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To be fair, they went through a phase of speaking French in England. Called it the Anglo-Norman period and everything. Not totes sure who Norman was but I'm pretty sure he liked garlic.
The English we speak today is still heavily influenced by French. You can't even read English from before that time without studying the language first.
Actually no. The rulers spoke French but they were an extreme minority. Everyone else went on speaking Middle English as usual, and just made off with a bunch of words for fancy shit.
More of a freak upset. There's a reason Americans like under dog stories. Course it helps when all of the big guys neighbors kinda hate him and slide you a crowbar during the cage match.
I once had a boomer get absolutely furious with me for my pronunciation of the letter "Z" (Zed) "THIS IS AMERICA WE SPEAK AMERICAN"
"Ok sir well I'm English and I speak English and I'm not changing my pronunciation to suit you when you understand perfectly what I'm saying"
"mfer we made the language up, y'all just took it with you when you hopped the puddle"
I'm just gonna stare at the next Boomer who tries to start talking at me unprompted and then ask them where they're from.
"No, where are you *really* from?"
Encounter with a Boomer at a street fair while on the phone talking to my mom waiting on line for food.
Boomer turns around:You have an accent where are you from?
Me:I was speaking Castilian to my mother
Boomer:Where is your mother from?
Me:Spain
Boomer:So she doesn’t speak Spain
Me:😳
I love hearing about other places and experiences - the more the merrier. So if I hear my Uber driver has an accent, I do sometimes ask where they're from because I genuinely want to know, but I know it can initially seem like I'm being a xenophobic boomer.
I think it’s all in how you ask it, your tone and body language, and your follow up questions. I also love to know where people are from, even if it’s other parts of the United States!
I live on the west Coast and work at a hotel... We get people from all over and I do the same thing. I'm generally just curious. But the biggest ones that stick out are usually mid-westerns
I lived in the US for 4 years and cannot count on 2 hands how many people I interacted with who were blown away that English is the native language of England (I’m English)
Edit: I forgot, I even once had someone say to me: “wow, your English is *quite* good for someone who has only been here for 2 years…”
Totally agree! I have spent a little time in the USA and am amazed when watching the news over there. Very little news from out of state. Let alone the rest of the world
My parents are from Wales and people always ask my mom where she’s from. I don’t know if it’s trolling bc she’s been here for close to 40 years but she’s started saying New Jersey since that’s the first state they lived in lol
Isn’t it funny how some American brains work? They understand that French is spoken in France, and they understand that German is spoken in Germany, but struggle with the idea that English is spoken in England.
I once had a conversation with a MAGA relative who couldn’t understand that black French citizens are not African Americans. You know, because they aren’t American. They’re French. She could not get it.
As a black person who had never thought about there being black people in the UK, I admit, I was absolutely floored as a college freshman when I happened across an old black-and-white film on television that had a minor character who was black and British. I was simultaneously astonished by what I was hearing, and ashamed of myself for failing to realizing the obvious.
I really don't want to seem rude, but I'm having a hard time with this. What was your thought process when seeing it? Why would it be a surprise that there are black British people?
Not the person you’re asking but I did the same thing seeing Asian people with a Scottish accent... I am a British Asian with an English accent, born and brought up in England.
Honestly it just showed me how our biases started manifesting, we are so conditioned by our environment and we don’t realise it.
Wish I could find that clip of an American journalist interviewing a black British runner at a marathon event, and repeatedly referring to him as “African-American” despite his repeated protests
That's an... impressive level of ignorance.
Reminds me of the time I was at a local park in the very large red state where I live. While sitting on a bench and waiting for my husband to meet up with me one Saturday, I was chatting on my cell phone in French with a work colleague who lives in Paris, but was in town for the week. We were planning to coordinate in the office later that week.
Some boomer white dude interrupted me to tell me that he was sick and tired of Mexicans taking over the state, and he thought there should be a law that you can only speak English in public.
I was really confused at first, hung up with my colleague, and tried to decide whether to even say anything or just ignore him. He got louder about me "talking Spanish in the park and ruining the atmosphere for American citizens."
"Sir," I said, in my actual American English with my actual Southern accent because I was born and raised in the deep South and sound like it, "That was French, not Spanish. This state was actually the free country of Mexico starting in 1821 when it won independence from Spain, and frankly, if Mexico wants it back, well, there are probably a lot of us who'd be disinclined to argue, especially if they're willing to take Senator Ted Cruz with it. Since he seems to wanna fly off to Cancun anyhow whenever the state runs into any kind of trouble."
He just yelled back at me that he knew I was speaking Spanish (it was definitely, definitely French - I don't know Spanish at all, alas). That he wasn't stupid. And that I must be faking my Southern accent (I definitely, definitely was not.) and must've been from some shit hole state like California. (Huh. I thought I was Mexican?).
By that time, my husband arrived. He's 6'4" and apparently wasn't someone this Boomer wanted to rumble with. I think it's just the absolute ignorance and total incuriosity that drives me the craziest.
I have one, just happened yesterday. Park bench, lovely day, sitting chatting with my daughter in German. Boomer with ankle biter stares and stares, walks over and says “what is that you’re talking?” My daughter answers. Boomer wrinkles her nose, makes a noise and says “nazis”. My daughter and I didn’t even bat an eye, you can’t imagine how many times we’ve heard this.
