In which case, does it pay to annoy the snake?


Hmmm, methinks you are deluded. You quite clearly pounced, as I did not mention you at all.

Slight over dramatisation dear. I don't care what I get back from you because I don't perceive you as important or rational. Therefore, I'm not particularly bothered by what you say.

Yes, although it has escaped your sieve-like mind, I think you'll find that it's fair to say that British is a race. It's a complex construct, because it depends on how you define race, and how long a race has to have been predominant in a particular locale before it's classed as a race. But if we take 1600 years as being enough time to create a race, then yes, the British are a race, made up of various races.

In any event, any language identifying ethnic or national groups that is derogatory, is quite obviously racist. So when I lived in Sydney and got labelled as a "pom", that was racist. Sometimes it was affectionate/innocuous and sometimes it was somewhere between rude and extremely racist.

Viz:

In England there is a tendency to be rude to the irish, scottish and welsh (and vice versa, I might add. I received racist remarks when living in Scotland). One woman I know got called "a welsh bastard" by one of her competitors, and she called the police! We have very strict laws about racist taunts and acts of crime motivated by racism, so the abuser was told in no short order to knock it on the head. Basically, if the abuser had wanted to call her "a stupid bastard" then the police couldn't care less. But the minute you bring ethnicity/racism into it, then it becomes a VERY serious matter.

To the education of all concerned.

Sorry Ken if you find it dull.

Jane

Jeez... talk about delusional.

See in the rest of the world that is called bigotry. Racism has to specifically refer to race. British, no matter how you spin it is not a race. White is a race, black is a race, Asian is a race. Furthermore, unless your point is that one race is superior to another, that isn't racism.


Other than that, sigh... some people need to keep up their horrible persona because without it they'd have no persona at all.

I choose to not talk with you. But if you continue to denegrate my country, you will hear back from me.

Racist... LOL... can't-stop-laughing-so-ridiculous![/quote]

OK - you're a feeble-minded bigot then!

Who cares?

If you want to continue being a prat, be my guest. And I find the way that you contradict yourself quite hilarious. Viz:

You're obviously not used to strong women standing up to you and your ill-informed opinions.

It's all just entertainment to me.

Jane

Tell that to English, French or German jews who are white, but who suffer anti-semitism. Your defintion of race is not accurate, and does not reflect what actually goes on in society.

Without belabouring the point too much, I think you'll find that the serbs were being pretty racist towards their WHITE, but muslim, neighbours in Bosnia and later Kosovo.

And, ultimately, you are displaying to me the very traits of the typical american that I find repugnant - ignorance and an over-exaggerated sense of elitism and self-importance.

I decided to delete this post because quite frankly... You're not worth it.

Live your petty little life and snipe all you want an whomever you want. If that's what you need to feel complete. Enjoy your smallness.

If anyone read the much longer post I just deleted. I apologize.

Cool.

Does that mean we'll get some peace now from you're over-sensitive version of americaness?

That's great with me. Means I can make innocuous remarks about the "american standard" and "metronisation" without fear of a violent and over-reactive diatribe.

Jane

Jane, please forgive my intrusion into this wonderful conversation, but I just want to here you comment on something.

When I was growing up, you know I was raised as a European living in a western world.

Something I've always noticed was that the British always had a problem with the French being arrogant and "stuck-up". At the same time, the French thought the same of the British.

I've always thought that folks from England always believed they were better than everyone else because they had a hang-up about whether they came from "royalty" or not.

Perhaps this was just my father and he was a bad representation of the British... I don't know. Please enlighten me.

I do know that he was certainly proud to be from Wales and always talked about our family background (almost as if he believe we were better than everyone else because we came from "royal bloodlines).

Is this rediculous or is there some truth to this?

I don't want to get into a debate on this or even have you tell me my dad was an SOB, I just want to hear your take on this.

One thing that did strike me as odd was that the British started having an influx of Pakistani and Indian folks moving in to the country years ago.

Just didn't make sense to me why they were doing this, since I believed the Brits wouldn't want to mix up the bloodlines???

This is all a bit confusing to me, please explain from your perspective as a british person on this.

I'd really like to hear what you have to say.

Thanks!

Ken How are you planning on making a living off of sites like these?

Hi Primo,

No - I don't know anyone who goes on about "bloodlines". In any case, if you're dad was Welsh then presumably he'd be related to the Welsh royal family, which was kicked into touch some 900 years ago. Point being, that if he's true welsh, he couldn't possibly be related to the current royal family who are german and greek, which is a source of general consternation and dismay. Personally, if we must have a royal family, I'd prefer they were descended from the ancient Britons i.e. scottish, cornish or welsh. But that's just me. Most people don't give it any thought.

So, in my experience, people are not at all bothered about bloodlines and think most of the aristocracy are a bunch of toffee-nosed buffoons. So I'm not sure exactly what it was that your Dad was going on about, or perhaps something has been lost in translation.

