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I wonder if our countries are so different as they seem. I have a lot of answers to do. Do you really make that "parties" in the funerals, american guys? Do you really shake the hand of the girls? We kiss them twice! Do you really know guys who carry guns to school?

The same for the others... Do you see kangaroos while going to the work, aussies mates?

For enlight you about Spain...

We do not wear that "green wide wing hats" or some of that folkroric stuff
(http://www.andalucia.cc/mc/sombrerocordobes/Images/t_P0001280.jpg.jpg) Nobody does it, just the people disguised as folkrorics in some neighbourhoods in Seville.

We do not fight with the bulls... Barcelona hasn't had a have a "Corrida" in 40 years, and the "Plaza" is abandoned... That's popular in Andalucía or Madrid. In my town we have one little "Plaza", but just because we're a touristic town, and we use it mainly for performances.

Except Andalucía or Extremadura, two or the "States" of the 17 we are, we do not have the typical spaniard image you have.

In my State we like "Paella" a popular dish with rice, but we're quite bored of it... There are like 10 VERY WELL ways to make the rice (There must be like 200 non so popular recipes) and we preffer that ones. One very popular is "Arrós a Banda" (Rice with fish served a part) or "Arrós negre" (Black rice, with octopuss' ink) or "Arrós amb costra" (Some kinf of rice inside an omelette)

The enviroment is mediterranean, a lot of pines, very desertic in the south except in some huge wet areas, such as Sierra of Cazorla, or Sierra of Gredos in Andalucía and very continental in the north (the enviroment is more wet, similar to Scotland, with rivers, grassy plains...)

My country is vert mountanee in Andalucía, the mediterranean and Cantabic bank, and of course in the Pyrynees.

The original population was iberic, Then came the latins, the goths, the muslims, and then franks, at the re-conquest. The basques and the celts in Galicia have remained since the beginning.

Any more questions?

Farl, I have been in Bilbao with a temperature of 18C on the 1st of January. That would never happen in Scotland.  :P

Unfortunately, the stereotypes of Scotland are true. It's cold, wet, and full of not-very-tall mountains. Our diet consists of Shortbread, Haggis, Whisky, Irn-Bru, Oatcakes, Deep-fried Mars bars and more Whisky. Scotsmen don't wear anything under their kilts and no it isn't cold when you do that. Yes, we do hate the English and we all have red hair and wear bunnets.

Interesting idea.

[disclaimer]I will answer this thread on one condition. It is to be understood that these are my personal opinions and are based on my experiences as an American. If you think I am wrong then you are wrong from the outset, because these are my opinions and I am not pretending to be stating facts.[/disclaimer]

QuoteDo you really make that "parties" in the funerals, american guys?

Of the funerals I attended while growing up, I must say many of them felt more like a really serious family reunion rather than a funeral. We had dinner for three days, went to the "viewing" and after the funeral had another large dinner. At the funeral home we all sat in the lounge area. Everyone talked, drank coffee, and smoked cigarettes. While I don't know about "parties", I could easily see how this would be interpeted as a party of sorts.

QuoteDo you really shake the hand of the girls? We kiss them twice!

Unfortunately...Yes. Women's Lib in America is severely screwed up right now. In the 80's women went to work. The wore these funny penis shaped "woman ties" and joined the "man's" working force. They in turn raised children with a head for work, success, and college. This was good for the women of the 80's But, let me tell you, as a Male growing up in the 90's, parts of it sucked. Women of the 90's took ideas of feminism too far. Men couldn't open doors for women, kiss a girls hand, or say "ladies first" without being a sexist pig. The result of this is really sad. In the late 90's the new generation of women started rejecting feminism. It became a word associated with big burly stereotypical "dykes". So, women began to sink back into more submissive roles. As a whole generation it is much more pampered. Kids, male and female now live at home into their 20's. Growing up for me it was always, "18 and your out the door bub". Respect for women continues to decline on a more popular and general scale in America. I can only hope that the cycle will repeat itself and eventually women will shake off the stereotypes that hold them back.

QuoteDo you really know guys who carry guns to school?

Yes. This is just a fact of life. Growing up in Flint it was even more of a fact of life. I went to a very rough high school. No one was shot in my high school, however someone was stabbed to death. A girl at a prom was shot in the back of the head.

I also had this super christian friend who's mom hated me. She decided that I was having a bad influence on him with my "Heavy Metal". So, I was told I couldn't hang out with him. Well, he started listening to gangster rap instead, without her knowledge. About a year later he was kicked out of school because he was caught with a gun in his locker. One of those little victories in life for me. I have never carried a gun. Guess Metallica ain't so bad after all huh? Bitch.

American's eat Hamburgers, talk on cell phones excessively, and drive SUV's. I work at a cafe next to a ballet school. These sick "Ballet mom's", as we call them, fit this stereotype to a tee. They are all obsessed with the Atkins diet (LOW CARBS!!!), even though none of them are fat. They are loud and disrespectful. They seem to have cell phones glued to their ears. Really disgusting stereotypical Americans. It's sad to know that generalizations are based on something real. Oh, and of course these are the only types of Americans that can actually afford to travel to Europe and the rest of the world regularly, thus adding to the general horrible image of Americans. We call this creature "Yuppie". People like me hate this creature and all that it stands for.

I'm sure more Americans will rant more.

On another note Farlander. You have mentioned anti-Americans lately. You must understand the current state of our culture to understand where that is coming from. We have become very selfish. Everything is about "ME", the only catch is you have to make it look like it's about everyone else, but it's really about "ME". It's a disease that is eating America from the inside. Our drivers drive more aggressively, our politicians become more corrupt, and our patriotism becomes more and more plastic.

I bitch about these things because I am not content to sit back and just let it happen. If I were not anti-American I would be Un-American. I want the best for my nation and I do not believe we are on that path. So many Americans are apathetic about everything. They are content to let their freedom slip away. If these stupid terrorists launch one more attack within our borders we will become a "Patriot Act" nation. It will not only be the end of our freedom but the end of every Arab nations freedom. With this as my possible future, I do not like the current state of America. So, if I seem a little anti-American, just remember, I fight for my nation ever day by not being an "American".

later,
-junc

America is great.

13 year old girls dress like whores.
Our most popular music is by low-life thugs glorifying violence & drugs or whore-sluts who lip-sync.
Most of the youth have totally tuned out and only care about partying and having fun and those that haven't are greedy capitilist pigs.
The government is hated around the globe.
We're fat and over indulged.

Oh and we're free.

LOL!

I forgot all about the 13 year old's dressing like whores thing. I try to block that out as much as possible. I think that ties into my whole feminism rant. Those whore-sluts who lip-sync are young women's role models!? WTF?

later,
-junc

EDIT: But, we're free...

Hi, Farlander!

I suppose you know my country relatively well, as we're neighbours... hehehe

WE have bullfights (touradas). Well, we don't have bull-killing in the arena since 1765: a count was killed in a bullfight, and his 70 years old father (a marquis) took his revenge by killing the bull. The king (D. José I) then ordered the stop of bull-killing (eg affraid of losing more noblemen), and that law was carried on since then. Portuguese laws don't permit killing the bulls in the "arena": just afterwards, in "matadouros", for butcher's meat and so. An exception: Barrancos, a very little pt village, defending it was always a tradition... well I regret that tradition. BTW, I hate "touradas".

We've ca 200 recipes for preparing codfish, and I hate all. But I love paella, man, and also "esas tortillas tán buenas".

BTW, Farlander, I can watch 4 Spanish channels (RTVE1, RTVE2, Tele 5, Antena 3) by normal aerial, so I speak Spanish not too bad - writing it without mistakes is my big problem.

Freedom is the most valuable gift a human been can have. So I'm free. In Portugal anyone could create an official party, since there were enough signatures and so. And for me freedom is the choice not betwen two parties, but between a few more. Portugal had two parties since 1974, and no one considered himself/herself free. It was a dcitatorship. I consider that any country with just two official parties - no offense, people, but please let me use my freedom to express my onw opinion. Of course racist,Ã,  terrorist associations, clubs, parties, etc., or whatever can hurt third ones rights are strictly forbidden.

In Portugal we live also in freedom since 1974, when a revolution without blood or killings took place and dismissed a dictature that has last 45 years, with two official parties till 1974, I repeat...

If anyone wants to know whatever about Portugal, pls just ask. It will be my pleasure trying to answer the best I know.

About the climate and geography, is very similalr to Spanish one. Except in size: Spain is ca 5 times bigger - in inhabitants too...

Language is Portuguese, coming from Latin, as the main four other Romanic languages: French; Italian; Roumanian; Spanish (eg Castellano - Castillian).

Damn, we can also see 13 year old girls dressing like whores - are those new fashion styles, anyway?!...Ã,  ??? Well, it seems girls are fashion slaves wherever...Ã,  ;)

Yes, we here in South Africa are free too. Well we like to think we are.

- South Africa does not consist of mud houses in the bush.
- I don't think I've ever seen a mud house in the bush.
- But we do have a major game reserve in the transvaal.
- Not everyone is dark-skinned.
- I have to say that because everyone is too majorly oversensitised about racialism.
- No, the whole country is not full of people with AIDS.
- I don't think I've ever seen a person with AIDS.
- Yes, we do have a S.o.a.B. government.
- No, I don't have AIDS.
- No, I don't live in a mud hut.

I hope that cleared some issues. Oh yeah, and we also have 13 year old girls dressing like whores. (I've seen 12 year olds too.)
And I've known people to smoke since age 11.
As I said, I hope that cleared some issues. (everyone asks me these things on internet chatrooms and forums, I've given up telling them where I'm from...)

Cheers!

10 facts about Sweden (these are very rough generalisations; don't take literally):

1. Not all are big and blonde (I'm a living proof)
2. Swedish women are prettier than most other nationalities (and I've been around). We don't cheek-kiss, but occasionally hug
3. Nobody I know, or ever known, has owned a firearm.

4. Sweden has been a nation for more than 500 years, we have been in wars with our neighours most of the time, and was once a big military power.

5. A Swede may choose not to work, nor study, and yet be able to live comfortably on wellfare money. Studying will grant you governmental allowance
6. A medical operation regardless of scope will cost you an adiminstration fee of equivolently 15 â,¬

7. South of Sweden has a warm summer climate, thanks to the gulf-stream, comparable to middle of Europe. The north of Sweden consists of vast coniferous woodlands and fjelds (fjäll). The far north is above the polar circle, and at this time of year, in total void of darkness.

8. Swedes are hard to make friends with, but tend to be loyal as friends. The first impression is introversion.
9. Swedes are less passionate and outspoken than south europeans, but in return more diplomatic and composed
10. Swedes are not very ambitious, and don't care much about career or becoming famous. As a result, we have a proportionally small workforce, and a smaller clique of rich people. For instance, we have less dollar-millionaires than Norway, which is substantially smaller.

Once again, much of this is plain generalising. I'm for one an exception to many of these points.

Let's see, what do I know about Israel.. Well, for one thing, israel seems to want to copy america, like it's an idol to worship, which truly annoys me. yes, here too 13 is about the age that many girls get a screw loose and start dressing like exotic dancers(let's have some variety shall we ;)), though it doesn't seem to reach the level in america by what you're saying. But yes, most girls regard fashion very highly (i'm proud not to include myself in that group ;)).

Fun facts:
- No, Not everyone in Israel is religious.
- Yes, both the financial situation and the safety situation are terrible. It is a common joke to say "...it's because of the situation." about something that goes wrong, at least that's how it seems to me.. I've pretty much lost interest in listening to the news. :P
- Most present israeli music (eastern music it's also called) is, in my opinion, bad, to say the least, but for some reason a lot of people here like it. If I had to listen to israeli music, I'd prefer older music, it was much better IMO.
- As far as I know (as I said, I don't follow news with too much care) there hasn't been a terrorist act in some time, but I still can't say our country is safe.
- Here too almost everyone owns a cellular phone, even kids at the age of 8. I've had one since I was 12.
- Also, there've been a lot of talks about drugs in our school lately, so I'm guessing that aspect isn't in a good state either.

Well then, maybe another israeli AGSer can tell you more about this godforsaken (not literally, I just find this word expresses how I feel better than 'damned' or 'crazed') country.
Insteresting discuaaion topic, actually, I didn't expect to have much to say. :)

USA is overrated
I would rather live in italy or germany

I would never ever live in Europe...Eughh...

Why? Zor? Due to the climate?Ã,  I'd love to live in South Africa, but I would never ever live there... I love being alive even more...Ã,  ;)

Most of the clima in Spain is Mediterranean, but it can be a very severe continental clima in the centre (The worst in the last century was around 1936, were temperatures reached like -60 or something in Teruel, but that's very very strange... they get -10 regularilly in that place year by year, though... Yes SSH, we can have temperatures around 20 degrees in winter, it's not extremely odd. The usual is that at mid day. I am used to that clima and I don't wear short cycling wear till june, but foreign bikers use shorts and feel confortable with it.

The dressing stuff for young ladies seems to be the same everywhere...  ;D

The "states" in the north and South banks are the most religious ones, but we're not very into it, generally. It is in Seville where you can see that shows of extreme devotion during Easter.

When a person dies, we have three days as most to bury him, by law. We usually bury the corpse the next day, two days after as most.  We gather all the friends and close relatives that day in the place where the body is (nowadays a morgue which includes a church and some facilities, such a reception and a place to eat) and we show respect, but the big ceremony where everybody who knew came is the next day, in a religious ceremony who preceeds the burial. We usually are buried in some kind of "cells", which seem to be building,  You need to be rich to have a big tomb. To be burnt (sp?) is not usuall, but becoming more and more popular each day.

Our national sports are, by order of interest: Football, Basket and cycling.

I haven't met a person with a guy, but many people has rifles... It's that kind of stuff you'd never use in your live, but you have it, like a surf table.

I have some friends who have lived in L.A, Miami, New York, and they say they preffer the Mediterranean Coast, but they could just have being kind... But it's a nice place to life, anyways.

Hey.

I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader...
And I don't live in an igloo
Or eat blubber, or own a dogsled...
And I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada,
Although I'm certain they're really, really nice.
I have a Prime Minister, not a President.
I speak English and French, NOT American.
And I pronounce it 'ABOUT', NOT 'A BOOT'.
I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
I believe in peace keeping, NOT policing.
DIVERSITY, NOT assimilation,
AND THAT THE BEAVER IS A TRULY PROUD AND NOBLE ANIMAL.
A TOQUE IS A HAT, A CHESTERFIELD IS A COUCH,
AND IT IS PRONOUNCED 'ZED' NOT 'ZEE' . . . 'ZED'!!!
CANADA IS THE SECOND LARGEST LAND MASS!
THE FIRST NATION OF HOCKEY!
AND THE BEST PART OF NORTH AMERICA!
MY NAME IS JOE!!
AND

I

AM

CANADIAN!

This topic will help separating myths from facts... Here we go:

BRAZIL'S MYTHS & FACTS:

MYTHS
- We are not monkeys, ok? ;D
- We don't see monkeys nor wild animals on the streets (Don't pay attention to what The Simpsons say) :P
- You don't see (many) indians on the streets either (you might see one or two beggers, though)
- You won't be kidnapped "just for walking on the streets" (depending on the city, this might happen, though)
- Did I say we're not monkeys?

FACTS
- We do eat lot's of rice with beans.
- We have high "levels of analfabetism" (sp?)
- We have naked women during carnival walking on the streets (ain't that great?) ;D
- More than 90% of Brazil's inhabitants do love football (soccer)
- Did I mention the naked women during carnival?
- Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are quite dangerous, but that doesn't mean you'll be kidnapped/robbed/killed/shot/whatever just for being there.
- We cheek-kiss girls twice (or even three times) here. We don't cheek-kiss men though (which is something our Uruguayan and Argentinian neighbours do)
- Oh, and we write "Brasil" (with 's') and hate when we see it with 'z' instead (some of us, at least)

And uh... any other things you'd like to know about Brazil?
I'd really glad to clarify any doubts you might have ;)


Now I'll ask a question to each of the other "nationalities" that posted here before:
- Spanish (Farlander): Do you really have lunch at 4pm???
- Scotish (SSH): Do you guys wear those checked skirts??
- Americans (juncmodule and Darth Mandarb): Are all the "slim" on TV and all the others are fat? Is it THAT high the number of "couch potatoes"? Do your teachers show the Brazilian map without the Amazonian Forest stating it's an "International Area"??? (there were some mails stating this, but I want to know if it was just an hoax or that actually happens).
- Portugueses (Primus): Are most of the men called "Manuel" and "Joaquim" and the women "Maria"? Do you eat lots of "bacalhau" and have many bakeries (sp?)?
- South Africans (Zorc): Is it true that you can change a pack of flour (or sugar/beans/rice) for women? If not in South Africa, does that happen in other parts of the continent?
- Swedes (Andail): Hmm.. well.. ARE YOU SURE THAT THE SWEDES AREN'T ALL BLUE-EYED BLONDES??!?1 ;D
- Israelis (Ginny): Do you see armed men fighting on the streets everyday? (I saw what you said, but this isn't exactly a "terrorist act")
- Canadians (Dart): Do Terrance and Philip exist? Do you like 'fart jokes'? ::)

Er.. yeah - that's it!

