What are the cultural differences between Britain and the USA?

In the US, there is no major left wing party. Democrats are right wing and Republicans are very right wing.

I am British. For me it is spelt 'realize'. I do not think this is a Webstrian innovation.

True, in Britain you have the choice whether to spell it Realise or Realize.

But most choose Realise


"Why spell "realise" like "realize" when you spell "surprise" like "surprise"?

I think they should both be spelt with a 'z'. Why not?

-ise vs ize.

Shakespeare interestingly prefers -ize. The truth of the matter is:

In English English you can use -ise at all times or -ize for some words but must use -ise for 20 exceptions. Therefore English people would be best advised to use -ise.

I think American English uses -ize, with some exceptions taking -ise but less than the English English ones.

Therefore, if you want to stay neutral, you could use the second British one (-ize plus the exceptions).

It's all to do with lexicographers and confusion over the origin of the ending. Most words that end in ize or ise come from Greek, where there's also a Z involved. However, these words in French end in "ise". Samuel Johnson (and others presumably) mistakenly identified these words as orginating from French and spelled the words accordingly in his dictionary. The exceptions of course are words where in the original language they had s's. Shakespeare uses ize because Johnson had not existed and besides a lot of people did and that presumably is something American English has inherited.

About 20 but not exactly.

There are too many cultural differences to name.

Dan, I liked what you had to say, but I would have taken you more seriously if you would have eliminated the sarcasm.

Sorry Union Jack. If you knew anything about the USA and put aside your pretentious opinion you'd see there most certainly is an American culture. You can hate America, the nation, its politics or whatever, however, to claim a country lacks culture is ridiculous and completely impossible in a country with such diversity. Yes, we are diverse and it's something valued by the wide majority of Americans.

Half of my family is European and I know the whole anti-American sentiment and philosophy quite well. While the majority of English people i have met have been very nice people, you my friend fit the stereotype of the pretentious know-it-all European (actually, you usually sound quite foolish). If you don't like American exports of its culture (McDonalds, American movies, etc), then don't eat there or see the movies etc. However, for all the bitching and moaning I hear from Europeans, whenever I've passed a McDonalds in Europe, it's always been full. Oh well, "he who protests too much....."

Mike, after readin what you said about McD.. in Europe, I realised that everytime I saw afast-food place in England, it was full.

And yes, there are stereotypes about Europeans in America. They are stuff like they know it all, they are full of themselves, snobby, the list can go on and on.

May I just say that most Hollywood movies are junk (though some have alot of merit). Also McDonald's food is pap.

I would also like to point out that I have seen Hollywood films at the cinema, and have eaten at McDonalds, but choose now not to do either at all because of the low quality of the products.

Does that satisfy you?

A little story: A man was seen in my home town a few years ago looking at a plot of land near the town centre. He asked one passer-by whether a tree on this certain plot of land had a preservation order. The passer-by asked the man why he wanted to know, and the man said he was looking to purchase a plot of land on which to build a McDonald's. Curiously, and by pure conincidence of course, a preservation order appeared on the tree two days later. We did not get a McDonald's.

I liked your story J It was very good! Very entertaining!
More seriouly though there are a few good american films. Anything with Leslie Nielsen in I love! But some of the films are crap, like pearl harbour, what a shambles of a film!

Billy Elliot is on at Christmas! Don't know if it'll be on in america though cos they'd think it would be in a different language! Knowing them they'd want subtitles!

Marushka, what kind of name is that anyway? Why do you hate Americans so much? I am American, yet I tend to side with the British on most issues. So, am I this bad American who cannot undestand British English (even though my family live in England!)? I might need subtitles for a language that I already speak! You are just like that George character from a while ago except you are his British mirror!

Mike, I've seen many posts by Americans saying similiar things to......(If you don't like American exports of its culture (McDonalds, American movies, etc), then don't eat there or see the movies etc)

But let me ask you something, have you ever heard of commercialisation and globalisation? America suffers from it to, there are more "European" products sold in America than vice-verser. It's like me saying to you if you post an anti-japanese sentiment......"Listen, if you don't like Japan, then why is your country full of it's technology, don't buy it's cannon printers, it's scanners, or it's DVDs, their tvs, their dvds, or stop American kids from buying Playstation 2, Nintendo Gamecube, Sony Walkman, Sony CD player. ec"

You see, we live in a commercialised and globalised world, and you Americans don't seem to recognise the fact that "AMERICANS" buy just as many European products as Europeans buy American products.

I can go outside and to eat from Burger King (british owned), Mcdonalds (American owned), or buy Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Tie food etc etc.

I think this forum is just suffering a backlash, its anti-american posts, when there used to be anti-british posts.

Marushka

The Republicans are the US equivalent of the British Conservative Party. So are the Democrats. The Republicans rave about the socialism in the Democratic Party but if they had a real Fabian socialist party like the Australian Labor Party (no, I didn't spell that wrongly) or the British Labour Party they'd be just speechless.

Cultural differences are partly the result of geographic differences. Just think for a moment about the difference in size, climate and natural resources between the USA and the UK.