Quote:
Originally Posted by montsnmags
I've heard that before, yes (most often from Texans, FWIW). When I visited the US in 2000, what struck me was the variation in geography (Australia has vast swathes of similarity), but also that, whereas Australia is made up of states, with regional differences such that few could distinguish whether someone is from South Australia or Queensland (including Australians...Strine doesn't vary all that much from state to state), the US was what it said on the label: a whole lot of separate states that had united. This may seem blindingly obvious to you, but to me it was...enlightening. It changed my viewpoint of the US (I'm not talking qualitative at all...just the way I saw it). It was quite fascinating, seeing the states almost as sub-nations, with their own separate ways and powers. It shot down forever any simplistic notion of seriously starting a sentence with "Americans are..." (again, not qualitative...just those times where generalizations, useful or likely otherwise, might occur). One might as well say "Europeans/Africans/et cetera are...". There might be some generalization (useful or likely otherwise) that may cross your individual state borders, but the differences that got in the way of that...wonderful!
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Actually it's good to know that our original definition still holds; during election years I often wonder.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gwen Morse
It's all rather amazing we haven't melted down yet, because you can't drive 100 miles without finding a location that absolutely loathes the people 100 miles away from *them*. But, at even the merely implication of an insult towards the nation at large, we suddenly close ranks into a single, impenetrable mass.
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I like that...may I use it as a sig?