American things

1. biscuits & gravy
2. rodeo
3. smores or smore’s or smore(s)
4. “a super bowl”
5. stoops
6. speakeasy
7. “high school prom”
8. cheese in a can
9. dr pepper

smore

wtf?

Steely Dan
The Beat Generation

10. "democracy"
11. mac 'n cheese
12. sherrifs

It's s'mores and it's short for some more.

13. those varsity jackets with a big letter on the front
14. propeller beanie hats

15. grits

16. Shriners

https://s.hswstatic.com/gif/shriners-little-cars-1200x800.jpg

monster trucks

bison
bass fishing tournaments
Yellowstone Park

Looney Tunes cartoons

22. tipping

Mate,

https://i.imgur.com/kjgsMLQ.jpg

I mean, don't forget 23. Indigenous Genocide, but, you know.

if we're going down that route let's not forget 24. slavery

and of course 25. egg creams

slavery has existed everywhere for all recorded history. hardly confined to America, although we certainly embraced one of the most brutal forms of it for a couple centuries.

26 white ppl
27 mayonnaise
28 conway twitty
29 all the bad things
30 no good things

31 guns guns guns love guns need guns
32 sabermetrics
33 god

(Holland surely king of mayonnaise though, for better or for worse)

34. (With drawl) PICKUP TRUCK. GIDDY UP COWBOY.

35. 99.9% of all "cultural appropriation"

36. $$$

37. Road Trips
38. Self Help
39. Seminars on how to flip properties with no money down

40. Hawaii

41. Grand slams

42. Brian Wilson

43. drive-in cinemas

44. john cena

(19)45. the atomic bomb

(19)46. Donald John Trump

Just sayin some of these things aren't exclusively American. They're everybody's!

47. Superhero movies for "grownups"

48. jack kirby

49. jack ruby

27 mayonnaise

27 "ranch"

ranch-style houses

Ranch might be the most american word there is. The sound of it, the meaning, the house style, the dressing. It's 100% American.

https://i.imgur.com/IOlj6Lw.jpg

51. Saturday Night Live and dozens of comedy series and comedians no-one's ever heard of.

... no-one else, that is.

Every nation seems to have its b-list comedy that doesn't escape its borders though

I mean there are all these british comedians called "Jimmy Pram" or "Tolliver Whelk" or whatever that the britishers on the board seem to reference a lot.

52. happy endings
53. late night shows
54. hyper-capitalism
55. "football"
56. "soccer"

Italians
Irish

57. Barack Hussein Obama
58. Velveeta

Misuse of the collective clause when referring to sports teams

Every nation seems to have its b-list comedy that doesn't escape its borders though

Saturday Night Live is b-list?

'Math'

American comedy is painfully unfunny. There's no real bite, no real cynicism, it always has to be nicey nicey in the end. A or B list, SNL fits that bill surely.

today, sure. I think SNL at its best (maybe 80s-early 90s) was good exactly because it captured and spoofed that wide-eyed lack of cynicism. Kevin Nealon comes to mind, and all of the fake commercials. Since at least Will Ferrell and maybe going back to Chris Farley and Adam Sandler though the style of comedy has been very "I AM BEING FUNNY RIGHT NOW! DO YOU SEE ME BEING FUNNY!"

(kind of a dumb comment I guess since Nealon overlapped with Farley and Sandler)

snl national lampoon and mad magazine none funny none ever funny

A or B list, SNL fits that bill surely.

I wouldn't know, I've never seen it.

Clips I've seen look dire though.

'Mr. President'

59. gunz

60. Patriotism

61. "GET IN THE HOLE!"

'Math'

perfect

62. sports
63. the hospital
64. vacation

The hospital?

65. institutional racism perfected
66. bumper stickers
67. trailer parks

Italians
Irish

-darraghmac

68. 'erbs

69. Missing out u's from words and -er endings instead of -re.

70. hispanics

The hospital?

― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Sunday, February 4, 2018 6:51 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well if we're contrasting U.S. and UK usage, only we (always) use the definite article

71. Mexico, central america, south america

72. Porches & yards.

73. Bros
74. Dudes
75. Broads

76, Fraternities, sororities.

Terror of the word cunt

Italians
Irish

i’ve never understood this

Well

U wouldn't

Your lot are all British like proper British the hooligan ones like

Never mind the Irish and the Italians, the real American thing is Germans.

xp yeah but i wouldn’t take my heritage to wales and say “hi the welsh! i’m also welsh!” along with assuming all the special powers conferred by being genetically welsh

and citizenship rights

anyway i intended this thread to be light so

79. hoagie

Wait do the yanks to that or do we do that

p sure you don’t do that

SNL at its best (maybe 80s-early 90s) was good

80. Arguments about when, precisely, SNL was good

If ever u mean

Mispronouncing monty python with the confidence of a nation that will eventually decide how to pronounce monty python whatever the fuck anyone thinks

Tomatoes

Tobacco

Potatoes

Pumpkins

Peanuts

Chocolate

YOU'RE WELCOME

Yeah look no

Nice try but

Porn? Who invented it idk probably Californians

the Marine Corps Band playing "Hail to the Chief"

35. 99.9% of all "cultural appropriation"

― trife's rich padgett (rip van wanko), Sunday, February 4, 2018 4:13 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hm.

Cap'n Crunch

Is this the most active cogh thread ever

Lunar landing modules
Nukes
ARPANET
ICANN
Search engines
Wikis
BSD
Unix

Facebook
Twitter
PRISM
Techno
Star Wars

Alderweireld Horses (darraghmac) at 7:57 4 Feb 18

Terror of the word cunt

Superheroes
Super Bowls
Superbad
Superfortress

tex-mex
the monroe doctrine
paintball
muddin'
american exceptionalism
gallagher
prosperity gospel
npr tote bags

laser tag

RVs

Lobbed one of these at a guy who wouldn't let me merge in traffic the other day. Guess I had misperceived some sort of cultural moment where we had brought this into a less fraught usage. My passenger and life partner offered a terse and uncompromising correction. May still be some time yet, lads.

fuck up cunt

npr tote bags

― Men's Scarehouse - "You're gonna like the way you're shook." (m bison), Tuesday, February 6, 2018 4:05 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

itt chinese things

weird old dudes that call their wife "mother"
super big gulps

fat kids

Ahistorical nonsense disproven by the most cursory of searches

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17355779/

That appalling "podcast voice"

you're going to need to narrow that down

the mind goes first to Sarah Koenig or Ira Glass but then a soft whisper "oh no, it gets worse" then you remember Jad Abumrad

.....all American podcast voices are the same and i cannot listen to American podcasts as a consequence

Dead serious

i struggle tbh

Jews

Ice water

Kraft singles

the mind goes first to Sarah Koenig or Ira Glass but then a soft whisper "oh no, it gets worse" then you remember Jad Abumrad

― trife's rich padgett (rip van wanko), Saturday, February 10, 2018 5:03 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The fact that Ira Glass, Jad Abumrad, Peter Sagal are (1) not all the same person and (2) all have jobs in fucking RADIO often boggles my mind

It’s not like we ban Jews from the radio just for sounding Jewish!

