not everyone is American! gasp!

[Squinky]

Now that I've seen that pic of Slaveikov Square, I really wanna check that out...heh

For some reason, when I'm online I tend to run into more people from Argentina than anywhere else....

[Robert Eric]

I agree.  Before the internet, I thought Canada and the USA were the only countries that meant anything...

I'm just kidding, you ignorant little foreigners!!!

[TheYak]

Perhaps this topic is founded on a valid point but I have encountered several conversations where I have been totally lost.  These are often discussions about certain sports, TV shows, etc.  If non-Americans have to put up with Americans using asinine references then it partially makes up for all the flak Americans receive from people residing in other countries.  

I will, however, try to keep in mind that other users may not know what a Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Circuit City, McDonald's, Taxi, Disneyland, et cetera, is.  Perhaps annoying but if you can't work out what a Best Buy and Circuit City are from the post's context, I worry for you.  A gentle chiding would've done but the point is made, thank you.  

[InCreator]

Hey, America means a damn huge piece of land and foreigners mean usually smaller countries, so ignorance at this level is supposed to be absolutely okay and part of our civilization. Smaller always trying to make bigger noise - doesn't it even exist in America itsself (afroamericans,feminists,all kinds of believers,nut people,gays,etc).

Personally, I'd be grateful, if someone bombs that large McDonalds restaurant that makes my hometown's most beautiful place, Gates of Viru (part of our "old town" or however you call it) look like a flea market.

There's nothing wrong with globalization IMHO, though americani-zation doesn't make me happy at all.

Instead of spreading shops where crap food and cheap toys from china are sold worldwide, people could consider doing same with public libraries or some else useful thing like that.
And somewhere where it's needed. Africa, perhaps?

But maybe it's just me and/or my country and recent events here. We're discussing allying with NATO pretty soon and US bases, with a american solider standing in a gate with large army boots and lazily chewing gum - doesn't sound like a thing I would like to see on this sacred ground I'm used to call my motherland.

I have no tolerance at this kinda stuff and I'm happy that ancient roman guys invented forums so I could digitally make myself clear. But who cares, right?

[Timosity]

Just another similar little thing I've noticed which comes from releases of movies etc, is When someone says They'll release a game "Summer 2004", I usually just assume it means Summer in Northern Hemisphere, but that is only Northern Hemisphere specific. It's not really that much of a big deal, but It seems that a lot of people make this honest mistake.

[TheYak]

That's true.  Much of the world is biased in that respect.  The Winter Olympics is probably a strange moniker to you folks.  Of course, we could just establish a common season-zone like we have time-zone and have a G.M.S.  (Greenwich Mean Season).  

I'm a bit confused about a previous statement about Foster's.  I've heard on commercials that "Foster's is Australian for beer."  

[Vel]

LOL Evenwolf!

[Timosity]

The Winter Olympics is probably a strange moniker to you folks.

Not really so much because it's always in the northern hemisphere, I sort of know it will be round summer sometime every 4 years. And it's not a big event cause we never win anything. We have no snow to practise in, although we have word champions in the arial jump thingy with twists and stuff.

I have no idea actually if the winter olypics has been in the sothern hemisphere, It's possible that it's been in a country in South America, but there isn't many places for skiing in the SH.

It is strange (as I'm totally going off topic) that there seem to be NO AGSers from the continent of Africa, It is even left off the AGS MAP, Surely there has been some in the past or I'm just not aware of everyone's location.

I'm a bit confused about a previous statement about Foster's.  I've heard on commercials that "Foster's is Australian for beer."  

I've never heard of it, maybe it's Austrian beer

Yeah, it's just what we have in our taps (faucets) and if we run out we whistle really loudly and a Kangaroo ... no that story won't work

I'm sure you're aware from other posts that Fosters is just a famous beer we export so that CJ is kept happy and AGS continues to exceed our beliefs.

I think I've had Fosters once

I only noticed the other day my local shopping centre has an "Electronics Boutique" I think it's a fairly new chain here, I could be wrong as I'm not much of a shopper.

[Pumaman]

I think we're probably all guilty of doing this from time to time - I know I've probably said Brit-specific stuff without even realising it.

The thing is though, as long as from the context of the sentence you can work out what the words mean (like Best Buy in this example), it's quite harmless - and just provides a bit of extra info to people who do live in your country.

Also, it can be hard to know whether a retail chain, for instance, is a global thing or just within your country. Am I allowed to say McDonalds? Or not, in case there isn't one in Outer Mongolia? How globalized does something become before we can assume people know what it means.

There's also an important point about American media - TV, movies, etc. A lot of us will know what Starbucks is even if we've never actually seen one in real life - simply because it's something that crops up on American TV, and American shows tend to get exported to almost every country in the world.

[shbaz]

I was just looking at that picture of Slaveikov Square.. I was wondering, what the heck is Mdkgohavga??? The thing with the big M's?  :o

I must be a stupid American or something.

[Inkoddi]

It says "Macdonalds" in cyrillic letters

[Andail]

I guess you know what I think about the whole americanization-issue, so I'll just sit this one out

[Alynn]

Just want to point out, that if a mcdonalds is there, that means someone sold that property to mcdonalds to buy it.