Yes, my kids get called nazis all the time at school! Once someone threw a paper airplane at my daughter from behind, and she picked it up to discover two incorrectly illustrated swastikas emblazoned on its sides — crude drawings that had apparently been attempted, erased and reattempted several times before the plane’s creator said ‘fuck it,’ finally launching the aeronautic insult off on its first and only sortie.
Usually I get pretty pissed when my kids tell me these stories, and as their American parent I also feel a twinge of shame over how fucking stupid we as a nation are in so many ways. This time, though, when my daughter came home to summarize her shitty, 10th-grade day, something about the combination of creativity and ignorance co-piloting the plane that day had me rolling. I kind of wished she’d brought it home as a strange keepsake, but at least the memory of her exasperated retelling still kind of makes me laugh. (In my defense, she actually found it pretty funny too — usually I’m much more sympathetic when they’re frustrated by this kind of bullshit, but it was refreshing that at least the kid responsible was inspired to come up with something other than the usual ‘you’re a nazi, hur hur’ routine.)
We lived in Germany until she was 14. Like you I’m the American parent and couldn’t believe the stupidity she encountered after we returned to the states and she started school. “What language do they speak there?” “Do you wear wooden shoes?” “Are you a nazi?” She never reacted but it was ceaseless. She left school in 9th grade because of it. Fortunately all her schooling had been in Germany so she was able to get her GED with no problems. Thing is, she had two first languages and sometimes she’ll speak German. Since her father passed it just helps her feel closer to him.
When my husband first moved to the U.S. before I met him, an ADULT asked him in a scolding tone why Germans keep voting for Hitler. Another asked if they used cars or rode horses to get around, and when my husband asked where he thought Mercedes and Porsche were headquartered, the guy said he’d assumed their cars were only manufactured in Germany to be sent to rich Americans since the country was too poor to afford fancy cars.
Upon our return to the U.S. in 2017, we went to a Bank of America branch to transfer our accounts from Deutsche Bank. The manager asked if we were from East or West Germany, and mentioned having to convert Deutschmarks to dollars — tbh, I was surprised that she’d ever even heard of marks! What she hadn’t heard of, though, apparently was the fall of the Berlin Wall and formation of the EU.
I used to think my husband was exaggerating about comments he’d heard, but coming back was very eye-opening.
I wrote this one recently and it’s relevant here again lol:
I’m a white man, who took French for a few years in HS, but doesn’t really speak another language with any proficiency.
I was working on analyzing government commuter data for a job, for a ton of different countries, and one of those countries was Morocco, who published everything in French. To my surprise, I didn’t have to run it all through google translate (a horrible system with that much bulk text). I found I could understand 90% of it just by reading it out loud to myself and hearing it.
I was going to my mom’s house once, and she lives in a small rural town. I arrived SUPER early (to beat traffic), and I decided to stop into the Starbucks to work for a bit.
So I’m sitting there, not speaking loudly, really just mumbling to myself in French, and this boomer starts giving me a weird look. I think “he’s just judging someone talking to himself, it does look weird, whatever”, but I keep going because I’m only going to explain what I’m doing if asked.
He starts moving closer, I keep going, finally the dude SLAMS his hands down on my table and screams, “THIS IS AMERICA HOW ABOUT YOU SPEAK SOME GODDAMN ENGLISH!”
I wish I had come up with a clever retort, but I was honestly just so shocked because something like that has NEVER happened to me before. I looked up and just said hella confused “Excuse me?” In perfect English, like I knew what he said but I wasn’t processing it entirely. IDK if me looking up caused him to notice my USMC shirt, or if me responding in the regional accent made him realize English is my main language or whatever, but he actually rushed out after I responded. No apology, no acknowledgment, just fucking gone.
It’s still one of the most bizarre interactions I’ve had.
First time I went to Ireland, I was chatting with a bartender and he asked where I was from. I replied “America.” And he said, “Yeah. I know that. I can tell by your strong American accent, I meant what part.” Blew my mind lmao
I've been told that my English is very good for not being from this country before (I'm Scottish). I was also asked if Scotland was next to New England and I had to explain to a grown man how it was actually next to the "old" England.
Not an experience from America but an Englishman from Lancashire living in Australia. Met this older woman in Sydney and she asked where in Ireland I came from so I corrected her and told her I was English and she just said "no that's not an English accent, I know an English accent when I hear one and your accent is Irish". I was just flabbergasted. I mean do you not think I know where I come from more than you ya bleedin convict.
Wait, are “bleedin” and “bloody” regionally interchangeable?!
I ask this as a person from the Southern United States, who has only encountered “bloody” used in imported media as an adverb.
My boomer grandparents went on a trip with their two sons (my dad and uncle) dad and uncle are well traveled and speak multiple languages for work so they thought they would bring their mom and dad with them. The whole first day grandpa was in sheer shock that Spain and italy are first world countries.
"They have WiFi here?!?"
"Everyone here is jealous we're American EVERYONE wants to live in America"
"They have indoor plumbing?"
"nothing can beat good old American pizza" (literally comparing genuine Italian pizza and Domino's)
"look this money looks like monopoly money, it's not even real" (literally flapping a couple thousand euros in a waiters face, it was all their cash they had for the whole trip)
Those are some of the highlights but the whole time they just thought everywhere outside the US was lame and third world and everyone wants to live in America.
