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I should point out that I have a lot of American friends and they are all lovely people. It occured to me that making a lot of tongue in cheek comments to a bunch of posters you've never met before might be a little stupid, as my sense of humour in unfamiliar to you all. No offence meant in any of the above!
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I hate to be the bearer of the hard truth but English people and/or English speakers are no different from any other peoples and or culturistic peoples. Just as some Americans are kind, some are "hard boiled". I am surrounded by Mexican Americans and I could easily say that they are friendly but-- "out there somewhere" there are some "not nice" MExicans. Niceness doesn't pertain particularly to any language group.
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***But then I wouldn't have a problem with correcting an American's pronunciation, because we naturally are superior! ;-)***
Very interesting posts all the way through, Amatire....spot on. I've never had the experience of being corrected by an American on Brit style word pronunciations.......if I ever did I would merely smile a smile that neither conveys superiority or stupidity....just valid difference. I've accepted their pronunciations without any comment...it is, after all their brand of the English Language they're speaking, which we seem to have agreed should not be called American!
Being a Brit here now, Amatire, I don't have a problem suggesting that you most probably mean that we revel in irony, sarcasm and self-deprecation? I don't think we're quite ready for depreciation just yet. Sorry...just being nationalistically sarcastic...... :-)
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The rottenest bits of these islands of ours
We've left in the hands of three unfriendly powers
Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot
You'll find he's a stinker as likely as not
The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest
The Scotsman is mean as we're all well aware
He's boney and blotchy and covered with hair
He eats salty porridge, he works all the day
And hasn't got bishops to show him the way
The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest
The Irishman now our contempt is beneath
He sleeps in his boots and he lies through his teeth
He blows up policemen or so I have heard
And blames it on Cromwell and William the Third
The English are moral the English are good
And clever and modest and misunderstood
The Welshman's dishonest, he cheats when he can
He's little and dark more like monkey than man
He works underground with a lamp on his hat
And sings far too loud, far too often and flat
The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest
And crossing the channel one cannot say much
For the French or the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch
The Germans are German, the Russians are red
And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed
The English are noble, the English are nice
And worth any other at double the price
And all the world over each nation's the same
They've simply no notion of playing the game
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won
And they practice before hand which spoils all the fun
The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest
It's not that they're wicked or naturally bad
It's just that they're foreign that makes them so mad
The English are all that a nation should be
And the pride of the English are Chipper and me
The English the English the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest
(Flanders and Swann)
I don't know what you're talking about, there's plenty of self-depreciation in there! Don't you think?!
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Five Englishmen boarded a train just behind five Scots, who, as a group had only purchased one ticket. Just before the conductor came through, all the Scots piled into the toilet stall at the back of the car. As the conductor passed the stall, he knocked and called"Tickets, please!" and one of the Scots slid a ticket under the door. It was punched, pushed back under the door, and when it was safe all the Scots came out and took their seats. The Englishmen were tremendously impressed by the Scots' ingenuity. On the trip back, the five Englishmen decided to try this themselves and purchased only one ticket. They noticed that, oddly, the Scots had not purchased any tickets this time. Anyway, again, just before the conductor came through, the Scots piled into one of the toilet stalls, the Englishmen into the other. Then one of the Scots leaned out, knocked on the Englishmen's stall and called "Ticket, Please!" When the ticket slid out under the door, he picked it up and quickly closed the door
Once upon a time in the kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for seven days. Eventually, Michael the Archangel found him. He inquired of God,
"Where were you?".
God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds;
"Look son, look what I've just made"
The Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said,
"What is it?" God replied, "it's another planet but I'm after putting LIFE on it. I've named it Earth and there's going to be a balance between everything on it. For example, there's North America and South America. North America is going to be rich and South America is going to be poor, and the narrow bit joining them - that's going to be a hotspot. Now look over here. I've put a continent of whites in the north and another one of blacks in the south. And then the Archangel said,
"and what's that green dot there?".
And God said "Ahhh that's the Emerald Isle - that's a very special place. That's going to be the most glorious spot on earth; Beautiful mountains,lakes, rivers, streams, and an exquisite coast line. These people here are going to be great crack and they're going to be found traveling the world.They'll be playwrights and poets and singers and songwriters. And I'm going to give them this black liquid which they're going to go mad on and for which people will come from the far corners of the earth to imbibe. Michael the Archangel gasped in wonder and admiration but then seeming startled proclaimed:
"Hold on a second, what about the BALANCE, you said there was going to be a balance God replied wisely:
"Wait until you see the neighbours I'm going to give them"
An Englishman asked an Irishman to show him the biggest building in an Irish town.