I for one find the nasally-inflected tones of my co-religionists from Ashkenaz quite soothing

melted butter as a dip for steaks

PBJ
BLT
fluffernutter
frosting
cookie dough

red turning indicators on cars
nine inch plastic bumpers
stick shift on the steering column

malt liquor
crack

What color are rear turn signals in other countries?!

http://historygarage.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/left1.jpg
... most of the world

also, specifying race on registration forms etc. And statistics broken down by race.

I’ll read this tomorrow

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811115

The wrong amount of tax being deducted from your pay check throughout the year, then getting some back or being asked for more at the end of the year.

Saying 'how funny' with dead eyes

81. S'mores

#3

81.5. “sock” as a verb

d'oh, buried in the fold on zing

81. just pouring any old fuckin' amount of booze into a drink at a bar

83. “thank you for your service”

Jesus yeah

And making service staff grovelsmile

85. pretty darn good craft beer!
86. pretty darn good cheeseburgers!

83.5 the fucking loop of audio running all night and day at LAX announcing that they appreciate your service so you can get a free shower and nap if you're a returned serviceperson is absolutely my worst American experience (while waiting from 1am to 8am to be able to leave or shower or nap myself)

even above that time a federal employee threatened to shoot me for looking at a piece of public art 1 min after entering the country

root beer
raccoons
rollerskates

90. TSA agents are so terribly friendly (they'll even erotically touch me without having to buy a drink.)

91. Chewing gum
92. Chewing tobacco
93. Chex mix.

90. TSA agents are so terribly friendly (they'll even erotically touch me without having to buy a drink.)

america’s the only country i’ve ever been to that insists on picking my locks

and i’ve been to fucking china

94: gold medallist snowboarder red gerrard, on the olympics:

"I honestly don’t know what the Olympics is. Clearly it’s big, everyone is here."

even above that time a federal employee threatened to shoot me for looking at a piece of public art 1 min after entering the country

this is turkish armed forces level of batshit crazy

95. Fantasy football.
96. Fantasy Island.
97. Fantasy by Britney Spears.

Red Gerrard otm

98. Patriot Missile.
99. Patriot Act.
100. Patriot, Indiana.

Town motto: "The FIRST Refuge of Scoundrels"

It’s not like we ban Jews from the radio just for sounding Jewish!

― direct to consumer online mattress brand (silby), Sunday, 11 February 2018 06:40 (seven hours ago) Permalink

jad abumrad is lebanese fwiw. Interestingly, so is stereotypically Jewy reality tv star/business guy Marcus Lemonis. Maybe they're a lost tribe.

Saying 'how funny' with dead eyes

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Sunday, February 11, 2018 1:39 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I believe it's "funny how"

I welcome solidarity with all high-voiced Levantine nerds xp

in texas at least I heard more "how fun" (with dead eyes) than "how funny" but yeah

101. Mormons
102. Top sheets

103. no doy

Top sheets?

flat sheets. what real men use

pplains was making a goodfellas joke

Goodfellas
Good Humor ice cream (& accompanying vehicles, personnel, etc)
Goodman, John
Goodnight Moon
Goodyear Tires

Girls Gone Wild

My second GoodFellas joke in 12 hours!

Pp two times

military bases literally all over the fucking world. because, that's why

Girls Gone Wild
― sleepingbag, Sunday, February 11, 2018 12:57 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also, the Bang Bus

As opposed to the UK's Jolly Good Trolley

do you like american things
we like all kinds of things
but i like american things best

how are top sheets American though

I was given to understand on other internets that they were unheard of in the Commonwealth

My wife did not grow up in the US and said they didn't use them, just duvets with duvet covers.

turnpikes

idgi, do non-Americans wash their duvet covers every time they change their sheets?

short answer: no

lol change sheets, wash what’s on the bed and put it back on the bed

you can bother with multiple sheets if you really really care about bedroom variety

I have slept in beds in Australia and England and France and Norway and Scotland and Finland and New Zealand with top sheets

I've slept in an Airbnb and a hotel and mostly on a sofa in Canadia but I couldn't swear to the bedding

corndogs
chex mix
half n half
tri-tip
outdated plumbing
shower valves (seriously i HATE this)

cool whip

miracle whip

Garrett's Chicago Mix Popcorn

shower valves (seriously i HATE this)

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, February 12, 2018 1:55 AM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What do other countries have instead?

shower valves (seriously i HATE this)

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, February 12, 2018 1:55 AM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What do other countries have instead?

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Monday, 12 February 2018 18:09 (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Buckets

Manifest Destiny
Fruit Roll Ups.

Reese's peanut butter cups
peanut butter m&ms
peanut butter and jelly
peanut butter an marshmallow fluff

actually I'm not sure what you mean by a shower valve, do you mean the fact that there is a single control for both pressure and temp?

shower valves

is this a home-owner thing or a UI thing?

x-post

that reminds me though,

104. toilets that are so full of water and also weirdly short that you have to lower yourself carefully, tensing your quads as you pause several times a second, calculating whether it's going to be safe to sit down or you'll have to fish your dong out of the way and hold it someway out of the drink for the duration

especially bad if the loo is so small that [deleted for propriety]

only an east coast problem ime but still American

Tootsie roll
California Roll
Roller Disco
Operation Rolling Thunder

shower valves: in bathtub showers

you have to switch the water between the shower & the bathtub. and there’s only one set of controls for both.
ie raise a lever on the bathtub faucet that switches the water to the shower & then turn on the shower

it’s weird & silly to me

I think I've seen that in other continents too

it's just a "some baths have this, some baths don't" thing. like one spout or two.

only an east coast problem ime but still American

not only an east coast problem, they are like that in LA as well

maybe not the weirdly short thing, but definitely the so full of water it looks like the toilet's blocked thing

I also hate overly full toilets, seems so wasteful

it is weird crapping into a swimming pool, but it’s cleaner in a lot of ways

I've pooped in LA a lot, and only EXCEEDINGLY RARELY, if at all, had to manually cradle my dick or rest it on the seat to avoid reverse-periscoping

Well

only an east coast problem ime but still American

i've once had this problem on the west coast! (while exceedingly jetlagged and it was one of the most scary moments ever)

yeah i’m forever having to rest my giant plonker on things

American things?

-sensible, compact plonkers that don't dangle into the toilet water

I'm not bragging but mine has been known to drag across the poop shelf

chimes with what I've heard

Heh, listen to all these forigeners who sit down to poop.