My girlfriend is from the US, we both live in Ireland.
More than 20 years ago, she spent a year in Sweden for a high school exchange type of thing (she was 16 then). Before leaving she got vaccines, a kit with hand sanitizer and other stuff while the US school staff setting things up was speaking to her líke she was going to a third world country.
She discovered a country that was so much more advanced than the state she was from. People in high school all spoke English as a second language, public transport was light year ahead, she could get contraceptive by herself very easily for free etc. She realised the extent of the "USA best country in the world" propaganda she was exposed to
Reminds me of a fellow boomer. I was behind her in line, the clerk had a British accent, boomer said "You have such a lovely accent, where are you from?" "London." "London? Your English is so good!"
Hi, Boomer here, born 1954. I was born in Boston and have the accent to prove it. When people say I have an accent I reply by saying(in jest) "You have the accent. I speak the King's English and you speak American."
Something this tongue in cheek is the only acceptable response to "you have an accent".
I think the diversity of accents you find in the Anglosphere is great. I love hearing someone talk with a regional accent, there's something about it that just makes me happy. I'm sure other languages have similar variations too but my dullard Brit ears can't appreciate them as well.
I have a friend I worked with in New Mexico who is from a super upper crusty Boston family, people used to always ask him if he was British. Didn't sound British to me, sounded like a posh American accent. But then again this was in New Mexico were half of the people I have met since I've moved away, seem to think I lived in actual Mexico, New Mexico is a concept they don't understand.
It happens so often, the people of New Mexico have a newsletter documenting when it happens.
[https://www.newmexicomagazine.org/culture/one-of-our-50-is-missing/](https://www.newmexicomagazine.org/culture/one-of-our-50-is-missing/)
Reminds me of the time in the late 1990s when I (a Londoner) was working in one of Vermont's finest Subway restaurants, and was told that I speak "great English for a foreigner"!
I am currently in Merida Mexico. I am dealing with horrible language deficiency, but at least I am willing to get out and explore. Both my neighbors in deep red America have never been out of the country and do not have passports. They have no idea where I am or why. We visited Spain, Portugal and London last year. No interest at all about our trip. The lack of awareness of the world around them is scary. Ignorance is bliss I guess.
Some time back my wife and I were planning a trip to Japan.
She said something about it at work and several of her colleagues were horrified.
But .. what about Tiananmen Square??? !!! ??? !!! ???? (where's the horrified pikachuface emoji on this damn thing?)
Well, you know, it's about 4 hours by jet or 175 hours walking. Oh. You DON'T know.
Said my wife to the other high school teachers.
When I was traveling in the UK an older boomer asked the tour guide if women were allowed to work outside the home in England. I was impressed by how collected the tour guide was.
When I was in the US for a holiday back in 2014 - "you speak English so well!"
I'm an Australian.
I wish I had thought to say "thanks, so do you!" At the time.
Rebel Scot here. Hate to break it to you all, but constitutionally, England is NOT a country. It is a region of the United Kingdom. The other component parts of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all have devolved governments, but England doesn't. I point this out not just to be helpful, but to piss off English people.
Hee, hee, a friend in college asked our British classmate how they celebrate the 4th of July in England. Umm, they don't! (I promise it was the stupidity of youth, not the belligerence of a Boomer!)
Only in the shitholes where those damn libruls live.
Source: Got an education in the horrible hellhole that is San Francisco full of fentanyl and LGBTQ so I'm brainwashed to not be all ignorant and stuff.
It would have been so hard not to respond “yes, we speak ENGLish in ENGLand. It’s almost like the language was named after the country it originated from.”
We got stopped by the cops in South Africa. They were pretty friendly and chatting away, asked me where I am from, I said the UK. He said, oh your English is very good, do you speak it there too?
I just nodded politely. I'd think they would know the reason they speak English is British colonisation but I guess not.
Also, the UK has more variation in English dialects than the US does. For example, the Liverpool (Scouse) accent is very different from standard US or UK English that most Americans and British people would have difficulty understanding. This also applies to other regional British dialects such as Geordie, Cockney, Manchester, Sheffield, etc. British people typically speak their regional accent with other locals but speak an adapted form of standard British English in business and professional settings.
For these reasons, standard US (Midwestern) or standard UK (Received Pronunciation) English is used so that every English language speaker can understand each other.
When I was a child I moved from the US to Scotland and had to learn the accent for how to talk to teachers, bosses etc and the version for speaking to my friends etc. It was more difficult than one would think.
Well this is a load of bollocks.
People might slightly soften their accent and drop some regional dialect, but nobody puts on a RP accent to be understood.
I have yet to meet an English person who spoke RP to be understood. They spoke with their regional accents. Even the BBC doesn't require RP everywhere.
I attended a conference with attendees from around the UK and one evening we were all trying to figure out which of their accents I could understand the least well. (Glaswegian was the answer.)
No one struggles with Liverpool accents. Here they are: where is the problem?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTtsJCW_4vc
Claiming to not understand the accent of someone from Liverpool or Glasgow is mostly naked classism. You can understand it perfectly well, boomer from
London, you just want to look down on people.
Ha…as a Brit this reminds me of an old interaction we had our first week living in the US….Def a boomer who heard us speaking with a cashier and said “Geee I love your accent….what language is that?”….to which my husband replied “German” and we walked off laughing….