Again, if you guys have some question about Brazil just ask it! ;)


-Felipe-

Adendums to Dart's:

We also get our culture from beer ads! Yay!

"Do you know John from Canada? He works in an office!"
"Oh yeah! Office John! He's dead."

Felipe: We do have quite a lot of gross out humour here (Tom Green, anyone?).  But not everybody's into it. 

See, I'm not sure if this exists in other countries, I'm sure you guys could tell me, but in America (especially around the college age level) kids want to live in "another country." An interesting Dinesh D'Souza story is that when he was in college, he told some kid he was from India. The kid thought, "Wow, that's amazing. I wish I could live there." D'Souza, rather curious, asked "Why?" The kid said, "I don't know, it would just be so, you know, liberating." D'Souza asked, "What would be liberating? The strict laws, or the caste system?" The kid did not respond. At least in America, a lot of kids want to live in another country, because it's different and exotic from what they experience. They project there problems they have here (parents, bills, etc.) and think that they won't face these there. I frankly love to live here in America.

Yes, we love a lot of food, but I don't think that many Americans are fat. All food, though, whether it is called Chinese food, or it's a pizza, or a hamburger may have roots somewhere else but they are all strictly American creations. If you've ever had a real version of any of these foods, they are completely different. Oh, we eat our hamburgers with our hands. A German friend of mine was shocked when she saw me doing this. I believe they use a fork and knife, but a native would know better than me.

Our public education here is a joke. Very biased, very poorly designed, and a lot of people think it should be scrapped. It is actually okay in America to have "Failed High School math." Our colleges and Universities are great though.

Kids in the Midwest states, where there is little to do for miles, do hang out at Walmark. People in New Jersey (my state) do travel to the shore a lot (we call the beach the shore). Spanish has basically become the unofficial second language of America, and Spenglish is used freaquently in certain areas. The poor and "down-trodden" are actually much better off than the poor and down-trodden in other countries.

Also, in reference to the funeral question, I don't really think of them as parties. Funerals are more reserved and very much a time where you remember why the person was so great and how he touched the lives of the ones he loved.


So in review, for Felipe, no, not all the slim are on TV. There are a lot of in shape people. There is a new trend to look good by working hard at in that is gaining momentum at the moment. There are not that many "couch potatos." As to the map, I couldn't say. That's all I can think of now, but perhaps I'll add more later.

I am from Wales.

We don't have sex with sheep, and our language isn't entirely lacking in vowels.

Seeing that I live more out in the country, than in a big city... or little city for that matter, I see Kangaroos occasionally... mostly dead on the side of the highways after being hit by idiots in their cars.

Come to Australia people! See the dead wildlife! :(

some facts about austria:

1.) this country has it's roots deep in nationalsocialism and catholicism - the two largest evil things I can think of
2.) this country started two world wars
3.) our athlets suck nearly in all sports, except skiing and snowboarding
4.) nearly everywhere are mountains
5.) And most of Austrians only like foreigners when they come as tourists......

myths:
1.) I don't know a single person that wears leather trousers or knows how to yodel - but there are such people (i know that from television ;) )
2.) People also don't look like Mozart, Beethoven, Sissi and all that stuff
3.) We don't all live on mountains, together with cows... yet there are such people....
4.) We don't speak "austrian", we speak german, and in some parts slovenian or croatian


that was a little overview on austria...... well there are some positive things too, but I just didn't feel very positive...  :-\

About the bulls... I think that in Portugal they have a nice competition involving bulls... A group of guys, called "Forçados" (?) try to stop a run of a bull just with their strenght. I preffer it to the "Corridas".

Many young people dislike bullfights here. I don't like the even itself, but just because I don't like it. Many people say it's cruel, and I agree that the latest minutes of a bull for bullfights are horrible, but the life (And the death itself) is so much better than the life and the death of any other animal directed for meat.

But let's get no out of topic... Carlos I of Spain did also went into the Arena of a plaza for fighting a bull who wounded one of their nobleman... He killed it with a gun shot... A great show of the decadence of Spain in the XVIIth century :P

About Austrians... "They must be the smarter people on earth... They made the world believe that Hitler was German and Beethoven Austrian" -Billy Wilder.  ;D

Another interesting fact that goes along with what Darth said, is that girls (no matter what age) can dress like whores and then if guys check them out they're automatically perverts.

America is a pretty big country...each little region has their own little sterotypes and whatnot...lemme think about what hasnt already been covered...
Yeah...a whole lot of Americans are fat. part of that is we dont walk. Our cities are built that there are few few places that you can get by foot or bike. Im lucky to live in one of those areas. That, and unlike a lot of my friends, Im active in sport, so Im not fat. Ton of americans are.
Americans are freakin crazy about football. not football (soccer), but american football, gridiron, whatever you folks want to call it. In smaller towns, (like where I live), the biggest community event is a high school football game. parents from rival schools in some of the more rurul areas have attacked kids. Im in the band, and I've had batteries thrown at me.
If you say Uni in America, nobody has any idea what you are talking about. its college.
College is really freakin expsensive
While we have a few xenophobic people, most americans really are pretty tolerant and friendly people. I think if you came here, you'd like it.

Quote from: Felipe on Tue 22/06/2004 21:02:38
This topic will help separating myths from facts... Here we go:
Portugueses (Primus): Are most of the men called "Manuel" and "Joaquim" and the women "Maria"? Do you eat lots of "bacalhau" and have many bakeries (sp?)?

Hi, dear bro (NO, i'm not a monkey either!Ã,  ;), but Brasil (ok, without z, I didn't kown how you hated it with a z) is our bro country!Ã,  ;D
What's that about monkeys anyway?! It's the very first time I heard or know about that... ?)

Yes, indeed codfish is one of the most eaten food by us (except me, I hate it except maybeÃ,  "punhetas de bacalhau" - when you stop laughing, pls keep reading on: it is the name for a cold codfish salad! ;). There isn't a single restaurant without at least a codfish recipe. Now, not all men are "Manuéis" or "Joaquims" and not women are "Marias". Indeed as many people have two or three christian names can have many people with those. Now the guilty for alotta different names were due to your "soaps", as many people put names got from Brasilian "telenovelas" to their kids. True!

Yes, we have alotta bakeries, they work all night to have fresh bread each early morning; for instance each hypermarket has its own: we love to eat fresh bread each day.

Farlander, yeah, that's true, and they are "forcados" (c, not ç); I admire them too; but the most spectacular are the ones on foot and just with a red cape: the specialists are Spanish ones. But we've a few too.
That old marquis (Marquis of Marialva) killed the bull which has killed his son (Conde of Arcos) the old way, on foot and with a sword.

This one is for "Os Ultimo Quão Queijo": Australia? Oh, due to your nickname I thought you were Brazilian (sorry for the "z", Felipe!) or Portuguese... So where did you come with that original nick, pls?

EDIT:
About that interesting hamburguer subject, I must admit we eat them two ways: "hamburguer no prato", in a dish (with salad, fries or chips, cheese slices, rice, etc, with a fork and knife - we don't eat rice with our hands anyway); and in a sandwich (with special hamburger bread), with our hands.
At home, we are educated to eat with a fork in our left hand, and a knife in our right one, and always use that in restaurants, as it's considered a lack of education eating in public places just with a fork in our (usually right) hand. In better restaurants we've three different sized glasses (water, white wine, red wine) and a pair of fork and knife for fish dishes and a different pair for meat ones. If we eat lobster or else we've several instruments for breaking it, for getting the food from it, a bowl with lemon and water for washing our hands at the end, etc. The right rules, postures, instruments, and so, depend also the kind of restaurant we enter.

EDIT 2:
A lot of boy teenagers (13-17) like to dress and act (walking,Ã,  gestures) as rappers: I think it's a provisional fashion, as many others before were.

Yeah, it's gross when girls dress like that. Funny story, I was at a mall once, looking for a gift when I passed a group of girls that ran into an older man. The girls were like "Hey Mr. Johnson" and one said, "Hi, dad." The man stood there for a moment then said, "Those aren't the clothes you left the house in." I believe a lot of girls do that, but I guess that's more of a general thing than something specific to a country.

On that note, maybe we should also bring up the general fashion for teenagers in countries now. A lot of teens I've seen in America wear the "preppy" look, which is a golf shirt, some sort of necklace made of clams, cargo shorts that are frayed at the ends, and flip-flops. Girls wear basically the same thing, except trade a jean skirt for the shorts. I see a lot of kids wearing that. There is also the "punk" look, but someone else can go into that.

Hi,
I'm from Germany. First of all: we don't use fork and knive to eat hamburgers as someone said. I've never  seen someone doing that. How does it work ???? We use our hands.

Myths:
No, not all germans are nazis. There are some but the majority isn't.
No, we don't eat sauerkraut all day.

Facts:
Yes, we really love football (soccer) here.

I can't think of anything else to mention now. I will add something later.

At my school in Canada, here are examples of what certain high school groups would (and do) wear:

Preppy Girls:
http://ae.speedera.net/Images/laydowns/front/5361_3570_624.jpg

Preppy Boys:
http://ae.speedera.net/Images/laydowns/front/5165_6626_811.jpg

Rich Ghettos:
http://www.seanjohn.com

Hip-Hop Girls:
http://ae.speedera.net/Images/laydowns/back/1316_1293_435.jpg

"Hard" Wannabe Rockers:
http://www.rastilho.com/Merchandising/Pics/T-shirts%20Rapaz/1129T-Slipknot.gif

Wannabe Girl Punkers:
http://www.jabba-wocky.com/images/es_areyoustrange.jpg

Skaters:
http://www.skatepro.com/blackdiamondsports/images/itemslarge/indyT1.jpg

What I Wear (Anything Legend of Zelda-y or Skater-y or stuff that's comfortable):
http://www.hottopic.com/Assets/product_images/lg/289161_lg.jpg

England..

Yes, it rains a lot.
No, we don't all know the queen.
No, we don't have a good health care/education system.
Yes, we have a seperate hot tap and cold tap (faucet).
Yes, we take football (soccer) seriously enough to fight about it (altho i can't understand why).
No, we're not good at many sports (if any).
Yes, our language is far too complicated.
Yes, our language is based upon words borrowed from other languages.
Yes, we swear a lot.
No, the word c*nt isn't frowned upon as much as it should be.
Yes, our leader is a p3n1sh.
Yes, it rains a lot.

Ha, yeah, it does rain a lot, but I will admit that most of the English are damn nice when it rains. They always let you hide in their shop until it and such.

Also, I'm the one who said that Germans eat hamburgers with a knife and fork. The german friend who said this was rather old, so I might just be a traditional thing that died away. See, we're breaking stereotypes and becoming closer for it!

Also, I think it would be safe to say that America is home to the English that is very, well, full. I think English is probably the language with the most words in it, because so many words mean exactly the same thing. There is a lot of slang here. We also have a lot of dialects, like ebonics.

EDTI: Oh, and another dialect is leet speak.

Quote from: Darth Mandarb on Tue 22/06/2004 18:25:44
America is great.

13 year old girls dress like whores.

This is so disgustingly true - and this kind of behavior isn't just relegated to one part of the country or one ethnic type of group; it's affecting EVERYONE.... and it's scary.Ã,  Women role models in the country are just abhorrent.Ã,  It makes me sick.

QuoteOur most popular music is by low-life thugs glorifying violence & drugs or whore-sluts who lip-sync.

Again, true.Ã,  If I read another article in some music magazine, glorifying some rapper that "used to sell crack" to survive, I'm gonna flip.Ã,  I mean, what the fuck?Ã,  We're gloryfying this kind of lifestyle! I mean, seriously!Ã,  Every dude I read about either used to sell drugs, or do them, and now it's not like they stopped even though they're rich now!Ã,  They don't take their money and make a better life at all!Ã,  It's horrid!

You also forget the whiny, angry white-boy rocks bands who are pissed at the world cause they grew up male-middle class-and white.Ã,  Seriously.Ã,  Get over your gel hairdo and tribal tatoo, and quick screaming and grumbling in a mike.Ã,  There are 8 whole tones in a diatonic scale.Ã,  Learn more than one.

QuoteMost of the youth have totally tuned out and only care about partying and having fun and those that haven't are greedy capitilist pigs.

Where's my bong..... I'm out of Labatt Blue.......

QuoteThe government is hated around the globe.

Our government is hated here.Ã,  I've never seen a bigger den of hypocracy and lies than Washington.Ã,  Not to say there aren't some good guys out there, they're just so few now.

QuoteWe're fat and over indulged.

Tell me about it.Ã,  I'm overweight, and I don't bitch because I know it's my own fault.Ã,  I hate my fat friends who blame everyone but themselves.Ã,  WITH POWER COMES RESPONSIBILTY.Ã,  Sometimes just because you can afford six cheeseburgers doesn't mean you should eat them.Ã, 

QuoteOh and we're free.

Real free.Ã,  Did you just hear of the Supreme Court ruling that ruled that not identifying yourself to a police officer is a crime.Ã,  Woot!

Quote from: Felipe on Tue 22/06/2004 21:02:38
- Americans (juncmodule and Darth Mandarb): Are all the "slim" on TV and all the others are fat? Is it THAT high the number of "couch potatoes"? Do your teachers show the Brazilian map without the Amazonian Forest stating it's an "International Area"??? (there were some mails stating this, but I want to know if it was just an hoax or that actually happens).

-Felipe-

Yeah, most of the people on TV are TOO slim.  We have an odd balance of body image in the country.  We're either too fat or too skinny.  We American's have trouble finding middle ground.

Yeah, I mean, COUCH POTATOES (people who sit on couchs, fondling the remote control and watching mindless amounts of TV) are quite common.  It's sadly not a rumour or a myth.  We watch a lot of TV, and lately it's been that horrid reality programming.

No, I was always presented maps of Brasil with the rainforest Amazon areas as a part of it.  There are groups that are concerned with the conservation of the forest, but they're not involved in the school system.  They are private, and funded by venture capitalists who want to make themselves feel better.  Unfortunately, they forget they don't own the rainforest.

Well, one could complain all day about their countries, or praise them all day - but the fact remains is "home is where you make it."  Yeah, America is imperfect, but I love my home, my family and where I am.  It's been good to me, cause I'm still alive. 


Bt

More about Australia:

-Yes, as OsUltimo said, you can see a Kangaroo if you go and look, but they don't hop down the city streets. There used to be a family of about 20 kangaroos that lived about 700 meters from my house, but only because our house was very new, and the rest of the area was undeveloped, so the 'roos all lived in the bush. It's not like you walk down the driveway and spot them hiding on your roof. Actually, a lot of aussies are afraid of kangaroos. Their hind legs are so powerful they can kick your bowels out in about 1.5 seconds. That would be most painful, I imagine.

- The most-played sport in Aus is soccer, although I don't believe it has the largest fan-club. Most people seem to know a lot more about football (yes, football, that game played with the brown, eliptical ball you throw at each other) than soccer, which is understandable, seeing as soccer is gay and crap and should be banned.

- 13 year old girls in GENERAL don't dress like whores. They are slowly becoming MORE whore-like (and I completely 100% blame America's media domination of Australia for this), but as I see it, the whore-age doesn't arrive until about 16/17. Of course, there are exceptions, and these exceptions are increasing by the day, as girls realise they can get away with shorter and shorter and shorter skirts and skimpier and skimpier tops. I want to shoot them (mainly because if you are going to wear sexy clothes, you must AT LEAST have breasts to show off in them, so you aren't pulling up the front of your shirt every 5 seconds! And I mean that seriously)

- We don't like beer as much as the Scottish. But yes, we DO like it.

- Women's Lib is undergoing a change in Aus. More and more women are reverting back to 'tradition' - that is, staying at home and being a housewife. Not by force, but completely by choice.

- Some of our delicacies include Kangaroo/Platapus/Wombat meat, as well as Dingo Steak.

- We wear clothes.

I wish America would go commie

Quote from: Ginny on Tue 22/06/2004 19:46:36
Fun facts:
- No, Not everyone in Israel is religious.
- Yes, both the financial situation and the safety situation are terrible. It is a common joke to say "...it's because of the situation." about something that goes wrong, at least that's how it seems to me.. I've pretty much lost interest in listening to the news. :P
- Most present israeli music (eastern music it's also called) is, in my opinion, bad, to say the least, but for some reason a lot of people here like it. If I had to listen to israeli music, I'd prefer older music, it was much better IMO.
- As far as I know (as I said, I don't follow news with too much care) there hasn't been a terrorist act in some time, but I still can't say our country is safe.
- Here too almost everyone owns a cellular phone, even kids at the age of 8. I've had one since I was 12.
- Also, there've been a lot of talks about drugs in our school lately, so I'm guessing that aspect isn't in a good state either.

- We don't ride camels*
- We don't get shot/blown up/kidnapped every time we go out of the house.

EDIT:
To Felipe (didn't see your post earlier): No.


*...all of the time.

Well, here's my experience of Australia, and since 've never been anywhere else, it won't be tainted ^_-

Quote from: Peter Thomas on Wed 23/06/2004 04:40:52
-Yes, as OsUltimo said, you can see a Kangaroo if you go and look, but they don't hop down the city streets. There used to be a family of about 20 kangaroos that lived about 700 meters from my house, but only because our house was very new, and the rest of the area was undeveloped, so the 'roos all lived in the bush.