Oh I didn't say that

900 year old flight attendants

Scriptures in yr airplane lunch basket.

Everything from the tiniest village and hamlet upwards calling itself a city.

one doesn't build villages and hamlets on rock 'n' roll

It takes a city

i actually searched for threads where i could put this but really it comes down to an "only in america" thing

http://rate-driver.com

Ha, holy shit, ∞. That site is great!

https://i.imgur.com/Jkb7jTa.png

Scriptures on yr fast food packaging.

Chick tracts

Chick-Fil-A tracts

NORAID

freedom

about 90% of the menu at the cheesecake factory is dedicated to non-cheesecake items

what kinda factory is this

btw I have a work trip to the usa in just over a month, excited for american things tbh

XP gotta diversify man

You forget what 90% of the C+C Music Factory sounded like.

I ate at Cheesecake factory once, it's not a menu it's a god damn novel!!!!

^^^ I hear that!!!!!

We used to make cheesecake in this country

making cheesecake great again

btw the most american thing is... drip coffee

the brown bean sludge

Now everyone got his hand in the other guys hot pockets

Glory

Hole

^^ both american things

3 in 1

“college” being a thing you go to after school, not during it

"college" being a thing were you play sports more than learn at a higher level

and wear aforementioned jumpers with one giant letter on them

School/college sports teams being somehow of interest to more than just the people in the teams.

The Grateful Dead.

sophomore
freshman

^^^^^^

so many chinese people tell me “i’m a sophomore!” like i’m supposed to know what the fuck that means

what do y'all say, i'm a year elevensie stoody woozent?

“i started uni this year” does the job

but what ARE you

student

ah

is america the only place where ppl in highschool & college have so many NAMES for what they are?
junior
senior
freshman
sophomore

i feel like everywhere else is ok with saying what year level they’re in

i’m a deputy semaphore bleachman

That reminds me, wtf is or are bleachers?

Them seats at their training pitches

http://www.nyloungedecor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/bleachers-seating-for-rent-2-catalog.jpg

where asses go to die

asses

i fell in love with american things
i could be happy
the rest of my life
with american things

What if it takes you a year and a half to get your first year hours in? You can't be a "first-year" student if you've been at college for two years.

you can if you're doing all first-year subjects

You're a first year if you're doing first year

XP see

it's like when someone is born on Feb 29 and they can celebrate their 2nd birthday when they're 6 years old.

make that 8 years old. this math stuff is hard.

They'd be a real asshole of an 8 year old but that in itself is not uncommon I spose

Also there's none of this "getting the hours in", the uni chucks all the students out by May so they can rent out the facilities to businesses until October

What if it takes you a year and a half to get your first year hours in? You can't be a "first-year" student if you've been at college for two years.

― pplains, Sunday, 18 February 2018 09:55 (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also, iirc there's no single word in american that covers this scenario anyway. i've never heard of anyone who's still doing first-year subjects in their second year of enrolment saying e.g. "i'm a trinitron"

Third trimester eh

the american terms refer to years spent there, not level of courses taken

Ya it's a bad term

seems odd to measure progress by how many years you've been on the campus, not how much of the course you've completed

I mean, you all are the ones who would break an ankle by jumping out of a "first" story window, not me.

storey

Dilly Dilly

fetishization of Nutella and Sriracha

French are mental for nutella

Dilly bars

"what's the dealio"

Foolio

Hammertime

The following names:
Skip
Chip
Tipper
Buffy

Inability to say the word 'mirror'.

Pronouncing the name Cecil as Cee-cil, thus rendering a silly name even sillier.

Inability to say the word 'mirror'.

also, ‘warwick’

for a limited time only, great deals on Niss-arn automobiles

the way australians say ‘nissan’ is the worst imo

I don’t know how you personally say nissan but north americans say it very similar to its original Japanese

Same with Subaru

Do Australians say s’-BAY-roo or something?

I don’t know how you personally say nissan but north americans say it very similar to its original Japanese

Same with Subaru

yeah that’s how i understood it. we say ‘NISS-uhn’ and ‘SOO-buh-ROO’

acetaminophen

synthetic marijuana that makes you run around naked in traffic

105. Pronouncing the name Cecil as Cee-cil, thus rendering a silly name even sillier.

― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Sunday, February 18, 2018 11:58 AM (three hours ago)

106. also, ‘warwick’

― reverse-periscoping (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, February 18, 2018 12:02 PM

107. calling people named Craig by the non-existent name Kregg.

108. Puerto Rico :(

109. Poncy faux-French pronunciations of the names Gerard and Bernard.

co-ed, presumably meaning 'female'?
also in weird name pronunciation: Graham

“Gram”

how the hell do yall say it?

“graham”

is that GRAY-HAM
or
GRUH-HUM
or
guh *trill* ah *glottal catch* um
or
GRIMMINY GROO
or what come on

“graham”

gray-um

just think of how “graeme” is pronounced, it’s the same

greemee

accents shouldn't really count though

there are regional differences even within england and not to mention the uk

i always thought it was funny how non-rhotic dialects insert an /r/ sound between vowels (when there is no letter r of course)

some good ones i just remembered:

nonsensical use of semester
junior college

darn i forgot the other one

Nonsensical use of “semester” is an English thing we inherited iirc

graham crackers

gray-ham cray-koars

xxp

not sure i'm understanding

i thought most uk universities used terms

gram crack whores

Nevermind, I got it confused with the three halves of the Eton school year

In the UK they have something called “michaelmas”

not since yewtree

In addition to the ‘Michaelmas term’ we have the ‘Hilary term’ which iirc the US also missed out on.

an English thing we inherited

Also true of sophomore, junior, etc.

month/day/year

peanuts in all the candy

peanut butter in all the candy

(which I love btw)

the one area in which usa doesn’t have enough cultural influence

can't believe it took this long for month / day / year to come up, it's so dumb

on zing so can't ctrl +f for fahrenheit

a) peanuts are in barely any of America's mostly-terrible candy

b) peanut butter NEVER is, only a weird gritty peanut-flavoured sugar sludge, occasionally

is your pedantry a bug or a feature, i cant decide

Sem-eye finals of world's championships of sports - the score, five hundred twenty to three hundred four.

I wish actual peanut butter was in this stuff though!

xpost by 15 seconds

Veg it's terrifying how much sugar or corn syrup is in almost everything here, and how little food content is in so many food items

(xp) he carried an assist and rushed one hundred two yards in 32.7 seconds.