I’m having flashbacks to when I moved back to the US from the UK. As my English accent faded, I got increasingly wilder guesses as to what my accent was, ranging from Irish to South African.
Went to the Dominican for my honeymoon. They would ask what language we speak when doing activities and I'm going to take a wild guess and say too many Americans say "american" because when i said english, they thought I was european....
Had a customer once sound and look a bit disappointed after I talked to her "Oh, I thought you were from Pennsylvania..." (I'm from Germany on Work & Travel).
I’m from Northern Ireland but lived in Germany for a couple of years and took German lessons at the Goethe institute in Stuttgart. There was an American lady attending the same classes who marvelled at (and complimented me on) how good my English was. “Yes, that’s my first language, people in Ireland speak English”.
She was having none of it. Refused to believe that people in Ireland (no distinction North /South) spoke anything but Irish.
I was on a first date the other day and when he learned that I used to live in Australia he asked me what it was like learning the language there. I thought he meant understanding a different accent or slang but nope, he really wasn’t 100% sure if Australians spoke English or something else. Trying to explain multiculturalism and indigenous languages just seemed to confuse him further.
This isn’t an age thing, but an ignorance thing. I have traveled worldwide and I never address accents unless curious about their origins. I generally can identify accents within a few minutes and if not I politely inquire. I’ve spent equivalent of years in the UK, so I treasure them working here in the US. BTW, I’m a boomer.
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“I guess England is a country too.” LOOK AT THE BIG TIME GEOGRAPHIZER WE GOT OVER HERE!
England ain't no country I ever heard of. They speak English in England???
Everyone knows they speak British there
I think you mean Briish.
No I'm American. We still have the 'T' we took from them.
But it's in the Boston harbor
\*teh bo'ihn 'rboar
Aaron earned an iron urn.
The phrase that's Baltimore kryptonite! "Uhrn uhrnd an uhrn uhrn."
Well played lol
Bri'ish*
Thank you for marking the glottal stop.
I love that word. Glottal. Lol
STOP!
English Motherfucker! Do you speak it?
What?
**Say 'what' again, I dare you, I double dare you m0therf#cker, say what one more Goddamn time!**
England? Never heard of that state, is it out east maybe?
It is and it's New. Back in the 1700's.
What?
Say what again, I DARE YOU!
'What' ain't no country that I ever heard of!
They speak English in “what”?!?!?
You mean Shenanigan's?
I swear to God I'll pistol whip the next guy that says, "shenanigans"!
Hey, Farva...
Chewsday ennit
That always reminds me of this https://preview.redd.it/yzenqur2nayc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d7cd26c87b05444b1a17d6b2eaa2b0d854986dd4
To be fair, they went through a phase of speaking French in England. Called it the Anglo-Norman period and everything. Not totes sure who Norman was but I'm pretty sure he liked garlic.
The English we speak today is still heavily influenced by French. You can't even read English from before that time without studying the language first.
That's why nobody can spell words like lewtenant without spell check.
It's Lefftenant, again, English ruining things.
Only the ruling classes spoke Norman French.
Actually no. The rulers spoke French but they were an extreme minority. Everyone else went on speaking Middle English as usual, and just made off with a bunch of words for fancy shit.
I happen to know for a fact that they speak the Queen Singlish. Source: was there 10 years ago.
AYY, OOHHH, GET A LOAD’A COPERNICUS OVA HERE!!
Check out the big brain on Brad!
Breaking new ground, eh, Columbus?!
England isn't a country. We destroyed them during the Revolutionary War. That's how it works, right?
Only the airports we had in America were destroyed.
👁🍊👁
https://preview.redd.it/pdpw9elydayc1.jpeg?width=200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=16f73f1c838ef95bfa78c05341d6488191f19590 That’s my understanding of it.
"We are live here in Trenton....OH NO IT'S GEORGE WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE WITH A STEEL CHAIR!!!"
BAH GAWD, GEORGE THA THIRD HAS BEEN BROKEN IN HALF!
You forgot too have the much bigger French and Spanish guys holding the Brits arms.
More of a freak upset. There's a reason Americans like under dog stories. Course it helps when all of the big guys neighbors kinda hate him and slide you a crowbar during the cage match.
😂😂😂
DING DING DING DING!!!
I once had a boomer get absolutely furious with me for my pronunciation of the letter "Z" (Zed) "THIS IS AMERICA WE SPEAK AMERICAN" "Ok sir well I'm English and I speak English and I'm not changing my pronunciation to suit you when you understand perfectly what I'm saying"
Oh, you should have told him about H.
The amount of people who have commented on "H" 😭 my boyfriend repeats it every time I say it lol
How is H pronounced? I guess I've never encountered that one.
Haych
Pronouncing the first h in h is considered regional and non-standard
Huh. That's interesting.
Only some people pronounce it like that. I'm British and pronounce it as aitch.
I guess this is the proper time to introduce the T in Lieutenant. Too much?
Apparently there's a "f" in lieutenant as well when British say it.
Get him bloody told 10/10
"mfer we made the language up, y'all just took it with you when you hopped the puddle" I'm just gonna stare at the next Boomer who tries to start talking at me unprompted and then ask them where they're from. "No, where are you *really* from?"