Hmm, the only time I've ever seen a kangaroo is in the zoo, and once or twice in the bush (when I lived in a country town in WA). The others have all been dead along the highways I've driven down. If you drive along a highway, it's pretty hard not to see at least one or two dead roos. My dad's hit two within the last year and believe me, they fuck your car up. It's expensive to hit one ^_^ You'll never see one outside of a zoo if you live in a major city, at least in the inner city areas. I think that's a good thing, they're much safer away from people. Ah, and yes, they are scary. they're kindof impressive/interesting from afar but close up, a large kangaroo is a scary thing. Joeys (baby kangaroos) are gorgeous though.

Quote- The most-played sport in Aus is soccer, although I don't believe it has the largest fan-club. Most people seem to know a lot more about football (yes, football, that game played with the brown, eliptical ball you throw at each other) than soccer, which is understandable, seeing as soccer is gay and crap and should be banned.

Yep, it was just recently announced that the most played sport is soccer, but like Peter said, that's not by far the most popular sport. That figure I imagine comes from children's weekend sport. The sport of the average person is AFL (Australia Football League) and quite frankly, kicks soccers ass ^_^ It's called "footy" everywhere and if you say "football", AFL is what you mean - EXCEPT in Queensland, where I live. Here, the major sport is Rugby League and that's what "footy" means.

Quote- 13 year old girls in GENERAL don't dress like whores. They are slowly becoming MORE whore-like (and I completely 100% blame America's media domination of Australia for this), but as I see it, the whore-age doesn't arrive until about 16/17. Of course, there are exceptions, and these exceptions are increasing by the day, as girls realise they can get away with shorter and shorter and shorter skirts and skimpier and skimpier tops. I want to shoot them (mainly because if you are going to wear sexy clothes, you must AT LEAST have breasts to show off in them, so you aren't pulling up the front of your shirt every 5 seconds! And I mean that seriously)

Hear hear! ^_^ Yeah, young kids dressing like prostitutes isn't such a big problem here, but the one thing I can't STAND that is EVERYWHERE is hipster jeans. BUTTCRACKS! Am I the only one that finds this sort of thing just plain obscene in public? It also really pisses me off because it makes it SO hard for me to find a decent pair of pants that come above the waist (and pubic area). Girls these days know nothing about leaving things to the imagination.

Quote- Women's Lib is undergoing a change in Aus. More and more women are reverting back to 'tradition' - that is, staying at home and being a housewife. Not by force, but completely by choice.

Really? o_O I haven't really noticed... it isn't a big trend yet. It'll be good when it is though, I'm sick of women thinking they NEED to take liberties just because they can.

Quote- Some of our delicacies include Kangaroo/Platapus/Wombat meat, as well as Dingo Steak.

...Though, we never eat them. Tourists eat them. You'll have to go to a pretty weird place, or an expensive restaurant to get this sort of thing. I've never had them, but I hear kangaroo meat is awful. I've actually never heard of people eating platypus or wombat.

Some other facts

- We're a very Americanised nation (though who isn't?) but we seem to do what the US does in a small way.
- Burger King is called Hungry Jacks here. I remember seeing American tv when I was a kid and thinking "Hey, Burger King has the same logo as Hungry Jacks!". The suck as much here as they do anywhere else though. Blech.
- Noone but farmers in the country wear those big, brown, wide-brim hats and hardly ANYONE would wear them with the corks hanging from the brim. Again, you can buy them in tourist shops.
- We use PAL here ^_^ Not NTSC.
- We do ride camels. In Broome, a tropical tourist town in the north west. My parents got a ride on a camel along the beach. I don't think anywhere else though.
- Our capital cities are small on a global scale, though Sydney is as ugly as any of the big ones. Brisbane is beautiful ^_-
- We have the best chocolate in the world - Cadbury. As I understand it, In the US you only have chocolate bars? You don't have large chocolate blocks split up into little pieces or anything? Of course, I love overseas chocolate too, but I think Cadbury is the best all-around, normal chocolate you'll ever get.
- We eat beef all the time. The impression I get from tv is that in the US, steak is considered a bit of a ... not a delicacy, but a special meal? Not at all here, though we love it. We just have it often enough that it's nothing special. I think in America you tend to eat a lot of pork, right? Australia is definitely a beef country (though nowadays, chicken probably takes over).
- Uggboots belong to us, you stupid foreign company trying to own the name. Fuckers! (sorry, it just gets me mad...)
- Sydney likes to give the impression overseas that they're a big harbour based city but again... for the tourists, really. Whenever I see Sydney portrayed on overseas shows, I'm like "All they -ever- show is the harbour!".
- There may be a lot of spiders and stuff in the outback but you hardly ever see them in a city environment. My biggest problem this year is ants.

Hmm, I'm sure I'm missing heaps of stuff I'd like to say but that'll do for now.

Different parts of America are like entirely different countries, sometimes even on a state-by-state basis. I live in eastern Oklahoma, an expanse of land with many manmade lakes, rivers, hills, forests, plains, and even mountains. Once I almost ran over a bald eagle because it had killed something in the road and I drove up on it over a hill. Luckily (it's a felony to kill one) I didn't hit it, but it was directly in front of my car and its wingspan was much wider than my hood.. an amazing creature.

Quote from: Farlander on Tue 22/06/2004 17:51:09
Do you really make that "parties" in the funerals, american guys?

A lot of people request that up-beat music be played at their funerals, so that their death isn't so much mournful as it is a celebration of the time that they were here. Funerals are social events.. but not really parties by any means.

Quote from: Farlander on Tue 22/06/2004 17:51:09Do you really shake the hand of the girls?

Yes, and I don't consider it sexist or weird, it's a business tradition. You can hardly hug or kiss a man whom you expect to take you seriously as a business person, why a woman?

Quote from: Farlander on Tue 22/06/2004 17:51:09Do you really know guys who carry guns to school?

No. People around here respect weapons, they grew up with them and were taught the dangers. Many people hunt here, as wolves were killed out long ago and the deer/turkey/etc population gets out of hand if there isn't any hunting. One time there was a gun in my school during hours.. our Agriculture teacher had been teaching a safety course the night before and forgot to bring it home. There was a big scandal over it for a bit and a newspaper story, but soon everyone realized the idiocy of being upset because of a gun being in school for a gun safety course. A kid in Fort Gibson Oklahoma once brought a gun to school and shot it off, with no deaths. He was the son of a local Pastor. These are usually depressed kids who hate how stupid Americans can be sometimes.

One of my teachers would always ask the class to raise their hand if they had a gun in the house to freak out foreign exchange students.. then he'd ask them to put their hands down if they had less than three.. then five.. and as the hands mostly stayed up the foreign kids would shift in their seats more and more. It's more a perceived danger than an actual one, unless kids aren't taught about guns, only told to stay away from them (and fostering the want to know a secret).

Country music is more popular here than any other kind, and after that any kind of Christian music. In fact, if you want to hear a live band within 30 miles of me it is going to be a Christian band or a Country band (more likely Christian). This is the heart of the Bible belt and nearly everyone attends church and calls me a satanist.

America is often seen as an advanced civilization with paved roads everywhere and tall buildings.. however, I live in a more .. undeveloped part. The main roads are paved, and so are city streets, but everywhere else is a huge network of dirt/gravel roads. The first picture is the road I lived on and the second is the highway I took when I drove 3 hours back to my home from Oklahoma State University.

http://img32.photobucket.com/albums/v96/shbazjinkens/CamPic52.jpg
http://img32.photobucket.com/albums/v96/shbazjinkens/CamPic27.jpg

It rarely snows. (http://img32.photobucket.com/albums/v96/shbazjinkens/CamPic283.jpg) (2-3 times a year, very light)

Oklahoma was the last large Native American territory.. I live in Tahlequah, the Cherokee Capitol and one of the five civilized tribes to be sent across America on the Trail of tears (use google ;)) Recently they issued the first gay marriage in Oklahoma, they are able to do this because they are a nation within a nation and many of their laws supercede US law. Unfortunately (IMO) they won't be doing it again, it only happened because of a loophole and they are patching it.

Things I hate about Oklahoma are similar to what others hate about America, but less urbanized.. the cowboy culture is generally one of people who are arrogant, rude, and aggressive in my eyes. They don't tolerate people who don't worship God and they don't change their minds about anything unless the Bible proves them wrong (and most of the time they will ignore that, unless it allows them to demonize a minority).

I didn't realised of one of Felipe's questions: We do not eat at 16:00, but most of the people eat very late for some foreign standards. I do it at 14:00, and I supper at 20:00, but the usual is to do it all one hour later, eating at 15:00 and dinning at 21:00. That should be related with the sunlight hours, probably, we make it all more later if compared with center of Europe!

Another fact: People in Spain gets married more later each time, and we go home at 30 or more. I think in some places like in Germany people is just desiring to be 18 to "fly away of the nest", is that correct?

Ah, one more thing I forgot, though this is more a difference between Australia and America. In Australia, when we say "pie", we generally mean (in fact, probably all the time) a meat pie... meaning beef. In America, pies are generally sweet pies, right? Like, as a dessert. This is a pretty strange concept to most Australians, I think. We don't have much of a culture for it over here. I've always wanted to try pumpkin pie though, just because it seems like such a odd thing yet Americans -always- seem to like it.

My family occasionally bought these mini berry pies you can get in the freezer section of the supermarket and we'd have them with icecream, and apple pie has always been around over here (as far as I know) as a fairly common thing for desserts, but that's as far as I think it goes.

Quote from: Peter Thomas on Wed 23/06/2004 04:40:52
- We wear clothes.

Speak for yourself!  ;D

Yep, in America, "pie" usually means something with fruit in it. We don't really have meat pies here, except with chicken.

When I was little, I used to thing pumpkin pie was odd too-- mostly because I had only seen them carved for Halloween. I didn't know you could eat them  :P . But pumpkin pie is very good if you try it..

Quote from: shbazjinkens on Wed 23/06/2004 06:15:48
Country music is more popular here than any other kind, and after that any kind of Christian music. In fact, if you want to hear a live band within 30 miles of me it is going to be a Christian band or a Country band (more likely Christian). This is the heart of the Bible belt and nearly everyone attends church and calls me a satanist.

Heh.. I live in Maine, and nearly everyone under the age of 30 hates country music. And I've only met one girl who like Christian music. Punk rock and emo are popular around here. So is rap, which is odd, since most of the people I know who listen to rap also seem to hate black people. THAT'S AMERICA  ;D

Hi, I'm from Germany, too, more exactly from Bavaria.
Bavaria is a state in the southeast of Germany, and about everything Kl4uz has said about Austria is true for Bavaria, too (but we do not have so many mountains), but what Sinitrena said about Germany is of course true, too.

Some things I'd like to add:

Myths:
-We have the best beer
-Everybody speaks a strange dialect
-Everybody wears Lederhosen
-We only eat "Schweinebraten mit Knödel und Kraut" (Roast Pig)

Facts:
-We do have the best beer!
-Some people speak a rather nasty dialect which sounds rather... like... Orcs?
-Few people wear Lederhosen (I have several leather pants myself, but they are of the motorcycle-style ;D)
-I like Schweinebraten!
-Castle Neuschwanstein (the one that looks like out of a Disney-film) is the most well known Photo-Motive

The weather in Sydney in the middle of winter today was 21 C (70 F) which is 5 above normal but it's been pretty normal for the last couple of years.

but as far as weather goes it ranges a lot depending where you live.

Australia is much larger than what everyone thinks, it's about the size of the USA minus Alaska. The east coast would be like going from Mexico to Canada, or Egypt to Sweden.

It also extends well into the tropics

Quote
- Sydney likes to give the impression overseas that they're a big harbour based city but again... for the tourists, really. Whenever I see Sydney portrayed on overseas shows, I'm like "All they -ever- show is the harbour!".

very true, I live about 28km out of the city in a suburb surrounded by bush, I don't see Kangaroos (or the harbour) but there were a few roos after the fires a few years back as they'd moved from other areas that got burned out.

There's other wild life that comes closer to the city, eg bats, possums, and a large variety of birds, Kookaburras, Rosella's, Gallah's, Cockatoo's

but there's much more to Sydney than just the silly polluted harbour

Quote
- There may be a lot of spiders and stuff in the outback but you hardly ever see them in a city environment. My biggest problem this year is ants.

that may be true in Brisbane (I doubt it though) but spiders are literally everywhere if you look.

I work outdoors in Sydney over a large area, covers the whole north area, which is friggin huge, and you are pretty much guaranteed a few spiders in every yard, they are my friends, I may break a few webs now and then (a few hundred everyday) but it's pretty safe.

also Sydney has the most deadly spiders in the world. They are also quite easy to find if you know where to look, but the average person won't see them or get harmed by them.

Sydney has a larger population than LA, but not the greater LA area

Brisbane is the biggest city by area

The temperature of Darwin is above 30 C (86 F) every day of the year

Most people live in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane, the rest is pretty much country areas with a few large country towns.

I think the dressing like whores thing is quite big in Sydney, although I'm not sure of the age level, cause it's hard to know the age. It doesn't really bother me (as long as they keep doing it once they pass 20 [and can still pull it off]) but seriously, I guess it's getting more dangerous these days as rape seems to be going up dramatically (well at least the reporting of it)

I can't wait to have enough money to move into a quieter smaller town.


a root is not part of a plant

if someone says  "did you remember your budgie smugglers" make sure you remember to bring your swimmers, boardie's, cozzie's, bathers, speedo's, which ever you call them.

My room is full of spiders, and there's usually 6-8 webs larger than 50cm in diametre in the front yard [which is 10*5 metres].

I like them, I leave them alone, they leave me alone. And they eat the flies and mozzies.

it's win win.

And despite being in an Urban area, we still get bluetongues and other lizards of a nice size coming in the house and annoying the dogs and cats.

Yes I love Blue Tongue lizards, I've had some big one's in the garden, also Eastern water dragons around the local creeks, not to mention deadly snakes, but you are pretty lucky to see them, as when they hear you coming they hide before you get near.

Random things about Finland:
- Finland has 4 seasons, winter, spring, summer and autumn
- We have lots of mosquitos during the summer
- At summer in some places sun doesn't set, and at winter in some places sun doesn't rise
- Almost every house has a sauna
- Almost every family has a summer cottage
- Almost all 10 - 13 years old boys wear too big pants, skateboard and listen to rap
- Many girls around the age 13 dress like whores
- No, we don't have penguins or polar bears wandering on streets
- No, not all Finnish people are unhappy

...I think.

About the fauna: We had a lot of rabbits... We ate them, I've been told that in the U.S. the rabbits are pets, so, I think that you american guys may show disgust of this, like when I do when I see chinese guys eating dogs... but here it's common.

It's common to see awls and falcons. Eagles and vultures is not so usual, but there must be a cuople of two in evey Shire, and lots of them in the very mountany zones.

Sometimes I see dead foxes. Some guys who practise mountain bike have seen one alive once, but not all of them.

In the 19th centure "every" forest had its family of wolfes, but they're not longuer there, what a pity. In the forrest north half of the Peninsula you can still hear them in some forest, some nights, though.

There are Iberical bears in the Pirineos and in some Cantabrian mountains (North, atlantic bank) I think...

We have a lot of snakes, but almost all are harmless. the only poisony is the adder, and not deadly.

If you know where to look, you can easily find half a dozen of scorpions in every excursion.

People here eat rabbit, but it's not a common food, they don't market it in grocery stores. You have to hunt them yourself. I've never eaten one though.

We had one for a pet once, they're pretty good pets. They can be trained to use litter boxes.

Few facts:
- Estonia has 4 seasons
- Yes, we were the most advanced a part of the Soviet Union
- We have season capitals - Summer capital is Pärnu (I live here), spring capital is Türi, winter capital is Otepää
- We have national Song festival every 4 years
- Yes, we have a lot of drunk Finnish people here during summer
- Our landscape is quite flat
- Yes, our language is quite similar to Finnish
- Yes, Estonians are stingy by nature, but also hardworking
- Most of the teenagers are 'Oss'-es (Oss - Trance, drum'n'base and all that *poo* listeners)
- Yes, our prime minister's head is down to left side and he has a cat
- Yes, our president doesn't know English
- Yes, I rule

- A dinner for the whole family is being kept at funerals.
- No we don't shake the hand of the girl. Usually...
- Guns in school? Shaa! Maybe not!

-Eigen

Oh, in Brisbane, in my place at least, we've been getting lots of lizards lately. They're FANTASTIC ^_^ I've never had such a welcome pest in my house. We even have "regulars" who appear in the exact same place at the same time of each day... man, lizards are so cool.

Another American/Australian difference... in America, "fanny" means bum, so it's not uncommon for anyone to use this word, even small children, or parents to their children.
If you say this word in Australia, do NOT say it to a child! It means something much worse *cough*. A certain part of a female ^_- I'm always shocked when I hear Americans say things like "a slap on the fanny"...

I had a couple of rabbits when I was a little kid. It bit me on the finger and blood was everywhere. They escaped from their pen one day and I'm rather glad they did. I still like rabbits but I'll never put my finger near one again.

Quote
also Sydney has the most deadly spiders in the world. They are also quite easy to find if you know where to look, but the average person won't see them or get harmed by them.

