Nomenclature

[hectormac]

It's early summer, but the tourists are already here. Edinburgh is hoatching. Orthopaedic shoes and Dacron raincoats abound. And that's just the Japanese. But it's the Americans that attract interest. It is totally empirical impression, but it seems to me that those few Americans with passports are 'travelling' much better than their erstwhile

Comments

[julietvalcouer]

The California/Texas thing is really not quite accurate, though. Some people will say they're Texan, for example, but you can move and change that completely. There's no locked-down ethnic identity associated, more a general culture. And everyone's got the same citizenship--the US isn't made up of actual different countries per se.

I did just have to explain to someone, though, how my boss (from near Belfast) is NOT IRISH. (He is very emphatically British--ethnic Scottish, IIRC, but if he were asked what his background is he'd say British.) Then we got into how he is British, but not English. Just to further confuse matters, another instructor is Irish as in from Dublin and ethnic Irish, and another instructor is both British AND English and then we had to explain how he's also from Manchester and therefore a twat. (Just kidding. About him being a twat because he's from Manchester. He's just a natural twat, but we like him anyway.)

[camilov]

I would suggest that an improvement in Americans-Abroad may be that we generally ride cognizant of the negative image that our traveling predecessors have left for us and thus make a conscious effort to differentiate ourselves from the boorish antics of the "ugly American."

[jhirat_dai]

Hey! It's yourself! Long time no read. I shall certainly abide by the above rules and thus prevent my grandad from rolling in his grave with disapproval.

G