7 Myths British People Believe About America - Part 2

I worked with a guy from London whose mother called because she had heard about the wildfires in California and was worried that he might not be able to evacuate in time. We were in Vermont.

I think the thing about Americans not getting sarcasm, is we get sarcasm, it just the way Brits go about it that confuses us. Typically, when an American makes a sarcastic comment, we'll add a smirk, a raised eyebrow, change the tone of our voice, just something so the recipient knows we are being sarcastic. Brits just tend to do sarcasm totally deadpan, no verbal or facial cues at all, so we are never sure if they are being sarcastic or just rude.

Brits love to make fun of us for calling car fuel "gas" even though it's a liquid. But I always thought it made more sense than "petrol" because it's short for gasoline, which is what the fuel actually is. Petrol is short for petroleum, which is unrefined crude oil and not what actually goes into the cars.

Fun fact, the guy who discovered aluminum actually used the american version in his academic writings and it only became aluminium after the brits decided that it didn't fit with the spelling/pronunciations of other elements, so in a way the brits are pronouncing aluminum wrong

Being native to Texas, who studied abroad in England, I remember my English friends looking at me like I was insane for describing a trip as "well its only 4 hours by car" which led to a conversation about relative distances. When they found out that the nearest grocery store to my home in the US was an hour away by car at 70mph... they suddenly understood why a lot of Americans can't just walk places.

Regarding accents: I once saw a man in a car with Texas license plates ask a Massachusetts traffic cop for directions. They were both speaking English but they had no idea what the other one was saying.

I heard a story where someone had an English friend who lamented that he could only visit his Father twice a year because of how far away he lived. Apparently a mere 45 minute drive away. For many Americans this was like a commute to work every day. They summarized this by saying: “Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance, while Americans think 100 years is a long time.”

I feel like most Americans imagine the UK as having three accents as well. There’s a “Standard British accent” like James Bond and Star Wars villains have, a cockney accent for whimsical chimney sweeps and Dickensian orphans, and a Scottish accent that’s basically Shrek. And come to think of it, those sort of match similar roles in media as the three American accents you mentioned and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

The point about surprising distance works in the opposite way too. As an American it blows my mind that you could cross an entire country in less than a day.

While in college I hosted a German exchange student for a semester here in Texas. We had a fantastic time and have remained in contact since. However, one thing we still laugh about was his desire to see the US while he was here. We only had two weeks at the end of the semester before he had to fly home. He wanted to see Florida so we planned a road trip. He then asked if we could hop over to Hawaii while there. I informed him that we would be on the wrong coast to "hop" over to Hawaii for a few days. He absolutely insisted that Hawaii was off the coast of Florida and insinuated that as an American I was geographically unaware; was it a myth or stereotype.

“You can drive across the USA in a day, right?” Me: laughs in native Texan

Went to school in the Netherlands but am from the US. My friend told his parents about me who basically wanted nothing to do with me before meeting me or hearing anything about me. Then he told them I'm from Massachusetts and they were like "thank god, we thought he might be from California or something". The thought of judging someone from what state they're from has never crossed my mind and it's crazy to hear people from other countries form opinions of people by what part of the country they're from, especially from the cultural melting pot that is the US.

Fun Fact: According to linguists, North Carolina alone has over 200 documented dialects, and I remember moving only according county lines and being openly confused around certain people.

I was on a British Airways flight to England once and got in what I figured was the line to the lavatory. I asked the woman standing near the door if she was in line. She very huffily replied, "It's called a queue! Yes, I am in the queue." I was thinking, a simple yes would have been fine.

During the year that I was a cab driver, I picked up a fare at the commuter airport who wanted to go to the local naval base. When he asked - in a Texas accent - how far away the base was, I replied "A long way... about eight or nine miles". He barked "Eight or nine miles!? Shoot, back home eight or nine miles is around the corner!!" Growing up in New England - just as in England itself - had given me a cramped sense of distance.

I actually did read a book some years ago whose whole point was addressing the fact that American English is closer to traditional British English than British English is.

A friend of mine from Germany thought everyone wore cowboy hats in the US. She came to Minnesota, where almost no one does. She was a little let down that it wasn't like the western movies she had grown up watching.

It's not just Brits who don't get the distances--especially out West. Years ago, when I was living in DC, I met someone who was going to take a trip out Oregon. They had never been outside of New England (until going to DC). They asked if it was better to take a taxi or rent a car for the two weeks they would be there. After asking a few questions, I found that their itinerary would be to fly to Portland, visit Multnomah Falls, go skiing at Timberline, visit Bend, go to Crater Lake, go to Klamath Falls and then head to the coast and visit a few towns before heading back to Portland...I had to explain that the drive from Portland to Timberline alone was 3 hours, and that from Timberline to Bend was another 3 hours (in good weather), Bend to Crater Lake was at least 2.5 hrs.... They did not understand that you can drive for 6 hours East or South from Portland and still be in Oregon...

Accents are super-fun. I can tell you as a lifelong Californian that just my state has numerous accents, some based on location, some based on generation and some based on the predominant places of origin of the majority of the people that live there. Remember the "Valley Girl"? Yes, that was a real accent and still influences the way we speak in CA today.

I do hate being mocked by other countries' citizens because they get their ideas of us off memes and their own perceptions of our culture because culture was a major American export for 50 years or something, so people think they know us, but they don't. Places like this are the only place I feel like it's okay to say it hurts my feelings when people are mean about my home country. We're just different from them, and I wish people were chill about us all having differences.