What spider is that? The funnel web?

Quote
Brisbane is the biggest city by area

I didn't know that @_@

Quote
if someone says  "did you remember your budgie smugglers" make sure you remember to bring your swimmers, boardie's, cozzie's, bathers, speedo's, which ever you call them.

I have honestly never ever heard of that one before.

We have plenty of bats on my street, and cockatoos, rosellas, etc. Cockroaches, too. QLD has WAY too many cockroaches, it's ridiculous. When I lived in WA, you hardly EVER saw one and here you just expect to see one whenever you open the laundry door at night.

Somebody commented about how if a guy looks at one of these little sluts he's immediately a pervert.Ã,  This spawns a question ... "If you don't want the eyes on you ... why the f*ck are you dressing like that?"

I say we start a movement.Ã,  Whenever you see one of these little sluts just go up to them and say, "How much for sex?"Ã,  And then, when they get all indignant/mad/whatever just say, "Hey kid ... If I went out in public dressed like a soldier, people would assume I was in the army!!"Ã,  Meaning, for those who don't get it, that if you dress like a prostitute, people will think you are one.

2 MORE AMERICAN GOODIES:

- Beer commercials show only skinny chicks with huge boobs partying with guys who all have six pack abs and chisled faces.Ã,  In reality, it's mostly fat, unshaven men sittin' on a couch wearing an oft stained white t-shirt that doesn't fully cover their protruding stomach.

- Our fashion models are starved, too skinny, chicks who parade up and down the runways wearing the 'latest trends in fashion.'Ã,  However, if you go out in public, you NEVER see anybody actually wearing these 'latest fashions'.Ã,  Odd that.Ã,  (is this the same elsewhere?)

I remember that once we went to a hooker and told her "Would you suck our c*cks for free?" as she said "No" and we answered... "So, you're a BITCH!!!"  ;D  ;D  ;D

And we left the place making the wheels scream.

It was quite hilarious, but now I think it was very inmature... :-\ Well... we were 18...

In my defense, I must say that I was a passive witness of the scene... I didn't knew what my friends were planning...

At last! an oppurtunity to rant about stereotypes. I am from england and I hate the "British" sterotype.
- You can't cut glass with my accent
- I live in engalnd but NOT IN LONDON
- I do not punctuate my sentences with "what-ho" and "chaps"
- I have very good dental hygene
- I do not wear a butler outfit

I thought that the English stereotype was of a sunburned, drunk foottball thug in Ibiza...

no, they're the ones who let us down. un fortunatley. One idiot can influence the image of an entire country. (look at george bush!)

Er... to any Americans reading this, are most of y'all anti-Canadian in your country?

Dart - when I lived in Michigan (just outside of Detroit) most people didn't really consider Canadians as outsiders or any different at all.Ã,  They weren't 'our neighbors' or anything ... but that's probably just because the two areas are so intertwined.Ã,  We'd share the ocassional 'what are you talking aboot?" jokes ... but all in good humor.Ã,  The upper peninsula of Michigan is more 'aboot' than any place I've been in Canada actually.

One of my very good friends is/was Canadian (just got his US citizenship).

I've never really differentiated myself from Canadians actually ... I love Labatt Blue and Hockey ... so I guess I'm an honorary Canadian eh?Ã,  ;)

Most people down here in Florida (south Florida at least) don't know much about Canada and most places you can't get Labatt ... it's a damn shame.Ã,  So I don't think there's any anti-Canadian sentiment.

I've found (and I've traveled extensively through Canada) that y'all tend to be a friendly lot who treated me well.Ã,  That's just been my experience though.

easy way to piss off a canadian, call them american. my mate learned that klesson the hard way  :-\

Im anti candadian government, not anti canadian

Quote
- South Africans (Zorc): Is it true that you can change a pack of flour (or sugar/beans/rice) for women? If not in South Africa, does that happen in other parts of the continent?
[/quote

Hehe...Honestly ROTFLMFAO when I saw this! I was laughing at the mere thought of it!
No, we can't do that...Hehehehehehe....I'm absolutely ignorant to the rest of the continent, never left this country, and don't plan to...hehe...Oh yeah, and it's Zor, no C. (changed my name to the copyright at end, to avoid confusion, as you're the 3rd person to get that wrong, hehe....)

Quote from: Farlander on Wed 23/06/2004 11:40:17
About the fauna: We had a lot of rabbits... We ate them

Rabbits: we've also domestic and wild ones, but we call the wild ones lebres - hares). And we eat both.

And, Shbazjinkens, we rarely find wild ones (hares) for selling;  it's very rare eating wild ones without chasing them first.
But we find them more (as veal, trout, pheasant,Ã,  patridge, hare, wild boar, etc.) in restaurants specialized in "wild" fauna (they are usually grown in "viveiros" - as fishponds).

I've heard rumours that Farlander gusta mucho comer conejos  ;) (enjoys eating rabbits) of course, "rabbit" in Spanish has a similar double meaning to "beaver" in English...

Dart

I once visited Canada and had a lovely time.  Once your there, as a southerner- you're like "Hey, where'd this beautiful chunk of land come from? How do they keep it so clean?"

Lost said it correctly, most Americans are Anti-Canadian government, not Anti-Canadian. We joke around alot, but really every person I have met in Canada is a damn nice guy. It's just the government most Americans don't like.

Quote from: Primus on Wed 23/06/2004 20:05:59
Brasil (ok, without z, I didn't kown how you hated it with a z) is our bro country!

I don't hate it!
I said SOME PEOPLE don't like it.
But in my post (and all my posts I recall) I wrote it with 'z' (Brazil) because I know that's how you write it in english (although, when I'm writing in portuguese I write it with 's').
I can't say I love seeing it written in that way... I just don't mind.
It'd be like we having to say "Switzerland" (or whatever) instead of "Suíça" just because it's the way they write there.
So, don't worry - I really don't mind it! ;)

QuoteWhat's that about monkeys anyway?!

Well, some countries (specially our neighbours Uruguay and Argentina) call us "Monkeys" when they try to "offend" us - I really don't know the reason of that, nor why (and when) it started.
I also heard that in one od the episodes of The Simpsons, when they come to Brazil (I think it's called "Blame it on Lisa") they make fun of us (brazilians) and make some monkey-related jokes... but I can't say anything about this since I haven't seen it...

QuoteI hate [codfish] except maybeÃ,  "punhetas de bacalhau" - when you stop laughing, pls keep reading on

LOL
It's quite funny, actually! ;D
For those who are not understanding "punheta" (at least here, in Brazil) means "to jerk off", "to wank" (sp?) ... (it's the slang of "masturbation")

QuoteNow the guilty for alotta different names were due to your "soaps", as many people put names got from Brasilian "telenovelas" to their kids. True!

Dude, that's interesting!
For you guys that've never seen a Brazilian soap-opera: DO IT!
(Most of them) are great!
I'd say we have the best soap-operas in the world (and they are NOT like those "Mexican soaps" with a poor girl that loses her son when he's just born, then she falls in love with someone she shouldn't -that's commited- and years later her son reapears bla bla bla...)

Just one last questions for you Portugueses:
Here, there are many jokes about 'Portugueses', that make fun of "you" (saying Portugueses are dumb).
This doesn't mean we don't like you, guys, it's just part of the 'humour here' (In Uruguay they make the exact same jokes but instead of "Portugueses" they say "Gallegos").
I don't know how this started (if it was because one of your kings - Dom João VI, probably - wasn't THAT bright or if it's related to the Basques...)
Anyway, my question is: Are you aware of this? And do you make jokes about we - Brazilians - too?

Quotesoccer is gay and crap and should be banned.

OMG WTF STFU U N00B!11111@@@@@!!11 ;D

Hehe - seriously - why do you hate soccer??

QuoteTo Felipe (didn't see your post earlier): No.

Er..
With 'No' you meant you don't see "armed men on the streets EVERYDAY" or that you don't see them AT ALL?

About the subject of eating rabbits... that's quite new for me!
We have them as pets here!
Although, as Primus said, some people eat "Lebres" (but that's not very common, either)


-Felipe-

Quote from: Darth Mandarb on Wed 23/06/2004 16:30:09
Somebody commented about how if a guy looks at one of these little sluts he's immediately a pervert.Ã,  This spawns a question ... "If you don't want the eyes on you ... why the f*ck are you dressing like that?"

I say we start a movement.Ã,  Whenever you see one of these little sluts just go up to them and say, "How much for sex?"Ã,  And then, when they get all indignant/mad/whatever just say, "Hey kid ... If I went out in public dressed like a soldier, people would assume I was in the army!!"Ã,  Meaning, for those who don't get it, that if you dress like a prostitute, people will think you are one.

Mandarb, this is a brilliant idea.  I live in New York, and we get some REAL nice slutty-dressing girls up this way.

Yeah, and I think that is a valid comment; Why dress that way if you DON'T want people to look?

Bt

Quote from: Dart on Wed 23/06/2004 19:12:03
Er... to any Americans reading this, are most of y'all anti-Canadian in your country?

Gods, not at ALL!Ã,  I love Canada; I live in Syracuse, New York, which is less than an hour and half from the 1000 Islands Bridge.Ã,  I've been to Canda many times, and I love the landscape, people and atmosphere up there.Ã,  It's a beautiful country; I've been to Toronto many times, and I've acted in festivals there as well as sang in a few in my youth.Ã,  I would say most of the people I know like Canada as well, but I DO think some of the government is worried about the potential for Canada to decriminalize Marijuana, because we all know that's the devils weed and if Canada makes it legal, somebody in America *might* smoke pot!!!!!!

Bt

P.S.  Sorry about the double post.  I'm a moron.

Quote from: Felipe on Wed 23/06/2004 22:17:04

QuoteTo Felipe (didn't see your post earlier): No.

Er..
With 'No' you meant you don't see "armed men on the streets EVERYDAY" or that you don't see them AT ALL?

Sorry about that.
*I* Do see armed men every day (Israeli soldiers).  I just don't see them fighting.
Most of the fighting happens in the Palestinian territories or the Jewish settlements near them, as far as I know.

About Pakistan:
Sadly there are a lot of problems here. Women are REALLY badly treated. If a guy goes to shop the salesman will say hello and shake your hands, maybe hug you and such, and try to sell you stuff. If it is a girl, unless the salesman knows the person he might just stare at the women if she is not wearing a hijab, and no hello, no touching AT ALL, and will barely sell anything only if the woman finds what she needs herself and pay for it. And that is in the city. Sure, this is not the usuall thing but it happens. I believe this behaviour was caused by some ultra-religious president guy (who's name I cannot now remember). In the villages it is was always like that.
We are really poor due to a whole line of corrupt prime ministers, who just recently ended. Then we spend so much on defense causing even more losses.
Even with all its problems, I still love it. I am proud of the values and beliefs that stands for (even though they are rarely followed).Ã,  It is so beautiful. There is stuff from deserts to plains to forests to mountains. I love the clothing. I may be evil, but I love the piracy. You can get CDs for Rs 45 (I believe that is around 75 cents) and DVDs for around Rs 100 (around $1.50). I think that the whole country uses one copy of Windows. Still, it is crazy to try getting a CD for even $20. That is just impossible for the average person here.

Myths:
It is not really dangerous. Unless you are out alone at 2 am in slutty type clothes you are usually ok. You will not usually see soldiers with guns or terroristy people. That is mostly at the borders and at the important embassies.

One thing I dont get about America is how wasteful it is. Stuff is thrown away just cause one tiny easily fixed part is broken. Family is moving so half the furniture is thrown away. New kinds of the same stuff is bought even though it barely does anything new, and nothing is wrong with the old stuff.

Quote from: Ben on Wed 23/06/2004 07:32:03

Heh.. I live in Maine, and nearly everyone under the age of 30 hates country music. And I've only met one girl who like Christian music. Punk rock and emo are popular around here. So is rap, which is odd, since most of the people I know who listen to rap also seem to hate black people. THAT'S AMERICAÃ,  ;D

I live more in the country in Maine, and there are a whole bunch of hicks who love country music. And my sister likes Christian music.

Quote from: Dart on Wed 23/06/2004 19:12:03
Er... to any Americans reading this, are most of y'all anti-Canadian in your country?

My Dad's girlfriend is French-Canadian, so yeah, nobody has a problem with Canadians.

Quote from: Zootyfruit on Wed 23/06/2004 19:26:27
easy way to piss off a canadian, call them american. my mate learned that klesson the hard way  :-\

Interesting, cuz my Dad's girlfriend gets pissed off when someone refers to 'Americans' as only people in the USA. She thinks America encompasses all of North America. But I dunno, it's just a word really.

ESTADOS UNIDENSE!

Oh, Super Scottish Hero, that's been nasty!  ;D

I live in Wisconsin.Ã,  Some observations I've made about this state (because every state in this nation is different):

- A lot of people are absolutely OBSESSED with the Green Bay Packers and every year think that they will make it to the super bowl (even though the Packers DO suck).Ã,  Or, they're just obsessed with football in general.
- Yes, people here do wear those stupid cheesehead hats to Packer games.Ã,  Sometimes you'll catch a person wearing one for no apparent reason.
- There is a Wisconsin accent, we say "beg" instead of "bag", and "worsh" instead of "wash", etc.Ã,  Not too many people talk like hicks, though... "I shot dat dere 10-poiner wi mu 12-gauge when I wuz up nort' last yeer".
- Hicks and rednecks are pretty sparse.Ã,  A lot of the people seem to be more... what's the word... "downtrod".
- The only thing people seem to like to do for fun around here is sit and drink beer.
- Sports and hunting is everything.
- There are a lot of fat people.Ã,  I think we're the third or fourth 'fattest state' in the nation, not sure.
- Wisconsin cheese IS the best (that's just my opinion).
- I'd say about 4 out of every 5 people own a firearm of some type.  The majority seems to be shotguns, or hunting rifles.

That's all I can really think of for now.

I'll start off with a hyperlink:

14 Reasons Why America is Great (http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/aig.htm)

I totally agree with all fourteen, even though I'm not particularly fond of sports myself.  I'll even go so far as to add a 15th: We speak English.

I know those of you who speak French, Spanish, and German will disagree with me, but English is really the simplest and most evolved language in use today, so far as I know.  Here's some of the reasons why:

- We only have 4 forms for each verb, not 20 or 30 like most other languages.  Instead of creating a zillion conjugations to be individually memorized, we just take four basic forms and modify them with simple general-purpose words until we get the precise meaning we need.  Less to memorize and more range of expression.

- The only words that have a particular gender in English are the words that imply a gender within their own meaning.  Compare this with German, English's ancestor language, in which every noun has a gender assigned apparently at random with no regard for the word's meaning.  Furthermore, in English the only place you need gender agreement is between nouns and pronouns, all other words can be used with any gender without modification.

- We've dropped nearly all inflections from the language.  Whereas many other languages, German not the least, still make you memorize 4 to 8 different forms for every noun and adjective, in English there's only one.  Since no meaning is lost this way, we may conclude that inflecting nouns and adjective is a pointless obfuscation.

- Our grammar is very simple and has few rules, which makes it easy to learn and very flexible.  In many languages, if you mess up the grammar even slightly the sentence turns into utter gibberish; in English, you can completely mangle the grammar and people can still understand you, though they might snicker a bit.

- Because English is cross-pollenated with French, Welsh, Latin, Finnish, Norweigan, German, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, and a few other languages, we've got the biggest and most precise vocabularly.  Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that English has a bunch of words that mean the exact same thing: this is not true.  While the sorry state of the US public school system has failed to impress this on several generations of students, there are in fact subtle differences between all of these words; no two words mean quite exactly the same thing.  Metaphorically, in English we can paint our verbal pictures with 16 million colors, while most other languages are still limited to a standard 256 color palette.

Granted, there's room for improvement.  Our spelling rules are utterly ridiculous (a consequence of the cross-pollenization), pronouns are a little messed up, and there's still some useless vestigial grammar rules, but by and large we're farther ahead than most languages.

Now of course there are many countries besides the USA that speak English, but we've got a few things over many of them even.  For one, we know the difference between something you dip in tar and set on fire and something you insert batteries into and push a button to turn on.  We also know the difference between an 's' and a 'z' (most of the time, anyway); and we don't stuff unneeded 'u's in next to our 'o's nearly as often as some other countries.



Moving on, there's a lot of talk in this thread about girl's fashions, but I wonder just what is meant by "dressed like a whore."  Being a conservative Christian, you might think I'd be all for high collars and low hemlines, but you'd be wrong.  I've never seen anything in the Bible against girls (or boys for that matter) displaying their bodies: in fact by my reasoning it's sinful not to.  God's best work should be admired, not shunned.  It was humans who invented clothing, not God.  Being "sexually provocative" has nothing to do with how much skin is showing and everything to do with attitude and body language.

By the same token, I hate unecessary plastic surgery.  I'm so sick of ugly, bulging balloon-breasts.  They're not attractive, girls!  Stick with what God gave you!  Even a flat chest is prettier than a fake one.

On the other hand, if you're going to wear clothes at all, I'd prefer to see nice clothes, regardless of how much skin they cover.  That to me is what "dressing like whore" means: wearing ugly, gaudy, unflattering clothes with too much makeup in all the wrong colors.  Which unfortunately a lot of young girls do.