The fact that some of you think all americans love that crap are sadly mistaken, I really can't stand mcdonals.

Calling the large amount of mcdonalds all across the world is not americanation that is capitalism. start a shop, make money, open more shops, make more money, open more shops... and so on... Personally I think there are way too many... on a single stretch of road (31W is Kentucky) between 2 towns (approximately 10 miles/ 16KM) And there are no less than 3 of them... a bit farther down the road, probably not more than 2 miles (3.2KM) there is another Mickie D's... Personally, thats overkill...

so before you go blaming americans for an american based shop in your town, remember someone local had to sell them the land, the government would have to give them the permits (I'm sure everywhere there is building permits,or business permits and so on and so forth)... Ya see what I mean? It's not like they forced their way in there and set up shop.

[AGA]

Foster's isn't even brewed in Australia. It's brewed over here (Britain).

[Timosity]

Foster's isn't even brewed in Australia. It's brewed over here (Britain).

A lot of products do that when they're popular, especially Beer as it doesn't travel well, Some Irish guy explained to me once that Guinness doesn't travel well and tastes different the further you get away from the Brewery, apparently it only tastes good within a certain radius that is only quite small.

Imagine if Coca Cola was exported (it probably is within some bordering countries), it would be so shaken up and probably flat by the time you got it, plus I don't think it would be practical or possible for it all to be made in just one country

Some product names are exported and the company gets royalties I guess.

I wonder what the worlds most successful product is that doesn't contain some form of addictive drug? probably milk or something.

[Goldmund]

Eric and Yakspit: yes, I can guess what certain names mean from the context, and of course I know most popular terms (McDonalds) because pop-culture is mainly, well, American culture.
In this case, it's not a problem whether some information is understood or not, it's the problem of being inconsiderate to those of other cultures.

P.S. It's like in conversations: when you sit at a table in a cafe with your friend and his friend you don't know, then you don't discuss something without making certain that this person unknown to you understands what you're saying. Doing otherwise is considered impolite - at least in my country.

[Matt Brown]

you're right gold, and Im sure that everyone here, be they yanks, brits, aussies, what have you, will try to keep this in mind

while this is exactly on topic, we were talking about about the spread of McDonlads and globalazation...

did you know that no two nations that both had a McDonalds have ever gone to war? I suppose that having a McDonalds represents that a country has abtained a certain amount of weath and such, that makes going to war undeseribile.

So, I guess there are some advantages to having one around

[Simple]

I don't really think that it's so strange or offensive an occurance...I'm an American and therefore I'm sure a LOT of what I say is Americanized, but I don't do it to spite anyone or to leave out others on the board.  If anything, I want everybody to be able to read it and make fun of it in the way that is most personal to them.

But I don't think that inserting a thoughtless reference to Best Buy or to Stewart's Root Beer or something really happens to frustrate anybody reading it.  Either they know what I'm talking about or they don't...and the odds are that you can get by pretty well from context clues anyway.

The internet is a great thing in the way that we can have representatives from any country here to discuss whatever we like and get instant feedback from all of them.  Yet we have to expect that we are going to find unintentionally ethnocentric replies simply because we all have such varying backgrounds and there is no common, universal vocabulary or set of ideas from which we can all draw.  

So no harm done, I think.  We all come from diverse regions with different histories, and I'm sure if any of us has a specific question about anything else written, we can always just ask--no offense was intended.

[Blackthorne]

Trying to keep up with all culture's personal pop-culture and idiosyncracies is tough, for sure - but half the fun of a commuunity like this one is learning about other people and other customs in countries.  Now, we're all speaking English here, but the slang changes so much from country to country!  From those of us who still use the letter "Z", what I've been told is an "archaic" letter,  to those of us who refer to a male friend as a "mate", difference is what makes the human race so interesting.  That we all can be different, yet we're all here, united under the common bond of gaming.   Just for the sake of creation and leisure, we comingle, learning more and more about just what people do.

And yes, we American's CAN BE very pompous and self absorbed.  So can any culture, we're just very good at it, because we're pumped full of self-agrandizing propaganda since they day we get shot out into the world.  We're a proud country, built from nothing but a bunch of religious rejects and criminals.  We went from unruly farmers to unruly politicians with way too much money in less that 300 years, and DAMMIT we rock.  Sorry if our puritan/heathen/captialist/humanitarian/war mongering/enigmatic/non-sequitorial ways are confusing.  We're just people, and not all of us are indicitive of that typical view of America.  Just as not ALL Brits are prisses with bad teeth and a penchant for TEA and ONLY TEA, or Austrialians are criminal brutes, or Bulgarians can't find their pants, or Frenchmen stink (well........prove me wrong, Batman!) etc...... we're all just learning, so sorry if toes are stepped on.  We need to teach each other.... not only get frustrated when someone makes a cultural faux-pas..... okay.  Cliche "Feel Good" speech over. Back to the regular debauchery.

Bt

[Nine Toes]

Hey!  Frenchmen don't stink!!!1!111  Who says that?