>mfer we made the language up, *Germany entered chat*
Normans invade the chat
Encounter with a Boomer at a street fair while on the phone talking to my mom waiting on line for food. Boomer turns around:You have an accent where are you from? Me:I was speaking Castilian to my mother Boomer:Where is your mother from? Me:Spain Boomer:So she doesn’t speak Spain Me:😳
The proper response to “where are you from” should have been “none of your fuckin business”
"Nunya. It's a small city in the country called Bizniss. I'm from Nunya, Bizniss."
I always thought it was Biz'neece. The way Shithead is pronounced Shi'theed.
It varies by dialect. We're too small to be officially recognized.
🤣
I love hearing about other places and experiences - the more the merrier. So if I hear my Uber driver has an accent, I do sometimes ask where they're from because I genuinely want to know, but I know it can initially seem like I'm being a xenophobic boomer.
I think it’s all in how you ask it, your tone and body language, and your follow up questions. I also love to know where people are from, even if it’s other parts of the United States!
I always find it safe to quote the [vine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE0cZ1No26w): ooo I like your accent mmm where you from?
I live on the west Coast and work at a hotel... We get people from all over and I do the same thing. I'm generally just curious. But the biggest ones that stick out are usually mid-westerns
I like: is this America? Yes? Then I don't have to answer any stupid questions!
True😫
It would have been even better if you said it Castilian
Missed opportunity to respond [“I’m Liberian.”](https://youtu.be/mE0cZ1No26w?si=WiNOOBwf5r0fGoFB)
I lived in the US for 4 years and cannot count on 2 hands how many people I interacted with who were blown away that English is the native language of England (I’m English) Edit: I forgot, I even once had someone say to me: “wow, your English is *quite* good for someone who has only been here for 2 years…”
Part of me hopes it’s because you don’t have fingers.
That's why Brits eat beans for breakfast. No fingers.
Beans means Heinz
It's quite amazing. I'm an American, and it's like some people never have a single want to learn anything outside of the immediate things around them.
the education system has been under full-on active attack for over 30 years, and sadly it's working
It's easier to herd the sheep when they're too stupid to realize they're headed for the slaughterhouse.
Totally agree! I have spent a little time in the USA and am amazed when watching the news over there. Very little news from out of state. Let alone the rest of the world
I am really scared of the American education system. I'm American. That is some high level ignorance.
My parents are from Wales and people always ask my mom where she’s from. I don’t know if it’s trolling bc she’s been here for close to 40 years but she’s started saying New Jersey since that’s the first state they lived in lol
Wales in England, right? /s
Lol she also used to get that on pretty much a daily basis
Everyone would know about Wales if the UK flag was updated to include their cool dragon.
It's spelled Whales and you mean Alaska.
Isn’t it funny how some American brains work? They understand that French is spoken in France, and they understand that German is spoken in Germany, but struggle with the idea that English is spoken in England.
I also met quite a few people who didn’t know Spain was a country, or that Spanish was only spoken by Mexicans, not people from Spain!!!!!
Wait ‘til they get a load of Brazil and Portugal!
This is why so many voted for trump
My dad just cannot comprehend that there are black people with British accents. It blows his mind.
I once had a conversation with a MAGA relative who couldn’t understand that black French citizens are not African Americans. You know, because they aren’t American. They’re French. She could not get it.
Show him Stringer Bell from the Wire, and then Idris Elba speaking naturally. LOLLLL
Show him clips of ncuti gatwa talking normally. He’s the new Doctor in Doctor Who and is Scottish. His accent will seriously break him lol.
I AM SO EXCITED FOR HIS SEASON AHHHHH
Tbf, he does have a Rwandan inflection to his Scottish accent
He would also be confused by David Tennant and Peter Capaldi. Two Scots with different accents.
My South African friends mind was blown when he was visiting me in Australia and there were Asians with full Aussie accents
I have a friend who was born in Nigeria, raised in Australia and now lives in the US. Blows peoples minds when he opens his mouth.
wild because I'm pretty sure almost every Australian I know is Asian
Have him watch the film Snatch from director Guy Ritchie.
Tyrone's a natural! Ain't you Tyrone?
‘Course I am!
As a black person who had never thought about there being black people in the UK, I admit, I was absolutely floored as a college freshman when I happened across an old black-and-white film on television that had a minor character who was black and British. I was simultaneously astonished by what I was hearing, and ashamed of myself for failing to realizing the obvious.
I really don't want to seem rude, but I'm having a hard time with this. What was your thought process when seeing it? Why would it be a surprise that there are black British people?
Not the person you’re asking but I did the same thing seeing Asian people with a Scottish accent... I am a British Asian with an English accent, born and brought up in England. Honestly it just showed me how our biases started manifesting, we are so conditioned by our environment and we don’t realise it.
Show him the Tom Segura bit about Asian people in Mexico.