QuoteI also heard that in one od the episodes of The Simpsons, when they come to Brazil (I think it's called "Blame it on Lisa") they make fun of us (brazilians) and make some monkey-related jokes... but I can't say anything about this since I haven't seen it...

I've seen that episode.   At one point they have angry monkeys harrassing orphans.  They also have the staff at a hotel playing football (soccer) with the guest's luggage, claim that "you can get anywhere you need to go by joining a conga line", and one of the major plot devices is a childrens' show starring strippers.  Then there's a bit where they joke about the government painting the slums bright colors so as not to offend tourists -- even the rats are painted red, green, and yellow.  But like most Simpsons jokes, it's all so playful that you can't really take offense at it if you have any sense of humor whatsoever.

BTW, in that episode they said that language spoken in Brasil is Portugese, not Spanish.  Is that true?  Every Brasillian I've ever seen on TV has appeared to be speaking Spanish, though I can't swear I'd be able to tell the difference.

QuoteI'd say we have the best soap-operas in the world (and they are NOT like those "Mexican soaps" with a poor girl that loses her son when he's just born, then she falls in love with someone she shouldn't -that's commited- and years later her son reapears bla bla bla...)

Hmm... throw in some vampires, a witch or two, an evil twin, someone in a coma, and a bit of corporate espionage, and you've got an American soap.

But you know, a telenovela isn't really the same thing as a soap.  The themes are similar, but from what I've seen telenovelas usually develop to some kind of resolution that ends the story; soaps just go on and on forever, becoming ever more ridiculous and farfetched as the writers scramble desperately to continue the storyline.  In the USA, when a show has its ending planned from the start we call it a "miniseries"; only the shows that are intended to never end at all are called "soaps".

QuoteEr... to any Americans reading this, are most of y'all anti-Canadian in your country?

We're all jealous because you have mounties.  Our police officers are often more thuggish and ill-bred than the criminals.

Quote from: Ryukage on Thu 24/06/2004 13:43:46
I'll start off with a hyperlink:

14 Reasons Why America is Great (http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/aig.htm)

I totally agree with all fourteen, even though I'm not particularly fond of sports myself.  I'll even go so far as to add a 15th: We speak English.

I'd like to comment on that. (please read the linked document first)

#14: The car was invented by Carl benz, the internal combustion engine by Nikolaus Otto, the Diesel engine by Rudolf Diesel (all Germans)
#13: That's the reason why you have so many overweight people
#12: Most other countries have similar festivities
#11: Might be a point.
#10: What culture?
#9: Might be another reason for the overweight people problem (ever wondered, how many calories there are even in Diet Coke?)
#8: There must be a reason why American Football is poular only in the US
#7: One Word: Guantanamo. So much for respecting other peoples' freedom.
#6: ever wondered why you have so many murders in your country?
#5: ?
#4: There may be a point.
#3: I don't comment on that.
#2:?
#1: Ever heard of McCarthy? Or, more modern: Having my fingerprints taken when I want to enter the US is not exactly what I'd call "freedom"

Two things I'd like to add:
-America was the last 'civilized' country to abolish slavery
-America still has the death penalty and an execution rate comparable to China


I hope, Ryukage, you weren't too serious about that 14 reasons, otherwise I apologize for being so bitter.
But that's exactly what I do not like in oh so many Americans: That hypocrisy, that damned feeling of being better than anyone else!

Quote from: Ryukage_the_blatant_troll on Thu 24/06/2004 13:43:46
I'll start off with a hyperlink:
[- We only have 4 forms for each verb, not 20 or 30 like most other languages.  Instead of creating a zillion conjugations to be individually memorized, we just take four basic forms and modify them with simple general-purpose words until we get the precise meaning we need.  Less to memorize and more range of expression.

You do know that most verbs in languages that use conjugation are regular: in other words as simple as English in that respect, the only difference is whether the modification has a space involved or not.

Quote
Granted, there's room for improvement.  Our spelling rules are utterly ridiculous (a consequence of the cross-pollenization), pronouns are a little messed up, and there's still some useless vestigial grammar rules, but by and large we're farther ahead than most languages.

Not to mention the single msot difficult thing for non-native speakers to learn: PRONUNCIATION. In Spanish, a letter always sounds the same, so even if you don't know what you are saying, its very easy to read written Spanish out loud if you knwo the pronunciation rules.

Quote
Now of course there are many countries besides the USA that speak English, but we've got a few things over many of them even.  For one, we know the difference between something you dip in tar and set on fire and something you insert batteries into and push a button to turn on.

The mind boggles: I guess you're referring to homosexuals and artifical vaginas.

Quoteand we don't stuff unneeded 'u's in next to our 'o's nearly as often as some other countries.

You mean you don't undertsand the concept of dipthongs... "o" is a different sound from "ou"

QuoteIt was humans who invented clothing, not God.

Having said this, then, are you a nudist or a hypocrite?

Quote
Being "sexually provocative" has nothing to do with how much skin is showing and everything to do with attitude and body language.

I think that "nothing to do with" is obviously false. Just see how many car adverts have pictures of ladies in burqahs...

Quote
BTW, in that episode they said that language spoken in Brasil is Portugese, not Spanish.  Is that true?  Every Brasillian I've ever seen on TV has appeared to be speaking Spanish, though I can't swear I'd be able to tell the difference.

He reveals his ignorance...

And as for the 14 reasons, they're quite laughable. All I have to Isegrim's comments is to point out for #13 that Burger King is actually british-owned (or was lasdt time I checked)

Felipe:
That one of "monkeys" is the most idiot thing : I didn't really knew... And what a lack of humour!

Oh, check this pls, anyway:
http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/arquivos/geral/brasileirospt.htm

Yeah, I love "punhetas" de bacalhau (codfish "wanks" :)), slices of codfish with sliced or smashed onion, olive oil and a little bit of vinegar. I don't know the origin of fhat slang name for a salad.

Repeating, we've alotta different christian of first names, yeah, and also alotta "Antonios" and "Manuéis" and "Marias" too, but not so many "Joaquins" as before. Eg Adolfo (mainly due to Adolph Hitler) is very rare. And fun names are common: for instance, a pt man called António Noivo Cueca had to remove "Cueca" from the phone list as calls making fun of his name were driving him crazy...
But we have alotta different names, also due to your soaps, I repeat. Now Portugal has already some quality ones (soaps).

I think you makig funny of us is a "revenge": we started! ;)Ã, 
http://www.letras.up.pt/deper/primeiraprova/anedota.htm

And we laugh alot about ourselves, too:
http://www.superdivertido.web.pt/P_Paginas/P_Amarelas/SerTugae.htm

Jokes about Brazilians:
http://icepick.home.sapo.pt/jokes/06.html
http://www.superdivertido.web.pt/P_Paginas/P_Menu/Menu_anedotas.asp
http://vertigens.no.sapo.pt/LOIRAS.htm (e brasileiros)
http://amandioleal.planetaclix.pt/humor/anedotas4.htm
http://www.piadas.oninet.pt/categoria.aspx?PageNum=8&CatID=CH113_Povos_e_Etnias

We've also a special group we have most jokes: "Alentejanos". Check them eg here, please:
http://www.eusei.com/anedotas/Portugal.asp
http://icepick.home.sapo.pt/jokes/01.html
http://www.superdivertido.web.pt/P_Paginas/P_Menu/Menu_anedotas.asp

Of course it's natural all around the globe a group or country makes fun of others:
Dutch, French, German jokes about Belgians; French jokes about Swiss; US jokes about Irish and Polish; British jokes about Scottish and Polish; Russian jokes about the Americans; don't ever try to explain 'knock knock' jokes or lawyer jokes to the Japanese; and so on.

About the English language, I completely agree with Ryukage. Portuguese is the fifth most speaken official language (1st Mandarin, 2nd Hindi, 3rd English, 4th Spanish), and it is Brazil's official language - but in all other Latin America countries, Spanish is the official one.

Isegrim, I also must agree with you: Portugal abolished slavery in 1815 (France 1848, Dutch 1863, Brazil 1888, US 1865) - and we didn't have a civil war to do so. I was really chocked and sad about that Spielberg's 1997 movie, "Amistad" - it showed Spielberg was really ignorant and an analphabet, maybe thought Portugal was Brazil, and vice-versa...

To SSH - Portuguese is a difficult language on phonetics and sounds, so we can speak any other languages with ease.

I think that English is easier than any of the other languajes I've tried to learn (Imagine how bad I speak German  ;D) for some of the reasons Ryukage said.

I was going to type that I agree with SSH about the accent issue, but, on second thought, I am not so sure. The "supposed to be proper" Spanish has no accent... But the tongue is an intangible concept, we can't be sure which is the correct "Spanish" and some regional forms have a tricky accent. Whereas I think they're not talking correctly, a purist linguist could come to me and say that I'm wrong.

The zones of Spain with a lot of accent are:

Andalucía, Murcia and Extremadura have some kind of "Andaluz". In the Canarian islands the time seems to be stoped for them, and they talk in a way that reminds the ancient spanish, or the venezuelan, for instance.

The other zones with accent are mostly related with places where a second tongue is spoken (Cataluña, Galicia, Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias...)

About the 14th reasons why America is so great... they seem more a joke for me.  :P

Quote from: Farlander on Thu 24/06/2004 14:48:42
About the 14th reasons why America is so great... they seem more a joke for me.  :P

It's a bad sign when it's so hard to tell irony from seriousness...

Quote from: Ryukage on Thu 24/06/2004 13:43:46
I know those of you who speak French, Spanish, and German will disagree with me, but English is really the simplest and most evolved language in use today, so far as I know.Ã, 

Argh! No! Not true!

The reason that English speakers see English as the easiest language is because they don't learn the rules.  They just talk.  Our grammar is half Germanic, half Romanitic.  We use contractions like it's going out of style.  We use coloquialisms like they're going out of style.  We speak in a language of metaphors and borrowed words. 

About the verb conjugations: We don't have four. We have at least nine that I can think of. 
I watch
I am watching
I watched
I was watching
I did watch
I have watched
I will watch
I am going to watch
I will have watched

Why can you say "I don't" and not "I runn't?"  And what the heck is up with "I won't?" Shouldn't it be "I willn't?"

"I have run" "I have done" "I have been" "I have walked"  We have a huge variety of irregular verbs in the present perfect tense.

Why is it pronounced "Shoor" when it's spelled "sure?"  Why is it pronounced "crysanthemum" when it's spelled with a ch?

More than one goose is "geese." So why aren't many moose "meese?" More than one house is "houses," but more than one mouse isn't "mouses," it's "mice."  And that C is pronounced S.

English is hard.  We have contradictions all over the place. 

And I'd comment on your "14 Points," but I've got to go to work soon.

Eg the simple present of verb to be
I am
you are
he/she/it is
we are
you are
they are

Simple Present of verb to be (Ser-estar) in Portuguese;
Eu estou
tu estás (você está)
ele/ela está
nós estamos
vós estais (vocês estão)
eles/elas estão

Eu sou
tu és (você é)
ele/ela é
nós somos
vós sois (vocês são)
eles/elas são

Dragon Rose, all grammar (not just the verbs) of Romanic languages is far too complicated.
"Latin is a dead language,
So dead as it can be;
First it killed Romans,
Now it's killing me"

All grammar of Romanic languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Roumenian, Spanish), is strictly based on Latin and sometimes with a general rule and alotta exceptions: what a phuck! So even TPNL teachers (Teaching Portuguese as a Native Language) commit mistakes very often.

Good lord.  A rant from a conservative Christian American........

Dude, you're just making yourself an example of why we, as American's, are ridculed over the globe.  And the childish defense of "They're just jealous." Doesn't cut it.  Being that haughty and ignorant (For someone who portends to knows A LOT about the semantics and linguistics of the English language, to not know that Brazil (Brasil! 8-) )is a Portugese speaking country, decided by the line of Demarcation by the pope in the age of exploration, is typical American ignorance.  Sigh.

I know you meant well, in stating that you love your country, and there's nothing wrong with that.  Most people love things because of their flaws as well as their strengths.  But being so bold, it's not suiting.  The wise and the truly great are humble.

Bt

14 reasons America isnt great
Random order

14: Wellfare pays more to those who dont work
13: You can die for your country but cant drink until 21
12: The elderly get free money for being old
11: You have to have money to make money
10: You are arrested fo concealing a weapon
9: The government runs the world wide web
8: The rich get better educations
7: Our leader opposes WMD when we currently have hundreds
6: Your arrested for not wearing clothes
5: Law doesnt affect rich (You dont see a pothead celebrity busted for drugs)
4: Huge social class differences
3: Homeless people are mocked
2: Tarrifs on importing medicine
1: its a democracy

Quote from: LostTraveler on Thu 24/06/2004 17:42:57
5: Law doesnt affect rich (You dont see a pothead celebrity busted for drugs)

I take it you've never heard of the Martha Stewart scandal that occured a few months ago?

Martha stewert pretended to be rich

Dear Blackthorne519:

Sorry if it seemed I tried to diminish whoever: as a matter of fact, unfortunately NOBODY KNOWS EVERYTHING. I respect Spielberg a lot, love all other movies of him, but "Amistad" hurted alot my "national" proud: we were guilty of slavery, as many other countries and civilizations since its very beginning (Greek, Roman, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, whatever - all they had aÃ,  slavery based system), but we were not the ones who profited most of slavery business and politics. The true is we had to bring slaves from Africa to Brazil, as the primitive Indians just refused to work for us: the Primitive Indians had a concept of the word "freedom" we simply couldn't overpass or surpass.

A joke: a few years ago, a Russian University teacher answered to a student at a Russian University: "How don't you know in Brazil they speak Spanish, not Brazilian?!"Ã,  :P

I'm also proud of the Portuguese "miscigenation", instead of "separating" colonizers and colonized ones, as many other countries and civilizations did.

PS: Did anyone know a recent survey proved Poland was one of the most cultivated countries all over Europe?!

LostTraveler, a joke I love: in the US, a man was stopped by a police officer. - "Don't you know who I am? - the man asked. The police officer, to his mate: "Dude, we've a real problem here - he doesn't know who he is..."
Nixon, Clinton, etc., etc., etc. - that didn't empeach the law of being also applied - even on Presidential cases...

Primus: But English isn't a Romantic language- it's Germanic with random bits of Romantic thrown in after the Norman invasion of England.

The reason I used verb examples is because Ryukage mentioned our basic forms of conjugation.

Quote from: Primus on Thu 24/06/2004 19:41:14
Dear Blackthorne519:

Sorry if it seemed I tried to diminish whoever: as a matter of fact, unfortunately NOBODY KNOWS EVERYTHING.

Uh, Primus - I was refering to Ryukage in my posts, not anything you said. 
I was merely talking to my fellow country man about being so bold and accidentally insulting other people and their cultures.  Not one's perfect though; it's not just American's who do it.  We just do it VERY bluntly, and frequently!

Sorry if there was confusion....

Bt

Quote from: DragonRose on Thu 24/06/2004 20:32:20
Primus: But English isn't a Romantic language- it's Germanic with random bits of Romantic thrown in after the Norman invasion of England.

old english pronounciation was pretty similar to (old)german... And there are a whole lot of similarities between words e.g. house <> haus, mouse <> maus, knight <> knecht, night <> nacht, home <> heim..............................................

Quote from: DragonRose on Thu 24/06/2004 20:32:20
Primus: But English isn't a Romantic language- it's Germanic with random bits of Romantic thrown in after the Norman invasion of England.

The reason I used verb examples is because Ryukage mentioned our basic forms of conjugation.

Thanks for your info, DragonRose, you're true. The main reason English is simpler (in Grammar) than other languages is because English was barely written during the Normand period (ca 11th-15th centuries, wasn't it?), so French was the most used language. And now, of each five English words, ca. three have Latin origin (directly from Latin, but mostly from French itself).

Ok, Blackthrone519, I needed to write that anyway, I was too rude to Spielberg - and a few American fellows could not like that too much ;) Before loving each others, we LOVE and defend our own countries and mates!Ã,  ;D

Quote#14: The car was invented by Carl benz, the internal combustion engine by Nikolaus Otto, the Diesel engine by Rudolf Diesel (all Germans)

But none of them figured out how to make any of those things cheaply enough for the less than fabulously rich to afford them.  That was a purely American achievement.

Quote#12: Most other countries have similar festivities

Maybe you didn't read closely enough: "Thanksgiving celebrates prosperity, which most nations have only at fleeting moments."

Many countries may have similar festivals, but few of them have consistently had something to celebrate throughout their entire lifespan.  In all our 200 years as a nation and the colonial years before that, we've only had one decade lacking in prosperity.  How many nations can say that?

Quote#13: That's the reason why you have so many overweight people
#9: Might be another reason for the overweight people problem (ever wondered, how many calories there are even in Diet Coke?)

No, that's the old dieting myth: "If you eat less, you'll lose weight." The reason we have so many overweight people is that our idea of "work" is sitting on our asses staring at computers all day.  Farmers can eat all the hamburgers and drink all the coke they want and still stay fit and trim.

Quote#10: What culture?

Again, you apparently weren't paying attention.  We have all the good parts of most everyone's culture grafted onto our own.  And don't mind the fact that it was our culture that pretty much invented civil rights and modern democracy.  Yeah, we got a bit of help on that from the Brits, but they've still got kings and nobles, and we don't.

