You Know You’ve Been Around Americans Too Long When…
1. You are not disgusted by the thought of drinking neon blue or green soft drinks
2. You don’t question why people can own guns at 18 but can’t consume alcohol till they are 21
3. You think it is normal to drive on a parkway and park in a drive way
4. You say African-Americans, Native Americans and Asian Americans, but not European Americans
5. You are willing to consume deep-fried butter on a stick
6. A foot is much longer than a footstep
7. You write (or type) color instead of colour
8. You don’t bat an eyelid at overseas Americans who tell you which state they are from, even though everyone else in the group has named countries
9. Ketchup counts as a vegetable
10. You use ‘bigger’ and ‘better’ interchangeably when it comes to houses, cars and food portions
No. 4 is an interesting point. Hmmm
Odd isn’t it? America is still very Eurocentric…
What about Singapore? Is there a race which is more mainstream?
Yup Chinese are the majority here. But no one talks about race politics and issues here.
Do you guys say things like Chinese-Singaporean or Indian-Singaporean?
I hear Singapore-indian around a fair bit.
Number five! Whoa!!!! What does that even taste like o.O
I am not keen to find out… but I am willing to taste a deep fried Mars bar just one time…
I thought that was more of a Scottish thing!
Oh my don’t tell me that idea actually crossed the ocean
I know the Americans like deep fried stuff, but I’d only heard of deep fried Mars bars in Scotland! And deep fried ice-cream, I think…
I totally thought fried ice cream was a Chinese-American restaurant thing… I personally did not like it one bit.
I’ve never had it. Not too sorry about that 🙂
It tastes like tempura on ice cream… not one of my better ideas though some of my friends seemed to like it.
There are a lot of odd people out there 😉
Okay I have to confess I’ve been one of those odd people
Back to deep fried Mars bars… one night my friends and I were somewhat intoxicated when someone decided we must create our own deep fried Mars bar (you were right about it being Scottish but we did the typical Canadian thing and assumed it was American). My kitchen was so bare that my friends tried to bread the chocolate with crushed cookies… then they realised I didn’t have much oil or a deep fryer… So our “creation” tasted like just another Mars bar with a smattering of cookie crumbs
That sounds much nicer! I’ve had nights like that too – brought a load of people back to my flat only to discover I had two slices of bread, some cranberry juice and an egg. Luckily, I had some creative friends!
Pray tell what happens when you combine those ingredients
Oh, I think I may have had some Rice Krispies as well – he managed to make eggy bread with cranberry sauce/jam. Best thing I ever tasted – though I was pretty hammered at the time 🙂
Haha there is something about breakfast late at night
I’ve been having breakfast at around 3pm for the last few weeks – don’t know how I’m going to get back into any sort of routine!
I see no reason to change things
Just need to move all of my lessons to around 8pm 🙂
As an American, here are my comments.
1. You are not disgusted by the thought of drinking neon blue or green soft drinks. I am disgusted at the thought of drinking neon blue or green soft drinks.
2. You don’t question why people can own guns at 18 but can’t consume alcohol till they are 21. I question why so many people own so many guns and get so angry at even the most common-sense approaches to more rational gun control laws.
3. You think it is normal to drive on a parkway and park in a drive way. I prefer to walk or use public transportation.
4. You say African-Americans, Native Americans and Asian Americans, but not European Americans. Pretty soon, white Americans of European descent will no longer be in the majority here, so “European Americans” may soon be used to describe a certain minority group in America.
5. You are willing to consume deep-fried butter on a stick. Are you trying to make me vomit?
6. A foot is much longer than a footstep. I have a rather long gait, so for me, a footstep is much longer than a foot.
7. You write (or type) color instead of colour. What’s with the extraneous “u” in words like “color”?
8. You don’t bat an eyelid at overseas Americans who tell you which state they are from, even though everyone else in the group has named countries. That’s because many states in the US are larger than many countries overseas.
9. Ketchup counts as a vegetable. Yes, and it’s one of my favorite veggies.
10. You use ‘bigger’ and ‘better’ interchangeably when it comes to houses, cars and food portions. That’s starting to change now that many of us Baby Boomers are at or close to retirement age. Many of us are moving into the cities and downsizing. So now “better” doesn’t necessarily mean “bigger” anymore. Except when it comes to food portions, that is.
Haha thanks for taking the time to go through my list
In regards to 8 though… most people who aren’t American don’t know where Wyoming or Kentucky are… Russia and China are pretty big too but I’ve never met people from these countries say they were from a specific province unless they were explicitly asked…
If someone tells me they’re from Russia, but doesn’t say what city, I’m likely to ask. Same with China. But you’re right, many non-Americans don’t know our geography or even the names of all our states. Although I tend to think Americans are the world’s worst when it comes to geography.
Yeah true but I suppose that has more to do with the American curriculum focusing on American geography rather than Americans not being good with geography.
Or both!
Deep fried butter is just so wrong!
Haha Canada is not so far off though… I remember seeing a lot of strange deep fried things at the CNE in Toronto!
And then I hear, the best place to live in India is Dubai…
Haha yes to no. 8!
Haha I think we’ve all had Americans get mad at us for not knowing where North Dakota is!
oh dear yes. I’m so glad when they ask about Mississippi, New York, California, and even Colorado.