Incomprehensible sports with incomprehensible jargon, is what I'm trying to say. Incomprehensible jargon in general, in fact.

xpost nah it is true that corn syrup is in everything, yr not wrong

maybe we cracked it: corn syrup is the most american thing

Bringing u haribo when u request fruit

even the bread had a buttload of sugar

the cult of 'mexican coke' and its sugar

Space cowboys

Had my first mexican coke yesterday twas like a melted Mr freeze

feisty, flat, coke

antipodeans loving Reese’s cups when you guys have Tim Tams made not a lot of sense to me either.

lol @ Tom D. iirc the UK is the home of cricket, curling, golf and rugby. So back atcha.

Arguing politics with their relatives on FB

Or indeed anybody

Maybe if y'all ate a little more sugar, you'd act a little more sweeter like us.

Month/Day/Year is the worst thing about America, I refuse to use any date format anymore other than YYYY-MM-DD

month day year is so obviously insane and stupid that it's kind of awesome

Fahrenheit is a better temperature scale for the weather than Celsius though.

But what we really need is a temperature scale for the weather where freezing is 0 and 95F is, like, 9, so the temperature outside is just one digit

Month/Day/Year is like Minutes/Seconds/Hours, ie insane.

...and therefore awesome?

True tbh

You haven’t lived until you’ve had to sit down with a dataset containing strings in a mix of MMDDYY and YYMMDD format and have to somehow disambiguate which is which

Some large % of American GDP is expended on reconciling dates

Fahrenheit is like pinball machines that score in the eleventy-millions just for the sake of having big numbers

antipodeans loving Reese’s cups when you guys have Tim Tams made not a lot of sense to me either.

Reese's cups are bad and gross. Most American chocolate is bad, but the "chocolate" in Reese's is the orange plastic cheese slice of American chocolate

110. Orange plastic "cheese" slices

sic and silby really getting controversial up in here

You haven’t lived until you’ve had to sit down with a dataset containing strings in a mix of MMDDYY and YYMMDD format and have to somehow disambiguate which is which

I had to do something like that last week, importing data from an old website we are revamping, but with MMDDYY and DDMMYY. Whoever decided to make the date fields strings should be harshly punished. In the end I just read them all as DDMMYY unless that threw an error then tried MMDDYY. Thing is this is a UK-only system so what kind of disgusting savage was putting in MMDDYY anyway. Never mind the entries that were 01 Janurary or 5 Feburrrarrary.

Oh my god that’s some amateur hour database management right there

Tell me about it. Then they had address, phone and email all in one text column. I wrote a parser for that and had to handle about 20 different ways of prefixing a telephone number. T., T:, Te:, Tel:, P:, Ph:, etc etc ad nauseam.

month date year is truly nonsensical

reeses peanut butter cups are not my favorite, they are kinda gross tbh i can only eat 1 or 2

Veg it's terrifying how much sugar or corn syrup is in almost everything here, and how little food content is in so many food items

Not in the produce section. That's where all the action is.

Now listen, I'm fine with all you Cape people shuffling around in this safe place, registering your discomforts with some of the oddities of American culture like peanut butter or too many stripes on a flag.

But come on. My man sic:

Fahrenheit is like pinball machines that score in the eleventy-millions just for the sake of having big numbers

Here's what you get when you watch the Australian weather report, all ten seconds of it: "Today, it was 23. Tonight, it will be 18. Tomorrow, looking at a high of 23." It's all too broad and general! Fahrenheit lets you denote more exact measurements of temperature. I mean, you all say the average human body temperature is "37" whatever that means. We say 98.6. And where 99 is a mild fever and 97.5 means your thermometer isn't working right, that's a big deal!

And here's something: for those exact reasons, I'm all in favor of the U.S. using kilometers instead of miles. I've already mentioned somewhere on this board how Missouri uses mile-markers for every two-tenths of a mile. Being able to say "my car's broken down at KM 82.5" would be much more accurate than just saying "Mile Marker #51".

We're not trying to run up the score with hot, hot days of 108º. We're just being very, very specific!

otm

I think of low temperatures in centigrade and high temperatures in Fahrenheit. Or I used to. After Brexit it will all be Fahrenheit.

100 boils, zero freezes, 23 is nice. Easy!

that it was minus two in Seattle yesterday is more impressive than saying it was twenty-eight point four

how Missouri uses mile-markers for every two-tenths of a mile.

in a lot of places it's every one-tenth. i won't stop until every highway is demarcated in one inch increments.

(xp) Exactly!

how a TV-announced city-wide temperature actually feels is so dependent on where you are, how the wind is, what the clouds are doing, whether a cat is sitting on you etc etc, that the supposed precision of Fahrenheit is irrelevant http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-colbert.gif

the supposed precision of Fahrenheit

Also pretty sure that it is possible to tell whether someone has a mild fever using a digital thermometer in *checks* basically every country in the world

Jesus fuck please get this argument off of ILX and back on whichever tumblr / subreddit it came from

Probably the one called "American things" tbrr

Why not just have it where 0 is freezing and 10 is boiling. Then you can just say, "Oh, it's nice today. It's only 2. Hope it doesn't get all the way up to 3!"

Here's what you get when you watch the Australian

world

weather report, all ten seconds of it: "Today, it was 23. Tonight, it will be 18. Tomorrow, looking at a high of 23." It's all too broad and general!

but the difference between 18 and 23 isn’t massive. it’s not even a layer of clothing. also as sic said there’s so many other factors (humidity being a huge one) that being vague about the number for a forecast (which turns out to be wrong anyway) is fine. the difference between 22 and 23 isn’t perceptible at all, so i don’t know why anyone who’s not a scientist needs to distinguish between 68 and 69.

Fahrenheit lets you denote more exact measurements of temperature. I mean, you all say the average human body temperature is "37" whatever that means.

it means 37.0

We say 98.6. And where 99 is a mild fever and 97.5 means your thermometer isn't working right, that's a big deal!

oh so that just means you need to buy a celsius thermometer

it's a 0-100 scale where 0 is "about as cold as it ever gets" and 100 is "about as hot as it ever gets", that seems like a pretty good scale for describing the weather to me...

That's wildly inaccurate but I'm giving you benefit of the shorthand doubt

Humidex for the warm months

Wind chill for the cold months

universal scale:

nonsense
freezing
cold as fuck
cold
cool
nice
bit warm
kinda hot
bloody hot
fucking hot
nonsense

American cheese
string cheese
Velveeta
government cheese
Cheez Whiz
Philly cheesesteak

And the best worst cheese of all time, provel

"stop talking about American things on the American things thread" is a pretty fun example of the totalitarian nature of American cultural entitledness, good job Tombot

wow just further proof of american thing #1: america is #1

jk our country is terrible

*takes roll call of Celsius nations who have planted their flag on the moon*

measuring and showing your dick to see whose is bigger

Yes we definitely invented that

You invented measuring it in Fahrenheit

*takes roll call of Celsius nations who have planted their flag on the moon*

• trying to win arguments with “the moon”

*counts number of higgs bosuns in his penis*

Higgs boatswains?!?!

