesn't make it better in any way, it's just more English.

 

[Camembert]

Any English accented form of the English language is by definition more English than a non English accented version. That doesn't make it better in any way, it's just more English.

You didn't say more English, though - you said proper, which to me sounded the same as 'better'. Anyway, it can be argued that British English is 'more English', you're right - just don't confuse the two. It's more English as in it's spoken in England; that doesn't mean it's more English as in it's closer to the 'pure' version of the language or any such nonsense.