Quote#7: One Word: Guantanamo. So much for respecting other peoples' freedom.

We hold those people at Gtmo because they were trying to take freedom away from others.  If we didn't respect other people's freedom, we wouldn't bother to capture and hold prisoners, we'd just nuke anyone who disagreed with us.  And there's no country in the world that could stop us from doing so.

Do you think we pay ludicrously high gas prices because we don't have the power to conquer the entire OPEC block and pump the oil ourselves?  Guess again.

Do you think we call for peace and disarmament talks with North Korea because our military isn't strong enough to just waltz in and overthrow their government?  Not at all.

Do you think we spent all that time pleading with France and Russia to let us invade Iraq because we weren't capable of doing it by ourselves?  Heck, we *did* it by ourselves, we don't need no stinking NATO!

On the same subject, why do you think we tolerate the current situation in Iraq?  We have enough firepower to blow the terrorists to hell a hundred times over.  We don't use it because we'd hurt a lot of innocent people in the process, and overwhelming force like that simply offends our sensibilities.

Twenty years ago, we couldn't launch nuclear missiles because we had a Mutually Assured Destruction situation with the Soviet Union.  But the USSR is gone now, its nuclear power is all but kaput.  So what's stopping us from launching nukes now?  Simple: we believe it would be wrong to do so!

According to some scientists who claim to have worked at a certain military base that apparently doesn't exist even though you can clearly see it from the nearby mountains, we even have operational alien spacecraft at our command.  Okay, even I am skeptical about that one, but what if it's true?

If you think our government abuses its power now, just think what it would be like if Osama bin Laden were running things!

Quote#6: ever wondered why you have so many murders in your country?

The first murder in history was committed without the use of any weapon whatsoever, and few of the murders in America are committed with weapons legally purchased under the gun control laws we do have (indeed, many are committed without any gun at all -- knives and automobiles seem much more popular).  Banning alchohol didn't stop people from drinking, banning drugs hasn't stopped anyone from getting them, and I daresay banning guns wouldn't stop people from killing with them.  It would however prevent honest and law-abiding citizens from defending themselves when attacked by a murderer with an illegal weapon.

Criminals prefer unarmed victims; politicians prefer unarmed peasants.  Besides the right to defend ourselves from criminals, the right to bear arms is the right to overthrow our own government if it ever gets entirely out of our control.  The root of any government's power is its ability to kill, therefore to maintain a democratic state of affairs the government must be equally threatened on behalf of the people.  All of you who live in countries without the right to bear arms: the only thing keeping your government from imposing martial law and becoming a dictatorship is the threat of more powerful countries intervening to restore your freedom.  You'd be naive to think otherwise.  If a country with no such fear, like America, were to take away its citizens right to bear arms, thing would quickly go downhill for everyone.  I'd rather have the right to defend myself and accept that some will abuse that right than to be at the mercy of a government-controlled military.

And if you count abortion, government oppression, and the various other kinds of legalized murder present in many countries, not to mention all the murders that go unreported due to other countries' poor law enforcement, America's relative murder rate would probably take a significant nosedive.

Quote-America still has the death penalty and an execution rate comparable to China

So we don't want to keep serial killers around to drain our resources and possibly escape from prison and kill even more people.  Is there something wrong with that?

A cold-blooded murderer cannot be reformed.  A person capable of killing another person without remorse simply has no conscience left to them.  Anyone who says otherwise is either naive or has an agenda.  Imprisoning such people for life is not economically feasable at this time (what with all the resources being devoted to preserving useless wildlife and providing professional couch potatoes with unearned salaries -- and of course giving loans to other countries who never pay us back so they can subsidize their lifelong prisoners), plus there's the possibility of escape, even the attempt of which would doubtless result in more killings.

Maybe it's more "civilized" to abolish the death penalty.  Maybe it's more "civilized" to keep it.  Just who decides what "civilized" means, anyway?  The only entity I can think of with the authority to make that determination is God, and nearly all gods seems to approve of or even demand the death penalty for murder at least.  Any claim made by a human, or even a group of humans however large, would be as hypocritical and self-important as you accuse Americans of being.

QuoteBut that's exactly what I do not like in oh so many Americans: That hypocrisy, that damned feeling of being better than anyone else!

Excuse us for having some national pride.  But you know, I don't see it saying anywhere on that page "14 Reasons Why America Is Better Than Any Other Country In the World"; it simply says "14 Reasons Why America Is Great".  I don't imagine that America being Great precludes any other country from being Great as well, perhaps even for some of the same reasons.  It's really not that specific or objective of a word.  Maybe you think it was claiming that we're better than anyone else because that's what you would have said yourself?

QuoteYou do know that most verbs in languages that use conjugation are regular: in other words as simple as English in that respect, the only difference is whether the modification has a space involved or not.

Not quite as simple, not nearly as flexible.  Even regular verb conjugation usually involves a whole new set of suffixes different from the standalone words with the same meanings, and those suffixes often change slightly depending what you combine them with.  In English, verbs are modified by common, everyday words that are not exclusive to verb phrases.  Also, having separate words provides more options than being locked into a fixed set of suffixes; if you need to express something different from the usual forms, you don't need a different syntax to do it.  Indeed in some languages it is impossible to express anything beyond the standard conjugations.

QuoteNot to mention the single msot difficult thing for non-native speakers to learn: PRONUNCIATION. In Spanish, a letter always sounds the same, so even if you don't know what you are saying, its very easy to read written Spanish out loud if you knwo the pronunciation rules.

That's what I mean by our spelling rules being ridiculous.  It's not that our pronunciation is difficult (in fact it's very simple), it's that our spelling doesn't match up with it.  Again this is a consequence of our vocabulary being derived from several different languages, all of them using an alphabet that wasn't designed for any of them.  We've got some words spelled according to Spanish rules, some according to French, some according to German, all mixed in with several regional spelling systems from medieval Britain.  If you separate the words by language of origin, they're pretty consistent within each group.  Not that that makes it any easier to figure out.

The other major cause of the spelling issue is that some pronunciations have been simplified over the years, but the spellings didn't change with them.  Thus we end up with a lot of vestigial letters that once made a sound, but are now silent.  The fact that we've outgrown some of our own spellings is more evidence of the language's level of evolution.

If you learn English verbally, without trying to become literate at the same time, it's actually much easier than most languages.  All our phonemes are fairly simple to reproduce, we don't worry about trivial sound differences like whether you make "sh" against your teeth or in your throat, we don't inflect words without reason, pitch and cadence don't matter, and our grammar is very loose and flexible.

QuoteThe mind boggles: I guess you're referring to homosexuals and artifical vaginas.

Sarcasm aside, I'm referring to torches (something you set on fire), and flashlights (something with an electric light bulb).  I'll grant that "flashlight" doesn't sound nearly as refined as "torch", but we Americans like to differentiate between flammable objects and non-flammables ones (as knowing the difference can be terribly important for personal safety), besides which we just don't like to use words that already have meanings for new inventions that their meanings don't apply to.

We also aren't on the whole terribly concerned with appearing sophisticated and elegant if it gets in the way of more important things, which can't usually be said of the British.

I might have also mentioned that "elevator" is a noun while "lift" is a verb...

QuoteYou mean you don't undertsand the concept of dipthongs... "o" is a different sound from "ou"

Yes, "ou" makes the sound "ow", but that's not the sound found in "colour" or "humour", at least not in modern pronunciation.  And for that matter, dipthongs on the whole are another artifact of using an alphabet that wasn't designed for the language we're trying to apply it to.

QuoteHaving said this, then, are you a nudist or a hypocrite?

...I didn't want my post to become overlong, and it wasn't entirely relevant to the thread's topic, so I didn't really explain my meaning accurately.

When humans invented clothing, God's reaction was, so far as I can tell from the Bible, "Well this wasn't my idea, but if you really want to, at least let me teach you how to make them out of better materials than leaves."  So clothing certainly isn't forbidden if you personally want to wear it.

Think of it this way: There might be good reason to remove a great work of art from public display from time to time, but it would be wrong to keep it locked up in a storage room *all* the time.  The artist created it to be seen, it does no one any good when kept from view.  The obligation to the artist can be fulfilled without displaying the work to everyone every second, but it is not fulfilled by displaying it only to a privileged few for a high fee.

And of course, clothing can also be beautiful, can even enhance natural beauty.  Since the capacity to create beauty ultimately comes from God, clothing too has a demand to be displayed.

The term "nudist", however, implies some other ideologies besides just going about naked.  I've not yet discovered exactly what said ideologies are, but the vague indications of them that I have encountered suggest I would not find them so Biblically-compatible.  Obviously that's not enough for me to form a prejudice on, but it's enough for me to withhold endorsement.

QuoteI think that "nothing to do with" is obviously false. Just see how many car adverts have pictures of ladies in burqahs...

A woman who exudes sexuality is provacative whether she's dressed in a bikini or a frock.  Conversely, most people don't find the nude photographs at domai.com at all provocative.  And if "sexiness" were proportional to the quantity of skin showing, why do Catholic school uniforms turn so many people on?

Not to mention that there are large numbers of 100% heterosexual women who like looking at naked women just as much as men do, and a currently somewhat smaller number of straight men who appreciate the aesthetic quality of the male body.

It's obvious, at least to anyone who doesn't think with his dick, that nudity and sex are completely unrelated.  Any small relation that does exist currently is created artificially by the taboo itself.  We're not born thinking there's anything particularly unusual or interesting about nudity, we're conditioned to think that way by being banned from seeing people naked except in sexual situations.  Those of us who've overcome that conditioning lead much more relaxed and enjoyable lives, not having to worry that we're breaking some moral rule every time our God-given appreciation for beauty tells us to stop and admire a pretty girl or handsome man.

QuoteHe reveals his ignorance...

A Mexican friend of mine who speaks both Spanish and Portugese told me that Portugese is basically Spanish with a wierd accent, which seems to be backed up by a multilingual dictionary I have.  This leads me to believe that, not being fluent in either language myself and observing the wide variety of accents found in Latin America, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference from a random TV broadcast or music video.  Just because *you* know what language is spoken in Brasil doesn't mean that information has ever been available to me from a reliable source before now.

That said, I do know some fragments of Spanish and a few Spanish grammar rules, and I find most of the latter to be unnecessary complications with no effect on the meaning of the sentence.  As an anime fan, I've also studied Japanese and Chinese a bit, and being a medieval folklore buff I've studied some German as well.  I've found that as much as I enjoy learning *about* other languages, actually learning to speak them is beyond my abilities.  So I'm far from ignorant of other languages, I'm just not fluent in any of them.

And of course, the only true ignorance is believing one knows everything.  Such a one asks no questions, because he believes he has all the answers already.  I know enough to know that I know very little of all there is to know, so I ask questions in a continual attempt to fill in the dreadful gaps, and dispense freely of the knowledge I already have to help others do the same.  You learn something every time you objectively consider another's point of view with an open mind, even if you ultimately determine it to be foolish.

QuoteAbout the 14th reasons why America is so great... they seem more a joke for me.

It's a bad sign when it's so hard to tell irony from seriousness...

For the record, that article is found in the "Serious" column in the Politics sections of John VanSickle's webpage (http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/index.htm).  If you want to see him joking, try New Mental Disorders (http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/mental.htm).  Another of John's articles which seems relevant to this discussion at this point is Utterances of Pride (http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/pride.htm).

Incidentally, if Mr. VanSickle ever runs for president, I will do everything I can to see that he gets elected.  If he could get half of his ideas through, America would be considerably better off, though certain whiny bed-wetters would be rather unhappy.

O come on do you actually believe that $h1+?

Stop making america sound better then it actually is.

American History 101
We arrive, kill the natives and put them in a concentration camp called oklahoma

We nuked Jap civilians and locked up american Japs

We go to war with iraq twice for oil

We go to war with afghanistan so bush can show off to his dad

We help divide germany after ww2

We killed thousands because a few hundred died in a tower

We drafted people to kill

We wasted billions to go to the moon for no reason other then to show off to the USSR

We went to vietnam with no reason

We went to korea when its on the other side of the world

Quote
Heck, we *did* it by ourselves, we don't need no stinking NATO!

Well, personally I'd prefer alot the US didn't have needed the NATO. When the War agains Afghanistan first, then Iraq began, I was really affraid Azores would be attacked, as there's a US base there. I don't mean we don't help our friends, just THEY MUST HAVE HELPED US when we needed (Timor), and that has happen due to sharp and strong international ass kicks.

I also know ifÃ,  the Southern Europe had been occupied by the Russians it would have been a real chit. If I can call something to myself, I always was a 200% "anti-old URSS" government. I read eg Soljenitsine's "The Gulag Archipelago" at least twice, besides other books.

I know Roosevelt's "New Deal" helped Europe a lot. But let's not cover gross mistakes with very good things made before: each government is a case. And, in foreign affairs, I always "phewww" when there's a Democrat President running the "Police of the Free World". When there's a Republican there, I almost tremble of fear about what can happen - and that much, much before the 911.

Rya and Lost... You're being extremist... And, whereas I am quite pro-american, I can't stand extremes. If you were expecting me to come to someone's aid, you're wrong!  ;D

Ryukage, your political statements are as contradictive as your linguistic statements are erroneous.

QuoteSo we don't want to keep serial killers around to drain our resources and possibly escape from prison and kill even more people.  Is there something wrong with that?

This is how you defend death penalty.
First of all, I'm pretty sure you're aware of that not all people found guilty and executed by your highly dubious judicial system are actually guilty?
The little catch with killing off people that might turn out innocent is that they can't be revived. Until you have the power to give people their lives back, you aren't justified to take them.

Secondly, isn't it strange that the reason you give for death penalty has to do with reducing crime, while USA has outstandingly high crime rates (especially for capital crimes such as murder)?

Wouldn't it be expected that in order to advocate a certain system due to its results, you should be able to show good samples of these results?

Makes you wonder.

And regarding language; if you claim that English is easy to learn because of its linguistic qualities, you're simply wrong.
I've studied language and English in particular for several years on university level, and one thing I know is how irregular English is in comparison to other languages, how big discrepancy there is between pronunciation and spelling, and how vast the vocabulary is.

The reason why people tend to pick it up easily is purely cultural; the enormous input from TV and the Internet, etc.

Im not really an extremist, Im just fed up with these patriotic people. They go around praising the government for doing nothing. I dont think democracy is a cure, I believe democracy is a curse. It makes the poor poor and the rich richer. Its a system that was designed for equality not for division of the classes. American democracy is more like a dictatorship. You vote for the leader, they control the country. Real democracy would have everyone vote on the issues. Everyone Having a say. Democracy originated in athens. the ruler was not the one who had the most money, the most people in his party. He was the better leader, not the one with the most vote for me signs. Americas also very good at propaganda. One nation under god my ass, it should be one world under _______(insert diety). America is slowely killing itself. The Old declare war that the young must fight and in the process die. If this is one nation under god then why is it murdering civilians throughout the world. Doesnt the bible say do no kill? America invests billions of OUR dollers in the space program fo no apparent reason. Why should we have to pay to get dust from a big red rock? That money should go twords helping the poor. Speaking of poor, do you realize how messed up the wellfare system is? Non-working Tramps who keep on having kids with a different man get more money then someone who works every damn day and still can barely afford to feed their one kid? Its sad to think about a kid with few toys, a mom whos always at work, and a dad who doesnt give a frick about him. These rappers who talk about being from the projects buy huge mansions and expensive ass cars when really they should be giving back to the people who need it most. Capitalism sucks soo much its not funny, you have to have money to make money. A mixture of communism and democracy would be the best choice for america.

Quote from: Andail on Thu 24/06/2004 22:17:17

And regarding language; if you claim that English is easy to learn because of its linguistic qualities, you're simply wrong.
I've studied language and English in particular for several years on university level, and one thing I know is how irregular English is in comparison to other languages, how big discrepancy there is between pronunciation and spelling, and how vast the vocabulary is.
The reason why people tend to pick it up easily is purely cultural; the enormous input from TV and the Internet, etc.

I must agree with you in the part you say English is difficult. When I studied phrasal verbs, I started climbing walls.
When you say English has too much vocabulary, I must also agree: an old teacher of mine in Portugal, Peter Hall, Ph D, told us his parents were always telling him: "- Don't be snobbish! Only snobs use more than two syllable words! [read: coming from French].
While a COMPLETE Portuguese dictionary has barely 120,000-150,000 words, an English one would have ca. 700,000.
But if we included all verb conjugations, wow, ti would appear aÃ,  few million words in that Portuguese Dictionary.

And the easy way I can create a new word in English, eg by adding two existing ones: cow+boy cow+girl. Eg in Portuguese: vaca - vaqueiro, vaqueira.

I've studied French for many years (ca. twelve, also on university level), more even then English, and I still need a dictionary for every word I write in French.

But now, what makes things too complicated is our grammar, our concordancies between subject and complements, our verb conjugations, too far much more complicated than the English grammar.

I've studied Latin for two years (started climbing walls there), and know there were "conjugations" even for nouns, according to its morphological and sintactical place in any expression. German still has that, and Italian too.

