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Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

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11–20 of 63 posts

Re: Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

#11

The moment this campaign started, I felt it was unnatural. Just drive through the center of Bucharest once, and you'll see just how smart Romanians are. I'm not one of those that feel like that they don't belong to this country, but we still have a long way to go. Funny thing is that even romanian searches would yield 'Romanians are rude' and similar suggestions. Cause we are, just like other nations around us from t…

The problem with Romanians (imo) is low self esteem and negative self image. Like you said, after many years of psychological abuse it's hardly any surprise. If they could only see their potential ... unfortunately, most times you have to be unplugged from negativity to see the positives.

Re: Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

#13
I tried with a bunch of nationalities and every one returns equally negative results for "[Nationality] are". I don't know why people get so upset about stereotypes. I bet almost every one is stupid/lazy/ugly by the opinion of random strangers in the world.

Re: Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

#14
post #6

I had no idea Romanian looked so much like Latin, at least for that trivial "Romanii sunt" clause.

Another Romance language I found out about that exists unexpectedly in Eastern Europe is Aromanian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromanian_language Most other Romance languages are regional languages in a Major romance language dominated area (such as Occitan/French, Catalan/Spanish). This one, on the other hand, is a romance language surrounded by Slavic and Greek languages.

Re: Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

#15
post #8

I'm going to ask the dumb question that the article doesn't explain: why do people hate Romanians so much? I've never found Romanians awful people. Is this just more ethnocentric rubbish and typical hostility toward Eastern European immigration?

As a Greek, no idea. If anything, I'm positively predisposed towards them.

Re: Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

#16
post #8

I'm going to ask the dumb question that the article doesn't explain: why do people hate Romanians so much? I've never found Romanians awful people. Is this just more ethnocentric rubbish and typical hostility toward Eastern European immigration?

In the UK at least, they get a bad press.thanks to the criminal element who find lucrative pickings in Britain.Go to a popular newspaper such as the Daily Mail, search and count the negative stories and you'll soon have your explanation.

Re: Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

#17

I tried with a bunch of nationalities and every one returns equally negative results for "[Nationality] are". I don't know why people get so upset about stereotypes. I bet almost every one is stupid/lazy/ugly by the opinion of random strangers in the world.

the opinion of random _dumb_ strangers.

And the phenomenon is not limited to nationality: the first suggestion i saw once for "how do i" is "how do i google something".

We must all remember that not only the rest of the world have stereotypes, they are also on average dumb (and that we are rest of the world to most people).

Re: Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

#18
For what it's worth, "romano" means Roman in Spanish. As in, an inhabitant of the city of Rome, both in the classical and modern senses. The proper Spanish term would have been "rumano". I guess the guys over at the Italian capital are happy about the free compliments

Re: Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

#19
post #9
post #6

I had no idea Romanian looked so much like Latin, at least for that trivial "Romanii sunt" clause.

Romanian is a latinate/romantic language, like Italian, French, Spanish, or Portuguese... but for some reason it never gets listed with the others. Relevant linguistic map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Romance_20c_en.png

cause people have been exposed to spanish, portuguese, french and italian all their life and noticed the similarity, while few heard spoken romansh, romanian or ladino. Romania (and moldavia) were behind the iron courtain until yesterday.

Also, as an italian, while i find it possible to understand written romanian, it's much harder to understand it spoken, as the slavic pronounciation is very different.

Re: Romanians are Smart or How to Change the Google Autocomplete Suggestions

#20
post #8

I'm going to ask the dumb question that the article doesn't explain: why do people hate Romanians so much? I've never found Romanians awful people. Is this just more ethnocentric rubbish and typical hostility toward Eastern European immigration?

I can only speak to my own experience: I used to hang out in #linux on Undernet in the early 2000s. There were a lot of Romanian users on the network at the time, but basically every one of them that joined the channel was showing up to ask about something sketchy (how to hack a server, how to use a proxy, how to delete/disable logs...).
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