Now, onto France.

As far as I'm aware, the french have a problem with the English, rather than the British. It's an incredibly long and convoluted history which I don't fully understand yet, but basically we've been at war with them since 1066. Sometimes Scotland was even an ally of France's because they both had catholic royalty, whereas we had protestant. (Mary Queen of Scots and all that). At one point we were at war with them for 113 years!

Although the French and English aristocracy/royalty were intertwined for centuries, this never really filtered down to the germanic peasant on the street. Which is why we still speak English and not French - they tried to get rid of our language, but people wouldn't have it. Therefore, all the "high falutin" stuff was conducted in french - courts, government etc, but people going about their everyday business spoke english. That's why all the "posh" words in english have french roots, whilst more common parlance is anglo-saxon.

(Note to copywriters: I once read an article about how you should keep most of your language to words with anglo-saxon origins, rather than french, because by default, they would be the most easily understood, commonly used words. If you notice a lot of words with french roots creeping into your language, then you may start losing part of your audience. An interesting rule of thumb).

These days, it's a war over language. Now that there are 25 member states in the EU, we need a common language. The most obvious choice (obviously!) is English. English, as we know, is the most widely spoken language in the world, and it's not unusual to find people with different mother tongues conversing with each other in english! It's become the common currency.

However, the french are protective of their language to the point of obsession. E.g. the word "weekend" has crept into their language, but the national french language thingy (can't remember it's name now) wanted it to be spelt "le ouique end". How ridiculous!

Anyway, they just won't back down. They even turn up at the Eurovision song contest singing in French, when nearly everyone else is singing in English. After all, if you're portuguese, you're not going to understand someone singing in Serbo-croat, but you might just understand them if they sing in english.

So it would seem that our latter-day war is over language (gotta have something to fight about!)

And of course, they'll never live it down that they gave in to Hitler.

Bottom line - 2 very headstrong nations who both think they're better than everybody else who've been in a headlock for nearly a thousand years.

In reality, though, many Brits are buying property in France and find the locals absolutely charming, so these stereotypes are definitely not universally true. Likewise, the Brits are regarded as the biggest yobs in Europe, but that only really applies to a minority of eejits, mainly linked with football hooliganism.

The stereotypical american is regarded as loud, brash, rude, crude and ignorant. I think you'll find that views are similar on this no matter what side of the channel you're on.

Are the english arrogant? Absolutely! In a weird way. We're kinda prone to a melancholy and it's not difficult to find someone in a pub putting the country down and saying how they'd rather live in Spain. However, the minute anyone has a pop at us, we unite against it, and beneath that self-effacing exterior, lies a value system and quiet belief in ourselves that is so deeply ingrained as to be virtually imperceptible and mostly unconscious.

"Britishness" also, in my experience, is a state of mind. It's a system of shared values and a shared culture, rather than an ethnicity. (Although obviously anglo-saxon is an ethnicity). This gives rise to the paradox of people who are racist, but whose best friend is black or chinese or whatever.

To give you an example. My best friend is Turkish (although she was born here). She doesn't hold many turkish values, even though she grew up in a turkish community. Last night I told her about something tactless that a chinese man had said to me, and she thought it was incredibly rude and that he had no manners! How very english! She told me that turkish men said similarly tactless things to women, and that she thought it was outrageous.

Also, Britain probably sees itself as being different to everyone else by virtue of being an island. We can't change our borders much, or not so's it would have much impact on the culture. But what tends to happen here is that people get absorbed and their culture suffused into the melting pot. Caribbean culture has mixed with english culture to create new musical forms, and even new accents, that both black and white kids have. The national dish is now widely regarded as being "chicken tikka masala" which I believe was invented in Bradford, but is obviously of pakistani or bangladeshi origin.

You're assuming that the bloodlines did mix. There's actually not that much intermarrying between south asians and english, although there are plenty of black/white relationships.

Some people may well have thought along those lines - "oh no, we don't want a load of "coloureds" here". But that was 40 or 50 years ago, and I think everyone's pretty much over it now. Asians born here grow up pretty much like any other british kid, and rather than continuing their culture undiluted, they're creating fusion culture and taking on british attitudes and values.

For the record, London is the most racially diverse city in the world, and all the best chefs in the world work here!

Anyway, I hope that goes someway to answering the questions.

Jane

janebert wrote :

I thinked that it was mandarin or something like this (from china).

what about malween island?(or any where else) any country have his darken past to live with it, what about UK one?

I chose my words carefully. I said "most widely spoken", not the one with the most native speakers. For example, all of Africa has English as it's official language except for countries that speak arabic, french, portuguese or german.

Although english is the first language of only about 400 million people, it is the second language of billions of others. For example, in India it is considered de rigeur to speak english if you're middle class or entrepreneurial class.

To ignore the fact that English is the language of world commerce and the internet, is to ignore a huge tidal wave rapidly descending on your house.

Jane