What a disaster for European science and on a personal level my penis, trevor

Should a Boatswain's Mate meet eligibility requirements, he can elect to become an SO (formerly SEAL), SB (formerly SWCC), ND (Navy Diver), or EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician).

Clarification:

The construction " , Trevor" at the end of a sentence is a reference to English classic colour commentary in football.

My penis is not named Trevor.

which begs the question

If you're not close enough to read the name on the collar then you can safely presume you were not meant to know

It's "Kielbacca" isn't it

Lug Lámfada

Log Lambada

month date year is truly nonsensical

Month/Day/Year is like Minutes/Seconds/Hours, ie insane.

month day year is so obviously insane and stupid that it's kind of awesome

ok i'm not saying you have to like it or agree with it but there is a logic. if someone asks you a date, like, what's your birthday, a very common way to say it is "august twelfth, 1979" (if that is in fact your birthday) i.e. MM DD YYYY

"when's your birthday?"

"december second"

"you're insane and stupid"

But I suspect folks from DD MM YY areas would be more likely to say 'twelfth of August, 1979'.

Well, it makes slightly more sense than Australians putting wickets before runs in a cricket score - or should I save that for an Australian Things thread?

"remember, remembith, november fifth!"

Until Never Twelfth, and that's a long long time.

There is nothing logical about entering data for processing by aping verbal tics!

ok i'm not saying you have to like it or agree with it but there is a logic. if someone asks you a date, like, what's your birthday, a very common way to say it is "august twelfth, 1979" (if that is in fact your birthday) i.e. MM DD YYYY

“what time were you born?”

“four pm and thirteen seconds and twenty eight minutes”

Well, it makes slightly more sense than Australians putting wickets before runs in a cricket score - or should I save that for an Australian Things thread?

wickets before runs is much more logical, I won't hear of this!!!!

Thing is people do say "ten past eleven" but minute-hour-second would still be dumb

these things that no one does would in fact be pretty dumb yes

i am currently agnostic on the wicket issue but am keen to find a way of taking sides

It would be if the score was being given for the fielding side.(xxp)

Nobody does minute-hour-second for the exact same reason that nobody does month-day-year!

look at the thread title

Yeah America and the Philippines and nobody else in the entire world, for a reason

how do britishes say dates then ? Twenty five October or Twenty fifth October or twenty fifth OF October or twenty something else ?

britishes

world

the correct form is "25 10 17" (or whatever the year might be)

anything that takes longer to say than that is time-wasting and rude iirc

nobody appreciated my "taking sides" cricket joke ;_;

which i didn't realise I'd made tbf

Id imagine you won't be alone in that

lol 5 Live here i come

/britishes/

world

This does not explain why anyone would enter dates into a database in an illogical fashion

Usually ‘the 25th of October ‘ but increasingly in written communication ‘25 October‘. Xp

8 Ventôse CCXXVI

as an activist sub-editor i remove those "ths" "nds" and "sts" as fast as anyone can write them

if they start to say them in conversation i clap my hand over their mouths and rabbitpunch them, it's the only way they'll learn

In Spanish it am pretty sure it’d be ungrammatical to speak anything other than eg “el tres de mayo, mil ochociento y ocho”

English speaking world maybe but sure, how do you britishers say dates

FP'd you for this

blood sausaged

didn't actually FP you before, have done so now for doubling down on this shocking racism

abreuve nos sillons

it throws me when every food item that goes between two other food items is collectively called a sandwich, including burgers, french sticks and baps

and the kfc double down, which frankly is genius

Americans are preoccupied to the point of derangement with the ontology and, indeed, teleology of sandwiches

Are breakfast sandwiches an American thing? They surely would never be invented anywhere that already has sausage rolls

i don’t know what constitutes a breakfast sandwich in america, but we do indeed have sandwiches which are specifically for breakfast (bacon, eggs &c.)

....silby do you kno what a sausage roll is for real

it might be much better than you imagine

ooh that reminds me. breakfast tacos are definitely an American thing

You Have Been Yellow Carded By a Moderator: cool it on the date racism, champ

this is the best

....silby do you kno what a sausage roll is for real

it might be much better than you imagine

I googled for photos of the sausage rolls at the bakery near my old house and found an internetful of people trying to recreate them at home

important to note that sausage rolls and flavoured milk is the breakfast of choice for the australian tradie (working man)

(their selection ain't as gourmet as the wonders from bourke street bakery but)

there's a bourke street bakery?

click the link

(there are now eleven!!1 locations, only one is on Bourke St)

properly hilarious since the only bakeries i know of on bourke street are kenny’s and bread top, the latter of which puts a sausage in a roll but has somehow created an entirely unique monster

afaik the Bourke St in Sydney is a couple of years older than the Melbourne one, though they were both named for the NSW governor of the time

Bourke St

Sydney

ohhhhh

Check thread title

check borad

an American brought saus rolls up, we're okay

my local bourke street bakery is 550 meters away from bourke street

that's 600 yards you heathens

back to american things: garlic fries! they are great

Bullying

Pumpkins

denied - Americans have no idea what to do with pumpkins.

Objection overruled - Americans have no idea what to do with Trump. And yet he's yours. Maybe smash 'im?

who are you talking to?

http://application.denofgeek.com/pics/film/list/adlib.td.jpg

Who knows what to do with pumpkins?

you can’t even eat them because they’re shit

i eat sugar pumpkins

my wife roasts the seeds after carving them for halloween but the rest gets chucked out. one of my cats will sometimes eat the pulp but other years isn't interested at all. he's obviously a pumpkin connoisseur.

My dog ate one I'd carved once.

These are the best pumpkins

https://www.rareseeds.com/winter-luxury-pie-pumpkin/

jelly

Referring to women as 'guys'.

I worked with electronic hardware and software engineers for a decade. They called electronic components and software modules "guys". I have little doubt that civil engineers call the high tensile strength fasteners in highway bridges and ten story steel skeleton buildings "guys".

111. levi's

called matthew's now iirc

112. bible jokes

113. Baby showers.

^^ Murican things that really caught on elsewhere iirc

114. hard shell taco night!

