Average American vs Average British person

-> (The Telegraph) Translation table explaining the truth behind British politeness becomes internet hit
The British trait of being too polite to speak one's mind has led to a table translating numerous hollow English phrases becoming an internet hit.
...
The table points out that when Britons say 'I'm sure it's my fault', it actually means 'it's your fault'.

Barnaby from Croydon a écrit:Whither ‘England’?
In 1948, T. S. Eliot (still then an American) thought he could define the English and their
culture by their habitual leisure activities and loves. He came up with the following list:
Derby Day; Henley Regatta; Cowes; The Twelfth of August; a Cup Final; the dog races; the
pin table; the dart board; Wensleydale cheese; boiled cabbage cut into sections; beetroot in
vinegar; 19 th Century Gothic churches; and the music of Elgar. How quaint this list now
seems to us today, but how might we list the elements of that ‘lived religion’ that sustain us
in 2020? (Answers on a postcard to the editor, please)
My own tentative and slightly tongue-in-cheek attempt at such a list might include the
following: Wimbledon; sausage rolls; The Grand National; The National Lottery; toffs and
geezers; August Bank Holiday; Morris Dancing; fish and chips; Glastonbury; the allotment;
pickled onions; dog walking; and the flag of St. George. For the Scots it might read as
follows: neeps and tatties; The Saltire; pipe bands; The Skye Boat Song; malt whisky;
curling; The Eightsome Reel; Celtic and Rangers; Hogmanay; The Kingdom of Fife; Burns
Night; Auld Lang Syne; and haggis. For the Welsh, thus: ‘The Ash Grove’; coracles;
Eisteddfods; the letter ‘w’; ‘Bread of Heaven’; rugby; the harp; Welsh Cakes; ‘Sospan Fach’;
mountain sheep; Caerphilly cheese; male voice choirs; and Lava Bread. And for the Northern
Irish, thus: Orangemen; ‘Famous Seamus’; The Glorious Twelfth; The Ulster Fry; Derry and
Londonderry; The Giant’s Causeway; ‘Norn Iron’; ‘Prods and Fenians’; Yellowman; the
bowler hat; linen flax; ‘I’ll Tell Me Ma’; and dulse.
Tribal rituals tend to measure out the year in prosperous times. In more precarious times like
the present, these rituals cannot be practised except by virtual observance and the calendar –
particularly the English sporting calendar – is voided. What remains is the marking of the
passage of the year in private celebration of these rites and reflective apprehension about the
future shape of things to come; in researching ancestry perhaps or re-ordering life’s priorities
in a radically changed world. For, as Claudius tells us in Hamlet, ‘When sorrows come, they
come not single spies but in battalions’: the Financial Crash of 2008, the Divorce from the
European Union and now the Covid-19 Pandemic – crushing blows which have flattened the
economy and laid low the human spirit. The fatal errors made in dealing with these blows
have meant ‘That England that was wont to conquer others/Hath made a shameful conquest
of itself’, as John of Gaunt prophesies in Richard II. So, like badly trampled leaves of grass,
its people must now recover old resilience and grow again the strength to sustain the country
and its glorious cultural heritage.
‘England’ has been and remains a beaming beacon to the world, one of the greatest sources of
poetry, science, political economy and culture through the power of its language and the
appeal of its creative arts and recreational sports. Above all, it is the fountainhead of much
new invention and discovery, since it draws on the waters of many rivers flowing from the
cultures of its Celtic fringes to feed the floodtide of its affairs out into that world. A new
notion of ‘England’ may now be buoyed up by the vision of a new world, where the true sum
of the national parts of a United Kingdom is greater than its whole and the energy and talents
of its immigrants help to make it that microcosm of a future, which we may all live, by God’s
grace, to inhabit.

Barnaby from Croydon a écrit:Whither ‘England’?
In 1948, T. S. Eliot (still then an American) thought he could define the English and their
culture by their habitual leisure activities and loves. He came up with the following list:
Derby Day; Henley Regatta; Cowes; The Twelfth of August; a Cup Final; the dog races; the
pin table; the dart board; Wensleydale cheese; boiled cabbage cut into sections; beetroot in
vinegar; 19 th Century Gothic churches; and the music of Elgar. How quaint this list now
seems to us today, but how might we list the elements of that ‘lived religion’ that sustain us
in 2020? (Answers on a postcard to the editor, please)
My own tentative and slightly tongue-in-cheek attempt at such a list might include the
following: Wimbledon; sausage rolls; The Grand National; The National Lottery; toffs and
geezers; August Bank Holiday; Morris Dancing; fish and chips; Glastonbury; the allotment;
pickled onions; dog walking; and the flag of St. George. For the Scots it might read as
follows: neeps and tatties; The Saltire; pipe bands; The Skye Boat Song; malt whisky;
curling; The Eightsome Reel; Celtic and Rangers; Hogmanay; The Kingdom of Fife; Burns
Night; Auld Lang Syne; and haggis. For the Welsh, thus: ‘The Ash Grove’; coracles;
Eisteddfods; the letter ‘w’; ‘Bread of Heaven’; rugby; the harp; Welsh Cakes; ‘Sospan Fach’;
mountain sheep; Caerphilly cheese; male voice choirs; and Lava Bread. And for the Northern
Irish, thus: Orangemen; ‘Famous Seamus’; The Glorious Twelfth; The Ulster Fry; Derry and
Londonderry; The Giant’s Causeway; ‘Norn Iron’; ‘Prods and Fenians’; Yellowman; the
bowler hat; linen flax; ‘I’ll Tell Me Ma’; and dulse.
Tribal rituals tend to measure out the year in prosperous times. In more precarious times like
the present, these rituals cannot be practised except by virtual observance and the calendar –
particularly the English sporting calendar – is voided. What remains is the marking of the
passage of the year in private celebration of these rites and reflective apprehension about the
future shape of things to come; in researching ancestry perhaps or re-ordering life’s priorities
in a radically changed world. For, as Claudius tells us in Hamlet, ‘When sorrows come, they
come not single spies but in battalions’: the Financial Crash of 2008, the Divorce from the
European Union and now the Covid-19 Pandemic – crushing blows which have flattened the
economy and laid low the human spirit. The fatal errors made in dealing with these blows
have meant ‘That England that was wont to conquer others/Hath made a shameful conquest
of itself’, as John of Gaunt prophesies in Richard II. So, like badly trampled leaves of grass,
its people must now recover old resilience and grow again the strength to sustain the country
and its glorious cultural heritage.
‘England’ has been and remains a beaming beacon to the world, one of the greatest sources of
poetry, science, political economy and culture through the power of its language and the
appeal of its creative arts and recreational sports. Above all, it is the fountainhead of much
new invention and discovery, since it draws on the waters of many rivers flowing from the
cultures of its Celtic fringes to feed the floodtide of its affairs out into that world. A new
notion of ‘England’ may now be buoyed up by the vision of a new world, where the true sum
of the national parts of a United Kingdom is greater than its whole and the energy and talents
of its immigrants help to make it that microcosm of a future, which we may all live, by God’s
grace, to inhabit.