ILX Pub Quiz: How unAmerican are you?

All four, surely.

+ Celine Dion.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Wait. How do you know if you're right?

As the MC of this circus, I shall tell you the correct answer. Have faith. All such niggling obstacles shall be overcome. Can you dig it?

i went with number 1. they actually do sound familiar, but i have been indoctrinated with american culture through the media since birth, so that's hardly surprising.

http://cdbaby.name/p/a/pastorius.jpg

When I read the lines I was certain they were from Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land, but that's not one of the options. Doesn't sound too fighty or political, doesn't feel good enough to be Whitman, elimination -> went with 1

yeah, went with 1.

the University of Notre Dame's fight song

That Whitman poem touches a raw nerve with me, except I don't die at the end.

Hahhaah

I've got a good song along these anti-American lines. And it is McCarthy's "Antiamericancretin". My fave anti-American song ever. Too much American culture bleeding over into Britain, etc.

Some people don't realize this is a band who used to have Stereolab member Tim Gane. We have to teach our children well. Oh wait...most of the Americans are sleep now. Never mind. I'm struggling to switch mental gears now.

Lots of Blake paraphrasing and more than a hint of irony in that song IIRC.

Ah!

This is my melancholy
My country is a colony
Our once-proud nation
Bowed beneath a baseball bat
beneath an ice-cool cola can
Englishmen! Rise again! Throw
off the yoke of the shake and
the coke!

I walk through each dismal street
dismayed by time and disease
My eyes once fell upon an English factory
but now the fast food chains I see
Away shallow USA!
Britains will never be slaves!
Oh, cleansed of your bases and your trivial TV
we'll be everything we used to be
Cleansed of your bases and your trivial TV
we'll be everything we used to be"

Criticize the lyrics all you want to, it's great super-fast sub-Smiths Weddoes indie music of olde tyme.

I doubt every American is familiar with the works of Walt Whitman or the song of one university, or even the finer details of a political speech, so I'm going with God Bless America as well.

Yeah, the clues and the Celine Dion hint make me agree with you.

Criticise the lyrics all you want to, The Horst Wessel Song is great super-medium tempo sub-Wagner Nazi indie music of olde tyme.

oh, aye, missed the nod to Celine, but that would explain Canada, yes.

^ in every way possible, obviously.

Cleansed of your bases and your trivial TV
we'll be everything we used to be

I'm so sure.

Why is copper used for wires in a circuit?

* Copper does not stick to a magnet
* Copper is a brown metal
* Copper is a good conductor of electricity
* Copper if a good conductor of heat

In very cold weather a mixture of salt and sand is spread on roads. Why?

* Salt makes the roads white
* Salt makes water freeze
* Salt makes ice melt

* Sand dissolves in water
* Sand increases friction between car tyres and the road
* Sand makes water freeze

Some stars are bigger than the Sun but they look smaller. Why do they look smaller than the Sun?

* They are brighter than the Sun
* They are further away than the Sun
* They are the same colour as the Sun
* They are nearer than the Sun

THE SUN SAYS: Why do we never see coppers on the beat in very cold weather? Fiona Phillips writes

Why are Cows used for producing milk?

* Cows dissolve in water
* Cows are further away
* Cows make water freeze
* Cows eat grass.

Why do we never see coppers on the beat in very cold weather?

* Coppers are brown trousers
* Coppers are in the pay of the islamic militia
* Coppers are southern trendies
* Coppers are too busy nicking Pete Doherty.

No, the options are:

*Coppers are robbing Cliff Richard blind
*Coppers are stripping car drivers of all dignity
*Coppers are taxing your house
*Coppers are hurting Michael Howard

alt:

Googlism for: coppers

coppers is the last of his line
coppers is not about harry roberts
coppers is out now in sceptre paperback priced £6
coppers is irreversible
coppers is far more interesting and complex than we could ever invent
coppers is not permitted at all within the ceremonial big house at alert bay
coppers is britnoir at its grittiest and most atmospheric

Do you have problem with ED? Why?

1 - Time is money. R0lex watches.
2 - Vgair4 for you!
3 - You have a stupid face, insert-name-here!
4 - Moulin Splooge

As a Canadian who's been living in the US for 3 years, I needed to look this up.

(I didn't vote, obv.)

I'm an American, and if you had asked me which of those choices contained the words "white with foam", I don't know if I could've answered correctly.

for ailsa, from wikipedia:

The chorus of the song is one of the most recognizable collegiate fight songs in the United States, and was ranked first among fight songs by Northern Illinois University Professor William Studwell, who remarked it was "more borrowed, more famous and, frankly, you just hear it more."

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The correct answer was the first: a patriotic ballad entitled God Bless America

The fact that so many of you extranorthamericans were able to suss this out speaks highly of your pub quiz skills. As for your apparent mastery of USA cultural signifiers, perhaps the less said of that, the better.

Well it'd have to be. What overblown flag-waving dreck.

Our national song's about a bloke who steals a sheep and then tops himself to avoid doing time for it.

aw i kinda like "god bless america." it has an interesting history:

Music critic Jody Rosen comments that a 1906 Jewish dialect novelty song, "When Mose With His Nose Leads the Band," contains a six-note fragment that is "instantly recognizable as the opening strains of 'God Bless America.'" He interprets this as an example of Berlin's "habit of interpolating bits of half-remembered songs into his own numbers." [2] Berlin, born Israel Baline, had himself written several Jewish-themed novelty tunes.
In 1938, with the rise of Hitler, Berlin, who was a Jewish immigrant from Siberia, felt it was time to revive it as a "peace song", and it was introduced on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938 sung by Kate Smith, on her radio show.

now granted, it's no "this land is your land."