Grumble. Have to use an API (served by a British company!) and the fucking wankers are using US date formats. WTF is wrong with these people. Anyone not using YYYY-MM-DD to represent date values in datasets should be sent to the gulag.

cosine

https://i.imgur.com/VxXSKhU.png

Cool Whip

The belief that 7 vacation days and 3 sick days a year is not only reasonable but very generous.

nilla wafers for dipping in the cool whip

“a meet cute”

The belief that 7 vacation days and 3 sick days a year is not only reasonable but very generous.

yeah i really can't get my head around how little time off americans get

my public sector job here in the uk gives me 31 holiday days plus public holidays time off between xmas and new year ffs

public holidays and time off, that should say

Flexidays?

don't mind if i do, cheers

Jaysus that's better than us

Wait how many flexidays

often thought that the US approach to acceptable amounts of paid leave points to the real sickness at the heart of the country

it's not a set number of flexidays as such, more that we can claim back in lieu time that we work outside office hours, which generally adds up to an extra handful of days' worth of hours each year

nv otm tho, the perpetual nose-to-the-grindstone american attitude to leave (and maternity leave especially) seems appalling to me

and the widespread practice of unused sick days being available as extra vacation days, leading to people coming into work sick all the goddamn time

i mean the concept of having an allocation of sick days to begin with is fairly cro-magnon tbh

Look away now Americans, but I often find I have more holidays than I know what to do with.

I have a somewhat decent helping of vacation days but I can’t bring myself to travel more than a couple times a year. If I had 31 days a year I’d just take every other Friday off.

i am in the situation of having to use 1.5 vacation days before the end of this month or else i lose them. i mean, i think i will not struggle to find a way to take the time off but it's not a rare occurrence in the UK to have this "problem"

Tell me about it.

yeah i too am familar with this 'my diamond shoes are too tight' problem

Switch to gold shoes, they’re heavier but they’re more flexible

Oh

Oh lol no I mean *Flexi*days

18 fyi

yeah i really can't get my head around how little time off americans get

my public sector job here in the uk gives me 31 holiday days plus public holidays time off between xmas and new year ffs

― War, Famine, Pestilence, Death, Umami (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, March 7, 2018 6:06 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

probably fair to compare to similar us jobs

i don't know the exact details, but just from her casually mentioning it, i know someone who works for the city (of los angeles) and she can rack up 3-4 weeks of vacation time in just a few months plus she gets a week of sick days, but possibly even more, and she basically works 4 days a week

the private sector is where things get bad for US workers

on another note, i know union jobs don't have paid time off or employer-covered healthcare, but they get paid decently as a trade off (like $60-$80/hour, but i'm sure it depends on the trade)

"Liquour", "gasoline"

often thought that the US approach to acceptable amounts of paid leave points to the real sickness at the heart of the country

― Under the influence of the Ranters (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, March 7, 2018 8:24 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mix this in with the fear of being fired 'at will' with zero safety net to catch you if that happens, then sprinkle in an unhealthy dose of youre a shit employee for taking any time off at all and youre probably spot on.

i worked for ibm in australia where i recieved 4 weeks of vacation (usable from my first day) with the option of buying another 4 weeks. I also got 365 sick days every two years (at 100% pay) in case i got cancer or something long termish.

Its been a rough transition to put it mildly.

365 sick days every two years (at 100% pay)

w...w...whaaaa???

yeah ibm is famous for that, the rest of us get 8 or maybe 12 per year

Is this if you get certified sick you get 50% pay, essentially

This is all because you people allowed communists to hold jobs and vote

Darragh if I was sick for 18 months I wouldnt get paid for 6 of those months but the other 12 would be paid at 100%. Weirdly the system never seemed to get abused but the odd thought of a fakey dr certificate and a second job to double my income may have crossed my mind. It almost seems like treating employees with respect results in those employees being respectful. Crazy.

Weirdly the system never seemed to get abused

i've wondered if it's like when we had tiny internet caps (10gb/mth) we'd squeeze out every last gig, but when internet plans grew to >1tb/limitless we stopped worrying

115. pallid, yellow eggs with extra-fragile shells

get you some good farm eggs

milk duds which i love much more than is warranted

Cataloging all the different state license plates you see on road trips

80% of people on a domestic US flight ordering dry ginger ale

i would love to know how ginger ale worked its way so firmly into the american psyche as something you drink on the plane. surely this must constitute the bulk of the ginger ale business. whenever else do you even see it??

I know rite!!!

does it even go with free pretzels???

it was the only soft drink except coke on a recent Europe-Japan flight I took, so maybe it’s a flight thing now?

really noticed this on a flight between Noo Yawk and Miami, and it was one of many soft drink options

never really seen it ordered on non-US flights

I don’t take caffeine so I asked for it and the stewardess had to go search for it lol

You guys have some problem with drinking booze on a flight?

I don’t like getting dehydrated so I rarely drink on flights. This last trip (12+ hour flight) I was bumped up a class on air france and the stewardess, relieved to find a French speaker, talked me into wine.

Yes, I wouldn't normally drink on flights either, but on a long flight I'm not going to drink ginger beer tbh

I am a savage it is true

the thing is.. drinking ginger ale on a plane fuckin rules

I bought a 2-liter of ginger ale lemonade, and I'll tell you something, it ain't the same.

Last time I was on a plane, I asked for either a Sprite or a 7-UP. They said they only had Sierra Mist.

So I drank ginger ale.

ginger ale isn't ginger beer btw

ale's ok as a mixer, beer is good any time

ginger ale is an abomination tbh

About as much of an ale as root beer is a beer.

i'm old enough to remember people ordering tomato juice because they thought it was healthier/would keep them hydrated

i usually just drink water, but will sometimes opt for orange juice

well tbf https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/weird/WHYY-Why-do-we-Drink-Tomato-Juice-on-Planes--278032761.html

i've also noticed the tomato juice on a flight thing!

actually i never thought of ginger ale on a flight but there's something about the marketing of ginger ale that i find very appealing at large. it's an ale! it's healthy! no caffeine! still tastes great! etc
def my favorite soda even though crush is my close #2 haha

i would love to know how ginger ale worked its way so firmly into the american psyche as something you drink on the plane. surely this must constitute the bulk of the ginger ale business. whenever else do you even see it??

literally the last thing i ever want to happen on a flight is some gastrointestinal emergency and ginger ale helps mitigate that risk

tomato juice on the other hand i have no fucking clue

it's an ale!

it's not

it's healthy

...

i was on flights in the early 80s and distinctly remember my dad ordering ginger ale. it's just what you do.

Ginger is an anti-emetic so it’s meant to stop you vomiting over everything though idk how much actual ginger is involved in ginger ale.

ginger ale and tomato juice are what i remember adults drinking when taking a break from being actively, aggressively alcoholic. (c. late 1970s)

ginger ale works well as a mixer but that's about it

was recently advised that in certain south east asian countries, ginger intake is less about the stomach and more about giving zing to the, uh, gentleman and lady parts

prices on store shelves or menus not including the sales tax

^ this is almost as insane as tipping but doesn't get the same press

always get caught out on the sales tax, every freaking time

“Resort fees” at hotels, too.