Quote from: kl4Uz on Thu 24/06/2004 21:11:19

Quote from: DragonRose on Thu 24/06/2004 20:32:20
Primus: But English isn't a Romantic language- it's Germanic with random bits of Romantic thrown in after the Norman invasion of England.

old english pronounciation was pretty similar to (old)german... And there are a whole lot of similarities between words e.g. house <> haus, mouse <> maus, knight <> knecht, night <> nacht, home <> heim..............................................

I agree, there are a lot of words which are nerly the same in english an in german. But one of your exampelts is wrong: The german word for "knight" is "Ritter", the english word for "knecht" is something like "servant" ( not exactly sure about this english word).

I've got a question for the amarican people. Is it true that there is a sign on every microwave oven that you should'nt put a cat in it, because a woman once did that and sued the companie? It sounds really stupied to me but I heard of this once.

Some facts about Iceland
-We are not vikings
-We do not and never did live in snowhouses
-We do not eat alot of fish
-Our goverment loves America
-We love western culture
-We are at war with Iraq
-We have no army
-We think we are good at everything
-We are boring and selfish
-We hate our country
-We love our country
-We have been at "war" with England 2 times and we won them both. Pwnd!
-Wery many of us are to fat
-Both Danmark and Norway ruled over us once
-Leifur heppni discovered America before that Columbus guy
-"Gullfoss og Geysir"

Lost, I think you're a bit confused. Democracy has nothing to do with Americans making money. The money is due to our capitalistic views. I find it rather interesting that a thread about learning about other countries has seemingly developed into a "bash America every couple posts" thread.

Kill natives, my eye. There were actually only a few cases of massive genocide. Most Americans wanted to assimilate the Amerindians into American culture. A lot of our founding fathers fought for a law allowing interracial marriages between whites and Amerindians.

I admit that putting the Japanese into concentration camps was a bit extreme, but you do have to understand that it was a time of massive war right after a severe depression. And America had just been hit by a surprise attack, so of course they were suspicious.

Uh, also, I'm sure you know what the Oil for Food program through the U.N. was, well did you hear about the controversy where all the countries involved just took oil and money.

Trying to stop the spread of communism was a very noble cause. Communism may work well in theory, but in actually it is much worse than democracy.

And towards your other post about the fourteen points, pretty much everything you said (Welfare, money to old people, etc.) are due to the democrats, and that is why I am a republican. Also, you can make money without having money. Andrew Carnegie, one of the wealthiest men in American history, came here with nothing as a poor Irish imigrant and made a lot of money. But money is not everything. I think the real American dream to come here and help raise a family in a great country.

Now, let's get back to posts that foster friendliness between people of differing nationalites.

Quote from: Sinitrena on Thu 24/06/2004 23:33:17

I've got a question for the amarican people. Is it true that there is a sign on every microwave oven that you should'nt put a cat in it, because a woman once did that and sued the companie? It sounds really stupied to me but I heard of this once.

Yes?!...Ã,  :o I didn't know that one, but a little googling gave me this interesting link about that "urban legend":
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/micropet.htmÃ,  http://www.genmay.net/archive/index.php/t-102587.html

About that cat warning, didn't get anything...
EDIT Wait, I found something...
http://www.fccps.k12.va.us/gm/lasso/Archive/2002-2003/commentary/12-28-02-Warning.htm

Quote from: Sutebi on Thu 24/06/2004 23:55:36
Kill natives, my eye. There were actually only a few cases of massive genocide. Most Americans wanted to assimilate the Amerindians into American culture. A lot of our founding fathers fought for a law allowing interracial marriages between whites and Amerindians.

Actually, there was an extended period of massive genocide. It was called, "Manifest Destiny." Indians were treated as dogs, even though the five civilized tribes (Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Creek) settled just as the white men did with an organized government, system of writing, and wooden homes. These were the people who were forced to move west on the trail of tears (where over half died). The other Indians who lived traditionally were hunted down tribe by tribe mostly under Andrew Jackson. The fact that so few full blood Indians remain, even here in the Cherokee capitol, is a testament to the fact that most were murdered and the remaining were forced to blend as if they had no heritage in the early 1900s (they were told to forget their history and customs, and were not allowed to learn their native languages).

Now, I can't even sit here and waste my time refuting LostTravellor.. sheesh.. for someone who has been at a political forum for so long you have some pretty ignorant views. For one, you obviously don't pay taxes or you would know social security (the money that old people don't earnÃ,  ::)) is taken from every worker in America and deposited into their account, even foreign workers who get no benefits.. so that they can live without having to work near the end of their lives.

Andail, sorry, but you strike me as a die-hard anti-American, often with little justifaction. There are some dumb points above, but there are some very genuine ones too. I think you hate our president too much to see past him to the real country.

Quote from: LostTraveler on Thu 24/06/2004 17:42:57
14 reasons America isnt great
Random order

14: Wellfare pays more to those who dont work
13: You can die for your country but cant drink until 21
12: The elderly get free money for being old
11: You have to have money to make money
10: You are arrested fo concealing a weapon
9: The government runs the world wide web
8: The rich get better educations
7: Our leader opposes WMD when we currently have hundreds
6: Your arrested for not wearing clothes
5: Law doesnt affect rich (You dont see a pothead celebrity busted for drugs)
4: Huge social class differences
3: Homeless people are mocked
2: Tarrifs on importing medicine
1: its a democracy

14) welfare systems arent unique to America by any means, most westen nations have them. I take it you prob havent worked with poor/unemployed people before...those checks a) dont last forever and b) are squat. its for people who are in between jobs.
13)several US citizens voiced the same complaint, so drinking age was moved to 18. Kids which such stupid gits that the number of teenage DUI's skyrocked. They moved it to 21, so kids could have more driving experience under their belts, before they drank. Teenage DUI's, while high, are much lower then they used to be.
12)Refer to previous post on social secuirty. You wanna work when you're 81 and have artiritis? go for it. Most people cant.
11) uh...welcome to the real world kid. if you're gonna bitch about this, why bitch about welfare? free money to go make some money! This statement isnt also totally true
10) nope. that depends on the state. In Ohio, with a permit, you can carry a conceled weapon. In fact, with a permit, you can in most of America.
9) actually, the internet is one of the most under-regulated parts of our society. Hense, to internet taxes, or goverment stepping in to block piracy. So...you're wrong there too.
8) This is partly true. I dream of a day when we can have higher education reform in our country. this is getting better. If you're smart, you'll find a way into school.
7) No arugement here. Our leader sucks. Course, we're not stupid enough to use them right now, whereas North Korea might be.
6) uh...so? there are nudist areas in America, and a few states have laws where women can go shirtless in public. Still...remember most americans are overweight. you dont want to open this box.
5. Yeah you do. happens all the time. Hell, even Bush's kids got busted for underage.
4) Yup. that happens everywhere tho. I think work is being done with this tho.
3) Thats sometimes true. there are a lot of programs to help the homeless tho
2) I dont really know enough about this
1) actually, I think thats the best part.

Its too bad that this great thread has become an america-bashing thread. Yeah, we have faults...all countries do. Its too bad that our crummy leader has killed american popularity everywhere. i really dont think we're that bad,

Flepe, Brasilian soaps rock my socks. My mom brought some back, and I've watched a few before. Their quite funny, and it helps me with my brasilian language skills a bit
(I'll PM you soon, I just saw you wrote me)

Quote from: panda isnt a ninja on Fri 25/06/2004 00:57:468) This is partly true. I dream of a day when we can have higher education reform in our country. this is getting better. If you're smart, you'll find a way into school.

There is at least one state that offers free higher education to its citizens.. though I can't remember which one. Lower-cost education is available in the poorer states (such as mine) and any person who would actually be capable of completing college could get enough loans and scholarships to pay through, along with a part time job (keep in mind that not just anyone can complete college, see drop out rates).

Texas offers free admisison to the top 10% of any school's graduating class. I think florida and nevada have similar programs

Most schools (colleges, and private school which normally have a much better education than public) are becoing need blind in letting kids in, and all scholarships they give out are need based. So you get into places no matter how much money you have, and then the school and other linked organizations will help you pay for it.

Also, you're point is made cooler by the guy with the sunglasses.

Holy hell, I leave this post alone for 24 hours and it turns upside down. What IS all this extremist fighting for? Let's just say that like every country on earth, there are many good points and bad points about the US, and it's language.

Ryukage - you need to cool down. You'll never, ever win an argument like this, and it's just pointless. I must admit, I was quite shocked at your firm stance on English (American-English in particular!) being the best language and I can tell you that this is bullshit. I've had the pleasure of learning at least a bit of many, many languages so far in my short life, and meeting many, many people who are currently learning English from all sorts of countries, and English is honestly one of the most difficult languages to learn. I think that overall, the difficulty of learning a language depends on what your first language is, and your general way of thinking (some people find Japanese to be a complete bitch to learn, whereas I find it the easiest language of them all).  I'm not going to get into a linguistics debate because this thread is supposed to be a relatively friendly discussion about cultural differences. Just try to open your mind to a bit more international reality. It's great that you love your country, I love mine too. I just don't let that get in the way of being able to see Australia's faults, and I don't let myself think that just because something we do is good, it doesn't mean another country's way is bad.

One thing though...

Quote
Farmers can eat all the hamburgers and drink all the coke they want and still stay fit and trim.

...and let's not start thinking that 'trim' is any indication of health. No matter how much exercise you do, eating and drinking that stuff all the time is gonna have a big effect on your health. Just just seem healthy right now because they haven't been diagnosed with diabetes or had heart failure yet. I just thought this was way too big of an exagerration.

Getting a bit back on topic... I was wondering with all this news on the Olympics, are there any countries that DON'T get the Olympics shown all over television when it's on? As much as I generally enjoy them, Australia gets bombarded with the Olympics.

I live on one of the small mauntains in the surrounds of Mebourne Aus. - I have seen in the ten years living there -

Many possums (noisy roof tap dancing vermin - but cute - tend to get electricuted alot).

Kangaroos - many in the fields and many crossing the roads - I have had the unfortunate pleasure of hitting on (whilst driving my sisters car) and glanceing another - You could be going 10 kph and still not be able to stop in time - they pop out of no where very quickly.

0 platypus

4 koalas in gum trees in my back yard - they are loud and sound like growling pumas (no kidding it's a bit scarey the first time you hear one - possums make a freaky sound too like the soundtrack from a scarey movie ' C-C-C-C-ch-ch-ch-ch '.

1 echidna being chased by a labradore who got spiked  - the echidna was trying to hide under a stump - I got to pet it and it was kinda cool (the echidna not the labradore).

That is all. 'cept . .


Austalian animals are noisy and over-rated. Kangaroo meat is tuff and Emu tastes like a light form of beef.

That is all.

The Olympics are always on here too. I think it's likely to be that way in every country, so long as they care about whether or not they win. With the Olympics, it's a matter of national pride, so it is probably most often the case.

Oh, possum noises are SO scary when you hear them for the first time! I remember one night I was asleep upstairs (we have a computer downstairs), I wake up and I hear this "Ch ch ch chch ch" sound that sounded EXACTLY ... E X A C T L Y like keyboard typing from downstairs. I just lay there with no doubt in my mind that downstairs there was a ghost typing on the keyboard and it knew I could hear it, and was waiting for me to come downstairs and die of fright. I woke up my boyfriend and it stopped (as always) which only freaked me out even more. Eventually, he told me it was a possum and I guess I must have believed him in the end. Still, as funny as it is now, it was so scary at the time ^_^

I had a similar experience when I woke up in the middle of the night and a possum (which typically run around in our walls and ceiling) was snoring. It was so much like a deep, human snore. I'm very used to them now and they're almost comforting to hear scurrying around.

Like you said, they have a bad habit of getting electrocuted :) In my area, it's bats more than anything. It's hard to wander around the area without seeing at least one dead bat hanging from the power lines.

Are your power lines not insulated? Birds and all kinds of other animals sit on them here.. without the ground wire there is no danger.

As I understand it, birds are fine because their legs are insulated but bats are a different story. I'm not sure exactly how it works but I think it's because they hold on to two wires at once. (The same goes for possums too, they usually climb along one wire but if they try to move to another, they get electrocuted).

I think...

The way birds get away with it is like this.. There are two lines in an AC circuit, and then the ground for disposing of voltage. You cannot be electrocuted by touching any one of those wires alone, any two together will electrocute you. Most power lines insulate one of the AC wires and the other is wrapped around it, and the ground is derived at each location where electricity is needed by sticking a giant rod into the earth. So the thing is, the only way for them to complete the circuit on top of the line would be to connect the two wires, which isn't going to happen because one is always insulated thus the circuit cannot be completed. No animal would survive the massive voltage. Humans wear multiple layers of extremely thick gloves to handle such wires.

Electrocution of animals usually happens at a junction point, where there are exposed wires in close enough proximity to get them. I still don't understand how a bat would suffer there though.. a Possum could easily do so.

Quote from: Sutebi on Fri 25/06/2004 01:54:51

Also, you're point is made cooler by the guy with the sunglasses.

offtopic

that guy with teh sunglasses is an older picture of me

/offtopic

We have plenty of bats down here, but rarely have I heard of one being electrocuted.

Rarely, but it has happened.

Queensland is a crazy backwards place though, so, after overcoming the initial surprise that they have electricity, they may not have learnt the art of insulation that the cockroaches have.

LostTraveler,

  I get what you're saying, about all the atrocities about America, but you must remember, for all the horrid things, there have been equal amounts of wonderful things.  No country is perfect, we can only hope to try and achieve a decent balance of the black and white.

Bt

Hey, look :P All I know is that there are a lot of fried bats here hanging from wires.

It's kind of strange that NSW is referred to as the cockroach state when we seem to have so many in QLD. I've never seen a cane toad either @_@

Quote from: panda isnt a ninja on Fri 25/06/2004 00:57:46

14) welfare systems arent unique to America by any means, most westen nations have them. I take it you prob havent worked with poor/unemployed people before...those checks a) dont last forever and b) are squat. its for people who are in between jobs.

My brothers best friend is poor. His dad doesnt pay childsupport, his mom works 2 shifts at burgerking
The checks last as long as you need them. Wellfare is the lifeline for that family.

Quote
13)several US citizens voiced the same complaint, so drinking age was moved to 18. Kids which such stupid gits that the number of teenage DUI's skyrocked. They moved it to 21, so kids could have more driving experience under their belts, before they drank. Teenage DUI's, while high, are much lower then they used to be.

Driving shouldnt interfere with the drinking age. The rest of the world doesnt have a drinking age that high, in italy the kids drink wine every day.

Quote
12)Refer to previous post on social secuirty. You wanna work when you're 81 and have artiritis? go for it. Most people cant.

You should save money

Quote
11) uh...welcome to the real world kid. if you're gonna bitch about this, why bitch about welfare? free money to go make some money! This statement isnt also totally true

The entire system keeps the poor poor now, most poor people have a bad education and cant get a wellpaying job.

Quote
10) nope. that depends on the state. In Ohio, with a permit, you can carry a conceled weapon. In fact, with a permit, you can in most of America.

You need a permit for something that can save your life

Quote

Quote
9) actually, the internet is one of the most under-regulated parts of our society. Hense, to internet taxes, or goverment stepping in to block piracy. So...you're wrong there too.

You can be arrested for hacking, spamming, looking at porn, shopping at certain websites. The government shouldnt regulate something that is everyones

Quote
8) This is partly true. I dream of a day when we can have higher education reform in our country. this is getting better. If you're smart, you'll find a way into school.

agreed

Quote
7) No arugement here. Our leader sucks. Course, we're not stupid enough to use them right now, whereas North Korea might be.

I wish they would

Quote
6) uh...so? there are nudist areas in America, and a few states have laws where women can go shirtless in public. Still...remember most americans are overweight. you dont want to open this box.

Public indescency laws. Clothes where invented to keep you warm, they shouldnt be mandatory tho

Quote

5. Yeah you do. happens all the time. Hell, even Bush's kids got busted for underage.

I was flipping through channels and Snoop Dog was smoking pot on mtv, Jack osbourne had coke on his shirt on mtv aswell.

Quote
4) Yup. that happens everywhere tho. I think work is being done with this tho.

Not enough is being done. We have people with $0.00 and people with $16,000,000,000

Quote
3) Thats sometimes true. there are a lot of programs to help the homeless tho

We have billions in surplus, why not give them low budget housing if they get jobs?

Quote
2) I dont really know enough about this

Canada has cheaper medicine

Quote
1) actually, I think thats the best part.

W00t we can pick the dictator for four years!'

Lets end the debate


Marykate Olsen just admitted to having an eating dissorder, just another example of how american women are obsessed with their weight, is it like this throughout the world?

Ending that debate is a good idea, because with arguments like those you're not going to get far.

last time Im responding, but I cant resist.

point 1) if you work at burgerking, I dont think you're still allowed to earn welfare checks. this is an entire arugement in itself...I find it weird that when you whine about how wealth needs to be redistruibed, then you whine about a public assistence program like welfare. you want to hate one of the other, thats fine, honorible people do...but both?

2) Yes, but drinking in those cultures are different. driving has everything to do with drinking age, as (right now), a drinking age of 18 would be a public health risk. A lot of those european nations dont let people drive until they are 18. by then, they are used to booze, and DUIs arent as much of a problem.