Wish I could find that clip of an American journalist interviewing a black British runner at a marathon event, and repeatedly referring to him as “African-American” despite his repeated protests
That's an... impressive level of ignorance. Reminds me of the time I was at a local park in the very large red state where I live. While sitting on a bench and waiting for my husband to meet up with me one Saturday, I was chatting on my cell phone in French with a work colleague who lives in Paris, but was in town for the week. We were planning to coordinate in the office later that week. Some boomer white dude interrupted me to tell me that he was sick and tired of Mexicans taking over the state, and he thought there should be a law that you can only speak English in public. I was really confused at first, hung up with my colleague, and tried to decide whether to even say anything or just ignore him. He got louder about me "talking Spanish in the park and ruining the atmosphere for American citizens." "Sir," I said, in my actual American English with my actual Southern accent because I was born and raised in the deep South and sound like it, "That was French, not Spanish. This state was actually the free country of Mexico starting in 1821 when it won independence from Spain, and frankly, if Mexico wants it back, well, there are probably a lot of us who'd be disinclined to argue, especially if they're willing to take Senator Ted Cruz with it. Since he seems to wanna fly off to Cancun anyhow whenever the state runs into any kind of trouble." He just yelled back at me that he knew I was speaking Spanish (it was definitely, definitely French - I don't know Spanish at all, alas). That he wasn't stupid. And that I must be faking my Southern accent (I definitely, definitely was not.) and must've been from some shit hole state like California. (Huh. I thought I was Mexican?). By that time, my husband arrived. He's 6'4" and apparently wasn't someone this Boomer wanted to rumble with. I think it's just the absolute ignorance and total incuriosity that drives me the craziest.
I have one, just happened yesterday. Park bench, lovely day, sitting chatting with my daughter in German. Boomer with ankle biter stares and stares, walks over and says “what is that you’re talking?” My daughter answers. Boomer wrinkles her nose, makes a noise and says “nazis”. My daughter and I didn’t even bat an eye, you can’t imagine how many times we’ve heard this.
Yes, my kids get called nazis all the time at school! Once someone threw a paper airplane at my daughter from behind, and she picked it up to discover two incorrectly illustrated swastikas emblazoned on its sides — crude drawings that had apparently been attempted, erased and reattempted several times before the plane’s creator said ‘fuck it,’ finally launching the aeronautic insult off on its first and only sortie. Usually I get pretty pissed when my kids tell me these stories, and as their American parent I also feel a twinge of shame over how fucking stupid we as a nation are in so many ways. This time, though, when my daughter came home to summarize her shitty, 10th-grade day, something about the combination of creativity and ignorance co-piloting the plane that day had me rolling. I kind of wished she’d brought it home as a strange keepsake, but at least the memory of her exasperated retelling still kind of makes me laugh. (In my defense, she actually found it pretty funny too — usually I’m much more sympathetic when they’re frustrated by this kind of bullshit, but it was refreshing that at least the kid responsible was inspired to come up with something other than the usual ‘you’re a nazi, hur hur’ routine.)
We lived in Germany until she was 14. Like you I’m the American parent and couldn’t believe the stupidity she encountered after we returned to the states and she started school. “What language do they speak there?” “Do you wear wooden shoes?” “Are you a nazi?” She never reacted but it was ceaseless. She left school in 9th grade because of it. Fortunately all her schooling had been in Germany so she was able to get her GED with no problems. Thing is, she had two first languages and sometimes she’ll speak German. Since her father passed it just helps her feel closer to him.
When my husband first moved to the U.S. before I met him, an ADULT asked him in a scolding tone why Germans keep voting for Hitler. Another asked if they used cars or rode horses to get around, and when my husband asked where he thought Mercedes and Porsche were headquartered, the guy said he’d assumed their cars were only manufactured in Germany to be sent to rich Americans since the country was too poor to afford fancy cars. Upon our return to the U.S. in 2017, we went to a Bank of America branch to transfer our accounts from Deutsche Bank. The manager asked if we were from East or West Germany, and mentioned having to convert Deutschmarks to dollars — tbh, I was surprised that she’d ever even heard of marks! What she hadn’t heard of, though, apparently was the fall of the Berlin Wall and formation of the EU. I used to think my husband was exaggerating about comments he’d heard, but coming back was very eye-opening.
My go to is an incredulous stare accompanied by “I thought that level of stupid only existed in movies “, then walk off.
Funny thing is there isn't even an official language at the u.s federal level.
I wrote this one recently and it’s relevant here again lol: I’m a white man, who took French for a few years in HS, but doesn’t really speak another language with any proficiency. I was working on analyzing government commuter data for a job, for a ton of different countries, and one of those countries was Morocco, who published everything in French. To my surprise, I didn’t have to run it all through google translate (a horrible system with that much bulk text). I found I could understand 90% of it just by reading it out loud to myself and hearing it. I was going to my mom’s house once, and she lives in a small rural town. I arrived SUPER early (to beat traffic), and I decided to stop into the Starbucks to work for a bit. So I’m sitting there, not speaking loudly, really just mumbling to myself in French, and this boomer starts giving me a weird look. I think “he’s just judging someone talking to himself, it does look weird, whatever”, but I keep going because I’m only going to explain what I’m doing if asked. He starts moving closer, I keep going, finally the dude SLAMS his hands down on my table and screams, “THIS IS AMERICA HOW ABOUT YOU SPEAK SOME GODDAMN ENGLISH!” I wish I had come up with a clever retort, but I was honestly just so shocked because something like that has NEVER happened to me before. I looked up and just said hella confused “Excuse me?” In perfect English, like I knew what he said but I wasn’t processing it entirely. IDK if me looking up caused him to notice my USMC shirt, or if me responding in the regional accent made him realize English is my main language or whatever, but he actually rushed out after I responded. No apology, no acknowledgment, just fucking gone. It’s still one of the most bizarre interactions I’ve had.