When I was in Manhattan a couple of years ago I said to the guy in a store where I'd just bought a map, "I keep forgetting about the sales tax". His reply: "How do you think we pay for all these wars buddy?"

most places in Miami had a 'service fee' and expected a tip!!!

outrageous!!!

When I was in Manhattan a couple of years ago I said to the guy in a store where I'd just bought a map, "I keep forgetting about the sales tax". His reply: "How do you think we pay for all these wars buddy?"

― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, March 28, 2018 4:00 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's...not how it works in america but ok

It was said w/ some humour, yr honour.

humor, yr honor ... remember what thread you're in.

:-)

I like having the sales tax factored into the price already, but here's why I don't think it works in the U.S.:

- Different tax rates for different types of food.

- Different tax rates for different municipalities, counties and states.

It's much easier for a company to set a price and let the government add what they want to it rather than trying to work backwards by figuring out what the local tax is and figuring up what your base price will be. Imagine designing a grocery flyer for a six-county metro, saying GROUND CHUCK $3.80/lb and having to have each county try to work out what their real price is going to be.

Here's where I totally expect non-USAers to say WELL WE MANAGE TO SEND OUT OUR FLYERS WITH THE SAME PRICE, but I expect that your taxes are a bit more generalized than our little Balkanized nation of 2000 counties.

just use income tax for state revenues ffs

Believe me I wish we would

Know where in the U.S. you can usually find sales tax included in the price of off-the-shelf goods? Liquor stores.

I bought a bottle of booze the other month and it was ~$15 more than the sign said.

Who's looking at or receiving flyers for chains of groceries? If you're selling something in a shop, you can put the price of that item within that shop on the sign in the shop that tells you the price of the item! Instead of a different price that does not actually relate to the price you will pay!!!

Who's looking at or receiving flyers for chains of groceries?

Those of us who aren't vagabound adventurers!

https://i.imgur.com/kTcsuVU.jpg

I think the big reason is just the time it takes to figure out the retail cost of an item. Just figure out what the tax is at check out, like everyone else. That way, you won't waste time figuring up the price of items that don't sell.

($15 is a lot more than what anyone should expect though... unless the bottle cost $150.)

PolySci (university course)

I only realized yesterday it is short for Political Science and doesn’t mean “Lots of Science”

well, it's "poli sci"

heaps of people write it as polysci

heaps of people spell laptop 'labtop'

I think the big reason is just the time it takes to figure out the retail cost of an item. Just figure out what the tax is at check out, like everyone else. That way, you won't waste time figuring up the price of items that don't sell.

this makes absolutely no sense*. if you stock 500 of a successful item, then you're taking the time to figure out the retail cost 500 times at the check out, as opposed to once, at shelving.

one of the most infuriating things about it is the inability to get money ready to pay for your items before reaching the checkout; the amount of time this adds to everyone's transaction, if someone wishes to pay in cash, is enormous. in other countries, if I am buying a small item or three, I can count the money out before reaching an employee, hand it over, and leave. here, so as to not hold up everyone else in the shop, I now have about three kilos of coins that I have to find the time to take to a machine somewhere which will, for a TWELVE PERCENT handling fee, give me a VOUCHER that I can then take elsewhere to exchange for money.

*ie not sure if srs

Do u still not exist enough in America to have a bank acct

https://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/simpsons-memes-money-can-be-exchanged-for-goods-and-services.jpg

the amount of time this adds to everyone's transaction, if someone wishes to pay in cash, is enormous.

ime waiting for people to use their debit card takes longer than paying with cash.

micromanaging fellow patrons time, just fuck off

lifehackers must die

if you stock 500 of a successful item, then you're taking the time to figure out the retail cost 500 times at the check out, as opposed to once, at shelving.

Think about where ever the price is printed though. On the shelf. In advertising. On the board in the window. Oh, and the city held a special election last month to expand the marina and now every single one of those items has to be ticked up half a percent.

Good news though. The sales tax is only temporary which means you'll have to reverse the process in 18 months.

pp you are not effectively arguing for the sensible convenience of the current system

I didn't say it made any sense!

A few years ago, our governor wanted to drop the sales tax on food. The ruckus that was raised from concerned retailers about how they would manage to charge one tax for one item and another tax for another item during the same transaction was bonkers. Especially when you showed them how items like beer and wine were already being taxed at different rates than everything else.

But it was like a commerce group filled with George HW Bushes: How will the computer know if someone's buying a plum or plum-flavored candy?

https://i.imgur.com/Ozi8L3I.jpg

The law passed. Food is charged a 2% tax while everything else is more like 9%. Except for beer and wine which are more like 10.5% - Depending on what side of the county you're shopping in.

So again, I'm not saying it can't be done, just listing the "finished" price on the shelf in the first place. But retailers have their reasons.

https://i.imgur.com/PXfKfuN.png

I'm sure you've seen these. Sometimes, retailers just want to let you know how much you're getting screwed.

LOL 'recovery fee'

I am 100% pro the sweetened beverage tax except that the other day I was hit with it on a bottle of kombucha with 3g of non-added sugar

tax the poor, yeah great idea

It's awful I can't believe we passed this dumbass regressive shit tax

tax the poor

are you saying Warhol lied to me

'Scooter' as a nickname

Dinner at 6pm and cellphones, apparently?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/world/americas/french-waiter-rude.html?emc=edit_mbau_20180328&nl=&nlid=7629057220180328&te=1

I’m a proud American whom eats them dinners at 6pm

In the Central time zone, we eat dinners at 5!

getting a free t-shirt at a basketball game and wearing that t-shirt because that's in a preferred colour of your team and looks good on tv

even more american things: getting that free t-shirt via the delivery mechanism of a t-shirt cannon

high level american thing: hot dogs shot out of a t-shirt cannon

getting a free t-shirt at a basketball game and wearing that t-shirt because that's in a preferred colour of your team and looks good on tv

gotta stand up for the anthem, hand on your heart because... uh, something about the troops

turkmenbashi things

well we lost vietnam bc ppl didnt sing the natl anthem loud enough at the super bowls

18 packages of ketchup and 30 napkins in bag from drive thru

This is a free country so stand the fuck up and put your hand over your heart or else

Toilet/shower situations that do not make me wish I was in a different country

Clarify please

ha... maybe amenities is a better word

can't believe that you are made to stand up in the "bathroom" if the anthem is somehow played in there

Sometimes I eat too many tacos and wind up playing the National Anthem all night.

hope you're sitting down

We had 5th grade graduation for my kid a couple of weeks ago. Two baller kids refused to stand for the pledge and the anthem. THEY ARE 11 YEAR OLDS. I was so proud.