3) Yes, and if you dont, you still wont be able to live. SS checks simply arent much. I would agree that those who are multimilionaries prob shouldnt be taking SS checks, but a lot of people need them. Again, for somebody who wants more communism in America, (as taken from a previous point), why do you oppose state social policty? you sound like a republican.

4) to a point. there are avenues for poor people to enroll in a community college, or get some type of vocational skills. or work in constrction. is the system perfect? no. but its not so much worse in the states then it is anywhere else.

5) waahhh waaaaaah! take a 4 hour class to learn how to shoot a gun. whats the freakin deal. it keeps wackos from packing heat in their sock. Buddy, I live in the hickish midwest. there are certain people who SHOULD NOT be paking a gun. If you're that worried about getting mugged, carry a stun gun or mace. you dont need a permit, and it does the same thing.

6) Ok. Hacking is Vandalism or Theft. both are crimes no? Doesnt matter that they are done with a computer. the only porn you arent allowed to look at is child porn and snuff porn. Thats illigal in print too. Nothing to do with comptuers. Spamming illigal? so is telemarketing without a licence. The internet has nothing to do with it. Those acts are crimes anywhere else.

7) --
8) wait wait wait. are you suggestiing that North Korea Nuke America? are you fucking out of your mind?

9) you dont want manitory clothes? live in a nudist beach. Im sorry...but I dont want to see 300 pound guys with their penises waving about. thats gross. I dont think too many sane people past puberty agree with you here
10) it isnt illigal to have coke on your shirt. (wait. are we talking about an actual drug on the shirt, or a coke phrase?). Osbone and Snoop have been in trouble with the law before about drugs. Not like it matters. If Snoop is speeding, and he's on weed, he's gonna be busted
11) I think Massive Wealth redistribution worked very well for soviet russia. not. If you're so in favor of giving the poor money, why are you complaining about ss and welfare? think food stamps suck too?
12) uh, who'se economy are you looking at? If we're both looking at America, you have the words Surplus mixed up with the word defict. as in in record defict. As in, spending a lot more then we make. Where's the $$ gonna come from? Local goverments in big cities provide low cost housing. the federal gov doesnt have the dough right now
13) Canada was cheaper meds because their med system is nationalized. If there were tarrifs, people wouldnt but the drugs from canada, cause america would mark them up. Maybe this would be a good idea, maybe it wouldnt be.
14) Dictator for 4 years? what a cynical and ignorant thought. I dont think you quite understand what a dictator means

if you want to fight more, Im game. We can make another thread debating capitalism and your weirdo system.

On a more ontopic note, those people who live in more social democracys (like demark and norway)

what is your tax rate
what services does your gov provide
do you like working/living in that system

Im anti SS but For a reformed wellfare policy.

For a little point of clarification regarding the Surplus/Deficit thing...
I'm assuming he's referring to the Social Security Surplus, rather than to the Federal budget. Correct me if I'm wrong [after all, I've only studied Australian fiscal policy] but in the US I believe that Social Security has it's taxation revenue and it's expenditure through payments seperate to the main Budget.

So whilst the budget has returned to massive deficits [power having been wrested from those austerely spendocrat Democrats], the Social Security system is in surplus, having collected more from the 12% of whatever on the PAYG than it's paying in its [austere by the standards of the western world] welfare cheques.

I also believe that there is a common practice where the surplus on the Social Security is used the fuzz the deficit on the Budget.

Actually, the social security system is in crisis of not being able to pay out the "baby boomers." The baby boomers are the generation that were suspiciously abundantly born after soldiers returned from WWII. They are the most in number among American generations and are in danger of bankrupting the SS system because of that. Bush is attempting to fix this by getting more foreign workers, because they pay SS tax but don't benefit from it due to their non-citizenship status. Personally, I think there are better ways, but it should work.

As of yet, that's a projected problem that has to be dealt with, but which hasn't actually put the Social Security Trust [which my research subsequent to the last post tells me is the name of the off budget system] into deficit.

After all, the Aging population problem, specifically relating to the disproportionate amount of Baby Boomers, can't really be said to be effect old age pensions.

Taking the standard definition of a Boomer being a member of the generation born after the war, even the absolute oldest members are in their late 50's.

But moreover, having the Welfare system seperate to the Budget is...well, bizaare. I can only assume it was the result of the machinations of FDR's time.

Quote from: Peter Thomas on Wed 23/06/2004 04:40:52
More about Australia:

-Yes, as OsUltimo said, you can see a Kangaroo if you go and look, but they don't hop down the city streets. There used to be a family of about 20 kangaroos that lived about 700 meters from my house, but only because our house was very new, and the rest of the area was undeveloped, so the 'roos all lived in the bush. It's not like you walk down the driveway and spot them hiding on your roof. Actually, a lot of aussies are afraid of kangaroos. Their hind legs are so powerful they can kick your bowels out in about 1.5 seconds. That would be most painful, I imagine.

- The most-played sport in Aus is soccer, although I don't believe it has the largest fan-club. Most people seem to know a lot more about football (yes, football, that game played with the brown, eliptical ball you throw at each other) than soccer, which is understandable, seeing as soccer is gay and crap and should be banned.

- 13 year old girls in GENERAL don't dress like whores. They are slowly becoming MORE whore-like (and I completely 100% blame America's media domination of Australia for this), but as I see it, the whore-age doesn't arrive until about 16/17. Of course, there are exceptions, and these exceptions are increasing by the day, as girls realise they can get away with shorter and shorter and shorter skirts and skimpier and skimpier tops. I want to shoot them (mainly because if you are going to wear sexy clothes, you must AT LEAST have breasts to show off in them, so you aren't pulling up the front of your shirt every 5 seconds! And I mean that seriously)

- We don't like beer as much as the Scottish. But yes, we DO like it.

- Women's Lib is undergoing a change in Aus. More and more women are reverting back to 'tradition' - that is, staying at home and being a housewife. Not by force, but completely by choice.

- Some of our delicacies include Kangaroo/Platapus/Wombat meat, as well as Dingo Steak.

- We wear clothes.

Agreed except for the football talk.

AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL is played with a red or yellow eliptical ball that you KICK or HANDBALL to each other an is played on an OVAL, you must be either from NSW or QLD because every other state and Territory plays Aussie rules and not Thugby.
Soccer isn't gay or crap either, Thugby on the otherhand is.
(

And the above is true, that in the southern and Western states Aussie Rules is more popular, and garners more obsessive fans [face it, what else do you do in Adelaide?].

It's Melbourne's greatest obsession but for talking about Sydney.

Quote from: Ryukage on Thu 24/06/2004 21:21:41

A Mexican friend of mine who speaks both Spanish and Portugese told me that Portugese is basically Spanish with a wierd accent, which seems to be backed up by a multilingual dictionary I have.Ã,  This leads me to believe that, not being fluent in either language myself and observing the wide variety of accents found in Latin America, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference from a random TV broadcast or music video.Ã,  Just because *you* know what language is spoken in Brasil doesn't mean that information has ever been available to me from a reliable source before now.

Ryukage, that Mexican friend of yours shows he didn't know what he is saying. Knowing a few Portuguese words isn't enough: it's necessary knowing its origin.
An old theory is all languages came from a first original one, the Sanscipt. Now that Spanish was in the basis of Portuguese..., is the same that telling Welsh is in the basis of English: no, they're two different languages!
Let me try to explain you a thing: In Romanic speaking countries, the languages were basically a mix of the Latin with the local speaking dialects and languages. So they have been talked differently in each region, forming the five main Romanic languages: French; Italian; Portuguese; Roumenian; Spanish. Of course there are other languages (as the Basque, one of the oldest European languages, and has nothing with Latin, so it isn't an Indo-European language, but older than that). So, also according to your Mexican mate, Spanish could be Italian with a weird accent...
Farland won't let me lie here. Galicia and Portugal have had a dialect called Galaico-Portuguese, mostly used for poetry and literary works, but that one was forbidden by Castilla after 1385.
Now if you tell me Galician was in the origin of Portuguese (but not Spanish), maybe I agree: it's one of the theories. If you say to a Galician his/her language came from Castilian/Spanish/whatever, you are also wrong.
http://www.applet-magic.com/spport.htm

Quote
That said, I do know some fragments of Spanish and a few Spanish grammar rules, and I find most of the latter to be unnecessary complications with no effect on the meaning of the sentence.Ã,  As an anime fan, I've also studied Japanese and Chinese a bit, and being a medieval folklore buff I've studied some German as well.Ã,  I've found that as much as I enjoy learning *about* other languages, actually learning to speak them is beyond my abilities.Ã,  So I'm far from ignorant of other languages, I'm just not fluent in any of them.

It's the prize we must pay for having a so theoretical and complicated language (Latin) as our mother-tongue: every "specialist" had something to say, forming the most complicated grammar and ortographic rules ever. The "Arts Grammaticae" were studied throughout the Middle Ages and are still being studied nowadays, although Latin is already a dead language, now only spoken eg in Vatican between church ministers of different countries.

Quote
And of course, the only true ignorance is believing one knows everything.Ã,  Such a one asks no questions, because he believes he has all the answers already.Ã,  I know enough to know that I know very little of all there is to know, so I ask questions in a continual attempt to fill in the dreadful gaps, and dispense freely of the knowledge I already have to help others do the same.Ã,  You learn something every time you objectively consider another's point of view with an open mind, even if you ultimately determine it to be foolish.

I must repeat, nobody knows everything. And must add I personally am Socratic: "All I know is that I know less every day".

QuoteHe [Spielberg]reveals his ignorance...

Yeah, I was too rude, and I've apologised for that yet. But still think Spielberg could have done a few researches (eg he could have paid a university team for a serious history research), as a movie is seen worldwide, so its historical mistakes too.

Seriously guys, if you want to debate social security and other things, just start another thread.

Yeah, I always watch the Olympics here. And when America was doing well in the soccer world cup I think a lot of Americans watched that, and a lot of Americans don't really like soccer. It's all about national pride.

As this is starting to be a politically oriented thread, I wont talk about my country.
Ofcourse you can see that all of us are very alike.

But I really cant believe that someone really believes in the things that Ryu says.
I'm more on the LostTraveler's side.

Everything (democracy, socialism/communism) sounds good in theory, but in practice there is one huge factor that stops it from being real. That is the human person itself, his greed, lust for more etc. etc.

The only way this world can survive is by socialism/Karl Marx's way, but only when people will start too see that there isÃ,  more that to money.
That means the whole world will have to become more spiritual.
The good thing is that the process has already begun, but the bad news is that the total conversion could come too late....

But you can take sides all you want the truth is that if you dont want it to be like that anymore, you should start asking yourselves the real questions like:

Did anything that i did in my life made it better? ( That's for those kids that are angry at everyone around them)

I think every country's youth follows the trend that is in the world, so now the majority is following the Low-life thugs' way of living, which doesnt necesarilly have to be bad, as the person can later get stuffed with it and figure out that it was just a period in his life
that he had.

I hope i made my point, because i dont have a tendecy of making posts which make a whole lot of sense.

Stay well, Czar.


oh yeah, all you open minded, check this out
http://www.geocities.com/changetheworld_now/index.html

Quote from: Peter Thomas on Wed 23/06/2004 04:40:52
seeing as soccer is gay and crap and should be banned.

Fuck you!

and some more stuff bout us Australians
- We dont act like Steve Irwin, and thank fuck for that.

Did you know America got him before us.

Quote from: Preparación De Ensalada on Sat 26/06/2004 04:44:40

Quote from: Peter Thomas on Wed 23/06/2004 04:40:52
seeing as soccer is gay and crap and should be banned.

Fuck you!

and some more stuff bout us Australians
- We dont act like Steve Irwin, and thank fuck for that.

Did you know America got him before us.

that's simply gorgeus  ;)

Estonia, one freakin' weird country:

Facts:
- among teenagers, you're not acceptable male human being when you don't own at least 5 of following things:

Ã,  1) BMW which serial number starts with number 3 or 7 (at least)
Ã,  2) Latest mobile phone from Finland (preferably Nokia)
Ã,  3) Lots of cash
Ã,  4) Bad attitude
Ã,  5) Lots of friends
Ã,  6) Problems with alcohol
Ã,  7) Extra cash to bribe security guard at every night club
Ã,  8 ) Desire to fight all the time for no reason
Ã,  9) No driving license, and fear to get caught because of it
10) No respect, especially for female beings

- We eat blood sausage during christmas... yes, a sausage made of gut of a pig, filled with groats and blood... delicious
- Kids get their first cellphone at the age of 6
- Education is at ultra high levels, except for businessmen and politicans
- Kids don't shoot at school
- Very few people have firearms, even less are able to get license for it
- We are not commies
- We are not located somewhere in south africa
- We are not russian
- about 30 - 40% of people living here actually are
- Out government has been under numerous other countries during history, such as germany, sweden, russia, denmark, etc.
- Every average estonian is able to speak russian and english language
- We never have no mass riots or demonstrations. Never.
- Most people have brains. Maybe it's because of cold.
- We have some weird letters, such as ä,ö,ü,õ
- Very few people make freeware computer games. About 30, if not less. I know all of them. Most of them are at the age of 13-17. 90% of them uses Game Maker.Ã, 
- Religion is out
- Sports (games) are out, unless some estonian gets some medals somewhere, like Erki Nool did at Olympics some years ago
- 18 is the age of total freedom (alcohol, smoking)
- 13 is the age when people start to enjoy total freedom
- 21 is the age when people may go to casino

Argh.

QuoteWe eat blood sausage during christmas... yes, a sausage made of gut of a pig, filled with groats and blood... delicious

Good ole scottish meal that one.

I haven't read all 7 pages, so if this has been said before, sorry.

I live in Northern Ireland.
Its not all bombs and terrorists and Catholics and Protestants killing each other because they worship the same god in a different way.

Well actually it is, but I live in the NICE part of town, where none of that vile stuff happens.

Its a pretty grotty country. Most people have been smoking and drinking since they were 13. Its terrible when on a TV show, if they show a map of Britain, and we aren't on it. It makes me angry and frustrated.

There is a big stadium/concert hall/ice rink/bowling alley/restaraunt/bar/multiplex place called the Oddesey.

And it is the ONLY good thing in the entire god-forsaken place.

Unlike most, I don't have an accent. I speak in clear, dulcet tones, thank you very much.

The most noteable and best thing about England, that as far as I know has yet to be mentioned, is...

You all speak our language!

This is great news for gentle liberal types like me who want to spread the word of peace globally, and even better news for the aforementioned sunburned thugs who want to buy booze on holiday without using a phrase book.

Ryukage:

QuoteBTW, in that episode they said that language spoken in Brasil is Portugese, not Spanish.  Is that true?  Every Brasillian I've ever seen on TV has appeared to be speaking Spanish, though I can't swear I'd be able to tell the difference.

As already said: NO - It's not true. We speak PORTUGUESE here.
But it's nice that you've mentioned it 'cos I've heard this before (and couldn't believe it!)
The problem is that in most films, when somewhere is supposed to be Brazil people usually talk in spanish (with a few -rares- exceptions). This is because the directors say: "WTF, the won't know the difference so just put 'em talking in spanish"
The thing is there are MANY differences.

QuoteA Mexican friend of mine who speaks both Spanish and Portugese told me that Portugese is basically Spanish with a wierd accent, which seems to be backed up by a multilingual dictionary I have.

Well, tell your friend he's totally wrong!
As I said before there are many differences between Portuguese and Spanish.
Not only in the pronunciation but we even have different letters! (Like, in portuguese we have 'ç' and many acents like ' ~ ^ ` and in Spanish they have ñ ll and y that do not exist in Portuguese)

Primus:

QuoteAntónio Noivo Cueca had to remove "Cueca" from the phone list as calls making fun of his name were driving him crazy...

Hehe
This made me remember this joke we have about a portuguese that was called Joaquim Bosta, and he was fed up of people making fun of his name so he decided to change it. When asked what name he'd like to change to he said:
- "Ah... pode ser Manuel Bosta, mesmo." ;D

QuoteWe've also a special group we have most jokes: "Alentejanos".

I did notice you have a LOT of them... but what would "alentejanos" be?
It'd be much funnier if only I knew what you mean with it!

About the jokes about Brazilians:
Well, most of the jokes I saw there, are told here, but with Portuguese when it says Brazilian.
So... the thing is who made fun of who first?

Anyway, we have MANY more jokes about you (Portugueses) than I noticed you have from us...
Just google "piadas portugues" and check it out...!


Now, I'd like to know from you greeks:
Does EVERY greek name end with 's'?
I was looking the names of the football team the other day (Nikopolidis, Seitaridis, Dellas, Kapsis, Fyssas, Venetidis; Zagorakis, Katsouranis, Karagounis, Tsiartas, Giannakopoulos, Nikolaidis, Charisteas and Vryzas); and also others I know, like Socrates, Aristoteles, Spyros Soldatos, Telemachus Stavropoulos, Antonis Vavayannis...
Does that mean something or is it just an ENORMOUS COINCIDENCE?


[OFF TOPIC]
Panda:

Quote

QuoteAlso, you're point is made cooler by the guy with the sunglasses.

offtopic

that guy with teh sunglasses is an older picture of me

/offtopic

Lol, I believe he was talking about the point #8, that was "turned" into a smiley by Yabb, and not about your avatar ;)


-Felipe-