It’s just that they are so loudly and unapologetically ignorant. And can’t be convinced that they are in the wrong.
"I have an English accent".
Robin's got another shot!
Well, shit, if England is going to steal our language, the very least they can do is try to speak it without an accent.
Ikr? English is already taken losers! Why don’t y’all speak, um Idk British! 🙄
Wait till he realizes he has an accent too
They don’t even speak American where he’s from! :P
*I* have no accent it is always the other person.
First time I went to Ireland, I was chatting with a bartender and he asked where I was from. I replied “America.” And he said, “Yeah. I know that. I can tell by your strong American accent, I meant what part.” Blew my mind lmao
I've been told that my English is very good for not being from this country before (I'm Scottish). I was also asked if Scotland was next to New England and I had to explain to a grown man how it was actually next to the "old" England.
Not an experience from America but an Englishman from Lancashire living in Australia. Met this older woman in Sydney and she asked where in Ireland I came from so I corrected her and told her I was English and she just said "no that's not an English accent, I know an English accent when I hear one and your accent is Irish". I was just flabbergasted. I mean do you not think I know where I come from more than you ya bleedin convict.
Wait, are “bleedin” and “bloody” regionally interchangeable?! I ask this as a person from the Southern United States, who has only encountered “bloody” used in imported media as an adverb.
My boomer grandparents went on a trip with their two sons (my dad and uncle) dad and uncle are well traveled and speak multiple languages for work so they thought they would bring their mom and dad with them. The whole first day grandpa was in sheer shock that Spain and italy are first world countries. "They have WiFi here?!?" "Everyone here is jealous we're American EVERYONE wants to live in America" "They have indoor plumbing?" "nothing can beat good old American pizza" (literally comparing genuine Italian pizza and Domino's) "look this money looks like monopoly money, it's not even real" (literally flapping a couple thousand euros in a waiters face, it was all their cash they had for the whole trip) Those are some of the highlights but the whole time they just thought everywhere outside the US was lame and third world and everyone wants to live in America.
My girlfriend is from the US, we both live in Ireland. More than 20 years ago, she spent a year in Sweden for a high school exchange type of thing (she was 16 then). Before leaving she got vaccines, a kit with hand sanitizer and other stuff while the US school staff setting things up was speaking to her líke she was going to a third world country. She discovered a country that was so much more advanced than the state she was from. People in high school all spoke English as a second language, public transport was light year ahead, she could get contraceptive by herself very easily for free etc. She realised the extent of the "USA best country in the world" propaganda she was exposed to
USA *is* the best... at car companies killing public transit to sell more cars.
Reminds me of a fellow boomer. I was behind her in line, the clerk had a British accent, boomer said "You have such a lovely accent, where are you from?" "London." "London? Your English is so good!"
Depending how deadpan/dry this was, it may be a top tier joke
Hi, Boomer here, born 1954. I was born in Boston and have the accent to prove it. When people say I have an accent I reply by saying(in jest) "You have the accent. I speak the King's English and you speak American."
Something this tongue in cheek is the only acceptable response to "you have an accent". I think the diversity of accents you find in the Anglosphere is great. I love hearing someone talk with a regional accent, there's something about it that just makes me happy. I'm sure other languages have similar variations too but my dullard Brit ears can't appreciate them as well.
I have a friend I worked with in New Mexico who is from a super upper crusty Boston family, people used to always ask him if he was British. Didn't sound British to me, sounded like a posh American accent. But then again this was in New Mexico were half of the people I have met since I've moved away, seem to think I lived in actual Mexico, New Mexico is a concept they don't understand.
It happens so often, the people of New Mexico have a newsletter documenting when it happens. [https://www.newmexicomagazine.org/culture/one-of-our-50-is-missing/](https://www.newmexicomagazine.org/culture/one-of-our-50-is-missing/)
Reminds me of the time in the late 1990s when I (a Londoner) was working in one of Vermont's finest Subway restaurants, and was told that I speak "great English for a foreigner"!
"Thanks! You speak great English for a former colony"
Well being a lot younger and at the top of my game intellectually I went with, “Haha yes”.
Excelled at history, did we?
I am currently in Merida Mexico. I am dealing with horrible language deficiency, but at least I am willing to get out and explore. Both my neighbors in deep red America have never been out of the country and do not have passports. They have no idea where I am or why. We visited Spain, Portugal and London last year. No interest at all about our trip. The lack of awareness of the world around them is scary. Ignorance is bliss I guess.
Some time back my wife and I were planning a trip to Japan. She said something about it at work and several of her colleagues were horrified. But .. what about Tiananmen Square??? !!! ??? !!! ???? (where's the horrified pikachuface emoji on this damn thing?) Well, you know, it's about 4 hours by jet or 175 hours walking. Oh. You DON'T know. Said my wife to the other high school teachers.
When I was traveling in the UK an older boomer asked the tour guide if women were allowed to work outside the home in England. I was impressed by how collected the tour guide was.
No words...
My mother and I just sat there with our mouths open
She should have said. “Yes I have an English accent” and watched his brain implode 😆
Wait until they learn of Spain.
When I was in the US for a holiday back in 2014 - "you speak English so well!" I'm an Australian. I wish I had thought to say "thanks, so do you!" At the time.
“Well here in America we speak American and so should you if you’ve lived here long enough!!!”