"There it is now" said the Irishman, "isn't it a fine structure entirely?"
"Is that your biggest building?" asked the Englishman.
"Why back in England we have buildings over a hundred times the size of that!"
"I'm not surprised," said the Irishman,"that's the local lunatic asylum."
They say an Englishman laughs three times at a joke. The first time when everybody gets it, the second a week later when he thinks he gets it, the third time a month later when somebody explains it to him.
What's the best thing that ever happened between England and Ireland?
the Irish Sea!
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Why do people find the need to post provocative posts?
Irish guy is having a go at an above guest for being an idiot and posting an insulting and crap poem.IGNORE HIM IRISH GUY(couple funny jokes though)!!!
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bother, forgot to put my nickname in the post - the Flanders and Swann song was me.
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"bother, forgot to put my nickname in the post - the Flanders and Swann song was me."
Another little overly nationalistic English person(or more simply put-another Adam). Just perfect.
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>>>Why do people find the need to post provocative posts?
Irish guy is having a go at an above guest for being an idiot and posting an insulting and crap poem.IGNORE HIM IRISH GUY(couple funny jokes though)!!! <<<
actually it was a pun on what Damian said about the English and self-depreciation. But I guess you didn't get that.
Flanders and Swann are hardly crap, they are masters of irony but perhaps they are simply not your sense of humour... Are you American by any chance?
please PLEASE learn quickly or else I shall die a rabid death here, never take anything I say seriously!
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erk. rabid=rapid a freudian slip maybe.
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"never take anything I say seriously!"
Then why say it?
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit and yes I am American.
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English people in 2 word
Cold, imperialist
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>>Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit and yes I am American.<<
sarcasm and irony are not the same thing! ...aw geez, the joke is not on any of the nations mentioned in the song, the people that F&S were making fun of were the self-important English characatures SINGING it! You don't seriously think they believed for one minute anything the song said about the French or the Germans or the Scots or anyone else?! Or the English for that matter.
There's a guy who is famous for his mother-in-law jokes, he derides and ridicules mothers-in-law all over. But if you asked him what his opinion was of his own mother in law he'd say she was wonderful! And you know what, the people who loved his jokes the most and came to see him most often, were women who were mothers-in-law themselves! Don't mistake humour for opinion. A man can tell for example an anti-british joke and love the Brits to pieces, and so on and so forth..
Perhaps F&S are too subtle for a modern audience. Funny though, in their day, they travelled the world singing their songs - including that one - to a whole heap of different cultures/nationalities and you know what? They got that it was a joke! They didn't take it seriously. And no one, nowhere ever imagined for one minute that it was F&S's personal opinion. Because the person who comes off the worst in the song is the English themselves. The Scots might be one thing and the Welsh another but its the English who are Zenaphobic Imperialists. What do you think is worse?!
Who do you laugh at in My Big Fat Greek Wedding? The daft guy who insists that anything and everything is Greek and the Greeks are the kings of man and the originators of all civilization, with no exception. Or the guy in Goodness Gracious Me who insists that everything is Indian. Because their position is ludicrous.
If you got the joke and simply thought it was crass and insensitive, I apologise, but if you didn't get it than I'm somewhat disinclined to apologise at all, a joke explained has a habit of losing its humour. Don't take everything so literally! An opinion and a joke are not the same thing.
As for the comment about irony. Well, I was actually making fun of the English again.. You see, when an Englishman makes a joke, and the american audience doesn't laugh, he's often heard to say "you're American, you don't GET irony" as a poor excuse for making a bad joke. When I laugh, I laugh at myself.
On a more serious note, I think in reality the image of Imperialistic Englishmen is considerably out of date, I've never met anyone who would believe such a thing now. Most English people seem to have forgotten we ever had an Empire. Probably a good thing really. I know that when Scotland Ireland and Wales began to separate out from England again, most English people were quite happy for them to have their own assemblies and Parliaments, the only bug bear seems to have been that we didn't get one too. Some things have changed a great deal since the 50s. I read on the news the other day that the British financing for 2012 Olympics is going to cut funding from the sports they don't believe we can win and only send it to the sports that we are good at. What a change! Last time we held the Olympics the ethos was; it doesn't matter who wins or who loses so long as we have a Brit taking part in every event. Perhaps some of us do still have imperialist leanings after all!
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David and Goliath Euro 08 = England v Andorra 02 Sep 06 :-)
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