Me, not even being American, wussed out and stood but I didn’t put my hand on my heart nor did I recite the pledge or sing the anthem (mostly because I don’t know the words to either.)

this is my pledge policy at work ^^^
non-participation, but not making a show of not standing

i dont put my hand over my heart bcz i think it’s weird

i would participate if i were wearing a hat, because having to take off the hat makes it exciting

Disgraceful that @nyjets owner will pay fines for players who kneel for National Anthem. Encouraging a movement premised on lies vs. police. Would he support all player protests? Would he pay fines of players giving Nazi salutes or spew racism? It’s time to say goodbye to Jets!

— Rep. Pete King (@RepPeteKing) May 26, 2018

not standing up for the anthem is the new nazi salute!!!!

The Cub Scouts not only didn't take their caps off, but the fact they were all wearing them IN A CHURCH in the first place blew my mind.

In other words, people already picking and choosing which ways to conduct themselves during all that carrying on. Taking a knee seems downright respectable.

If I understand correctly, the first NFL player who refused to stand for the anthem (since the NFL started bringing players out before it) was Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee after consulting with an actual veteran who suggested that it was an act of protest yet still reverent.

I as an actual American don't understand why every sporting event has to begin with the National Anthem and a military flyover and a "salute to our troops" and all that shit. Every fucking member of the United States Military joined by choice. A lot of them don't even see actual combat. They get paid a relatively generous wage. After leaving their service, they get free college. They get preference in hiring. They get discounts on everything for life. Many domestic civilian jobs are far more dangerous and far less rewarding. We Americans need to stop fellating our troops so much.

not fellating the troops is the equivalent of a nazi salute, pal

You may think you understood the concept of "priceless" jewelry. For years, "priceless" meant "astronomically expensive." Owning "priceless" treasures was a rare privilege reserved for celebrities, billionaires, and royalty. The best most of us could do was dream. Until now...

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https://i.imgur.com/y4mb7MG.jpg

As an American, most WTF thing about this photo is the guy's sandals.

It is common knowledge that the national anthem playing is the equivalent of lights being dimmed for a stage performance. People at concessions or the bathroom gotta hustle.

Unless the Blue Jays are in town. Then you know you've got at least 10 minutes before things start happening.

It's terrible opinions about the national anthem that makes me wish we had that Black Mirror social media rating system for people.

yoghurt pots that are narrower at the top than the bottom, with a lip at the top to make it even harder to eat from

WITH ZERO FAT ZERO SUGAR AND 100 BILLION SLIMMING HEALTHY BACTERIA LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES

This...

There are two basic methods for eating with a knife and fork. The "American" involves having your fork in your left and your knife in your right when cutting your food, then putting the knife down and switching your fork to your right hand to eat, tines facing upwards. (If you're right-handed, that is.)

lol i did that until probably last year. it took approx 15 years of living outside the Uk to effect that change.

xxposts sic gah I hate those stupid containers

TREMAYNE
Lucy, may I ask you something? Do you find it odd
that I don't switch my fork when I eat, that I bring it to
my mouth with my left hand?

LUCY
My mother called it "piling."

TREMAYNE
Actually, it's not odd at all, it's the European way.

eat everything with a single large spoon tightly clenched in either fist

problem solved

AA.

Nothing, to me, is more American than AA. You're addicted to alcohol (been there), a hard drug, and find yourself in an utter place of misery and despair, and you miraculously find the guts to reach out for help (which is HUGE), only to be slapped in the face and have religion forced on you. All well and good during your first cuppa or awkward entrance into the class that's chatting away, but the third of the twelve steps already is AA asking you to "turn your will and your life over to the care of god".

Yeah, ok... Way to force loads of shame and god-fearing (if you're susceptible to that nonsense) guilt on someone who's already way, way down in the dumps.

I should post this in the things I was shockingly old when I learned thread but I had no clue the 12 steps of AA read as so god-heavy! That's super disappointing.

I think it’s god with a lowercase g

It's really kinda based on the placebo theory.

In step one, admit complete defeat. You are unable to help yourself.

There kind of necessarily has to be something kind of Deus ex machina, they call it a "higher power". There is no explicit Christian rhetoric.

poor editing sorry

and there's really no dogma, you conceptualize this power however you want, and relate to it on your own terms. there's just this idea that you're being aided by a power outside yourself. I know that's still... weird, but I'm trying to convey that's it's a WEIRD program not a RELIGIOUS program.

However, there is a strong implication that, if you cannot even concede that there may be any sort of spiritual power out there, then the program might not be for you.

That is a really, really weird program. I see it came out of Prohibition. But hey, if it helps people and gives them a sense of responsibility , accountability to others, go nuts.

- You just have to accept that there's a higher power guiding your life.

- My wife?

- No. Higher than that.

- My mother?

- Well, no, more like...

- Booze?

I remember growing up in Akron and seeing the massive amounts of people who would go to Founder's Day (I think it was usually held at Akron U/U of Akron?) It was always impressive to me that so many people would show up and have something in common so strong that was not religious, not political, but intensely personal. I always sort of envied the community aspect even if the program itself didn't appeal to me on a number of levels.

I did some research on the who lived in my last house. For most of its life, from WWII to the late 80s, it was owned by the guy who integrated AA meetings in Arkansas.

Kind of a weird claim to fame, but notable.

Trapper Keepers. I remember watching an episode of South Park (or the Simpsons) all about Trapper Keepers and have no fucking clue what they were on about.

... had to google them right there to ensure I'd got the name right.

things i was shockingly old, as an American, when i learned: the folders themselves are called TRAPPERS because they trap your loose papers, and they are themselves KEPT in album form by TRAPPER KEEPERS

wow very impressed that TRAPPER KEEPER describes a two-level organization scheme in two words

tbh I don't think I did google trapper keepers when I watched that SP episode and still have no idea wtf they are. some kind of fancy ring binder by the looks of it. I think I thought they were like a diary or something

Trapper Keepers completely never fit into desks or bookbags.

(xp) no I meant I had to google trapper keeper before I posted on this thread!

I am still suspicious of googling trapper keepers* in case they just turn out to be ring binders and I get mad at them again

*or to go into a ....childrens' ....supply store? in the US

sic they’re just a brand of ring binders

And there is no such thing as a “children’s supply store”

what do you mean they're all over the place in my america

post office, public library, children's supply store in every town i've ever known

I remember growing up in Akron and seeing the massive amounts of people who would go to Founder's Day (I think it was usually held at Akron U/U of Akron?) It was always impressive to me that so many people would show up and have something in common so strong that was not religious, not political, but intensely personal. I always sort of envied the community aspect even if the program itself didn't appeal to me on a number of levels.

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera)

kbs _is_ a pretty good beer

? idgi

There’s a brewer called founders & that is one of their beers

ahhh right
i just looked it up and it is based in michigan -- another american thing!

[streaming the american soccerball coverage]

"And then stayed tuned for Spain vs Portugal... The Iberian Peninsula Derby!"

ha

murica