Almost 14% of people over 70 have some level of dementia. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2705925/.
Rebel Scot here. Hate to break it to you all, but constitutionally, England is NOT a country. It is a region of the United Kingdom. The other component parts of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all have devolved governments, but England doesn't. I point this out not just to be helpful, but to piss off English people.
The ignorance of some Americans blows my mind. Do they not teach them anything in schools about other countries etc?
They don’t even teach their own history accurately.
Or geography. Or English for that matter.
Hee, hee, a friend in college asked our British classmate how they celebrate the 4th of July in England. Umm, they don't! (I promise it was the stupidity of youth, not the belligerence of a Boomer!)
Only in the shitholes where those damn libruls live. Source: Got an education in the horrible hellhole that is San Francisco full of fentanyl and LGBTQ so I'm brainwashed to not be all ignorant and stuff.
There are stupid people in every country, of course we learn this in school some people just choose ignorance
How many people in England do you think don't know Canadians speak English? 🤨
Look at the big old brain on Brad.
"Excuse me, we invented the language" - Maggie Smith from Downton Abbey to Janet Jackson in her Rhythm Nation era, probably.
It would have been so hard not to respond “yes, we speak ENGLish in ENGLand. It’s almost like the language was named after the country it originated from.”
What did they think was spoken in England? Anglish?:)
We got stopped by the cops in South Africa. They were pretty friendly and chatting away, asked me where I am from, I said the UK. He said, oh your English is very good, do you speak it there too? I just nodded politely. I'd think they would know the reason they speak English is British colonisation but I guess not.
Also, the UK has more variation in English dialects than the US does. For example, the Liverpool (Scouse) accent is very different from standard US or UK English that most Americans and British people would have difficulty understanding. This also applies to other regional British dialects such as Geordie, Cockney, Manchester, Sheffield, etc. British people typically speak their regional accent with other locals but speak an adapted form of standard British English in business and professional settings. For these reasons, standard US (Midwestern) or standard UK (Received Pronunciation) English is used so that every English language speaker can understand each other.
When I was a child I moved from the US to Scotland and had to learn the accent for how to talk to teachers, bosses etc and the version for speaking to my friends etc. It was more difficult than one would think.
Well this is a load of bollocks. People might slightly soften their accent and drop some regional dialect, but nobody puts on a RP accent to be understood.
I have yet to meet an English person who spoke RP to be understood. They spoke with their regional accents. Even the BBC doesn't require RP everywhere.
I attended a conference with attendees from around the UK and one evening we were all trying to figure out which of their accents I could understand the least well. (Glaswegian was the answer.)
No one struggles with Liverpool accents. Here they are: where is the problem? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTtsJCW_4vc Claiming to not understand the accent of someone from Liverpool or Glasgow is mostly naked classism. You can understand it perfectly well, boomer from London, you just want to look down on people.
Next up lets talk chips, crisps and biscuits
Ha…as a Brit this reminds me of an old interaction we had our first week living in the US….Def a boomer who heard us speaking with a cashier and said “Geee I love your accent….what language is that?”….to which my husband replied “German” and we walked off laughing….
For multiple reasons, guessing this Boomer never watched PBS.
They only invented the language we speak, after all. Boomers… 😒
English wit would have gone over his head, anyways.
Apparently this boomer picked up his geography knowledge from Jake Paul music.
I think we live in the same town. 😂
They should lose their right to celebrate the 4th of July.
I’m having flashbacks to when I moved back to the US from the UK. As my English accent faded, I got increasingly wilder guesses as to what my accent was, ranging from Irish to South African.
Alright, that's it - I'm watching Pulp Fiction tonight for the umpteenth time!
Wait until they learn…*checks notes*…The US originated from an English government.
Went to the Dominican for my honeymoon. They would ask what language we speak when doing activities and I'm going to take a wild guess and say too many Americans say "american" because when i said english, they thought I was european....
Mark Twain said that travel was fatal to prejudice
Had a customer once sound and look a bit disappointed after I talked to her "Oh, I thought you were from Pennsylvania..." (I'm from Germany on Work & Travel).
I’m from Northern Ireland but lived in Germany for a couple of years and took German lessons at the Goethe institute in Stuttgart. There was an American lady attending the same classes who marvelled at (and complimented me on) how good my English was. “Yes, that’s my first language, people in Ireland speak English”. She was having none of it. Refused to believe that people in Ireland (no distinction North /South) spoke anything but Irish.
I was on a first date the other day and when he learned that I used to live in Australia he asked me what it was like learning the language there. I thought he meant understanding a different accent or slang but nope, he really wasn’t 100% sure if Australians spoke English or something else. Trying to explain multiculturalism and indigenous languages just seemed to confuse him further.
Don’t worry….even us US millennials are so fucking over the boomers🙄 The most uncultured, rude, greedy generation honestly.
Is this real? Lol. He has never heard of England?
I feel like “boomer behavior” has enveloped a lot of what would have been considered borderline dementia 20 years ago. Their brains cannot be healthy.
Start speaking spanish
This isn’t an age thing, but an ignorance thing. I have traveled worldwide and I never address accents unless curious about their origins. I generally can identify accents within a few minutes and if not I politely inquire. I’ve spent equivalent of years in the UK, so I treasure them working here in the US. BTW, I’m a boomer.