Things that are common in fiction but not in your real life

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Compare number of males vs female Blondes. They are mostly fake. The number of Blondes changes with fashion and culture.

Nor is about so called "Caucasian", IMO a ghastly USA term. Even in Western Europe the proportion of really Blonde and Red head varies dramatically with region among people there since before Europeans went to the Americas. Blue, Green and Grey eyes are very rare, but in some areas of Scotland and Ireland nearly 90% have them. Also red hair (literally red in Irish or Scottish Gaelic) is as common as Blonde, more so in some places. The modern and derogatory English, especially in England is Ginger. It's also a popular artificial colour here too.

Loads of French, Cornish, Welsh, Spanish, Belgians, Germans, Swiss and Italian are dark haired.

I specifically said I was talking about books set in the US.

For Pete's sake, this was supposed to be a FUN topic. Just casual observations about things we see often in books but not in real life. All I did was observe that there are more blondes in books I read than I ever see in person. I was NOT asking for statistics of hair colors around the world. Geez.

I wish just ONCE we could have a light-hearted thread on mobileread without people taking things so seriously.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Compare number of males vs female Blondes. They are mostly fake. The number of Blondes changes with fashion and culture.

Nor is about so called "Caucasian", IMO a ghastly USA term. Even in Western Europe the proportion of really Blonde and Red head varies dramatically with region among people there since before Europeans went to the Americas. Blue, Green and Grey eyes are very rare, but in some areas of Scotland and Ireland nearly 90% have them. Also red hair (literally red in Irish or Scottish Gaelic) is as common as Blonde, more so in some places. The modern and derogatory English, especially in England is Ginger. It's also a popular artificial colour here too.

Loads of French, Cornish, Welsh, Spanish, Belgians, Germans, Swiss and Italian are dark haired.

My mother in law was Italian and blonde with green eye. My father in law could have played the lead in The Godfather.
Apache

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Apache

My mother in law was Italian and blonde with green eye. My father in law could have played the lead in The Godfather.
Apache

My parents were born in the same village and both families had lived there for a couple hundred years at least, probably longer. My mother was blond, blue-eyed and fair-skinned, my father was brown-eyed and black-haired, with considerably darker skin. My sister and me look nothing alike either, therefore.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Apache

My mother in law was Italian and blonde with green eye. My father in law could have played the lead in The Godfather.
Apache

Are you comparing him to Al Pacino or Marlon Brando? (Hey, I'm the youngest in my family, stirring up trouble is in my job description!)

When I flew to Germany a number of years ago, the stewardesses spoke to me in German and the rest of my family in English. I look German, blonde with blue eyes. Everyone else has dark hair. Some of us are just lucky.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

When I flew to Germany a number of years ago, the stewardesses spoke to me in German and the rest of my family in English. I look German, blonde with blue eyes. Everyone else has dark hair. Some of us are just lucky.

This reminded me of a YT video where a group of L1 Japanese speakers of non-Japanese ethnicity took a monolingually Anglophone Japanese-American to a cafe and the wait staff ignored all the Japanese speakers and spoke only to the one person in the group who literally could not understand a word being said to them.

[Apache]

My wife is short with brown eyes and hair. Her sister is 5"8" with blonde hair and green eyes. Everyone I have ever met, on both side of my family have blue eyes. Our son has brown eyes like his mother. Our granddaughter has blue eyes (he was hoping she would have brown eyes).
He actually had friends who were mafia and after WWII One family tried to recruit him.
Apache

[maddz]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

When I flew to Germany a number of years ago, the stewardesses spoke to me in German and the rest of my family in English. I look German, blonde with blue eyes. Everyone else has dark hair. Some of us are just lucky.

Sounds like the times we took family holidays around the Med. Our late father was Arab, and both my sister and I have dark hair and brown eyes (our mother was dark haired and grey-eyed). She's got my father's olive skin, I'm more fair-skinned but darker haired. Both of us used to get taken for a holidaying local and got addressed in the local language.

[curtw]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

When all things are said and done you end up with the redhead having some fun.
Just don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen.

Well, THIS one, at least, has happened to me.

Now, my contribution: turning on the TV or radio at the exact moment that a relevant-to-the-plot news bulletin is being broadcast.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by maddz

Both of us used to get taken for a holidaying local and got addressed in the local language.

Some of my wife's relatives come from New Zealand, near where Whale Rider was set. The author of that story mentioned that on a visit to Taiwan, the presumptive genesis point for Polynesian people, he was more than once mistaken for an indigenous Taiwanese and asked for directions. Pretty strong genes for the resemblance to hold good for a few millennia

[arjaybe]

They start the coffee, have two lines of dialog, and the coffee's done.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

They start the coffee, have two lines of dialog, and the coffee's done.

You must read really slow

[issybird]

The main character looks in a mirror and describes what she (it’s usually a she) looks like to herself.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

They start the coffee, have two lines of dialog, and the coffee's done.

That can be true with just two words of dialog: ristretto doppio

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

They start the coffee, have two lines of dialog, and the coffee's done.

Instant! Café Nes in Hebrew means miracle coffee. I think Nescafé invented it?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by curtw

Now, my contribution: turning on the TV or radio at the exact moment that a relevant-to-the-plot news bulletin is being broadcast.

I do agree. But then, would you want to read/watch commercials for fictional used car dealerships and dog food in the name of realism?