21–30 of 161 posts
"food, which they praise for its quality and variety (and portion size) in a tone of near-disbelief" huh, really? Whenever I get back from traveling I feel the opposite. Sure in places like NY you can get any kind of food. But in my mono-cultural hometown there is little besides hamburgers or pizza.
Even in my (relatively) small-medium town in New Hampshire[1] there's an amazing variety of high quality restaurants. A lot of people abroad in their own similiar-sized towns don't get to ever try authentic Mexican, or Cajun, or American comfort, or sushi, or Greek, etc, all of which are available here.
For most tourists, especially tourists from small towns going to NYC or Boston or SF, America is a cultural delight of food.
Before coming to the USA for the first time I read the following in a guide: "Americans often communicate via inflected grunts and groans, such as "uh-huh" for yes and "uh-uh" for no.
As an American who does this in pretty much every conversation I have, this is a difference I would never have thought of. Semi-related: Do other countries have fragments of speech used as filler such as "like" and "you know"?
"Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air."
If you're talking about water just lying around, maybe so, but US water standards are if anything ridiculously stringent compared to much of the rest of the world [1]. Read that page carefully, and observe that while the US standards may appear at times to permit things somewhat higher than other standards, the US (along with Europe) strongly enforce them, so it's not that comparable. As for the air, it is generally…
Before coming to the USA for the first time I read the following in a guide: "Americans often communicate via inflected grunts and groans, such as "uh-huh" for yes and "uh-uh" for no.
As an American who does this in pretty much every conversation I have, this is a difference I would never have thought of. Semi-related: Do other countries have fragments of speech used as filler such as "like" and "you know"?
Before coming to the USA for the first time I read the following in a guide: "Americans often communicate via inflected grunts and groans, such as "uh-huh" for yes and "uh-uh" for no.
As an American who does this in pretty much every conversation I have, this is a difference I would never have thought of. Semi-related: Do other countries have fragments of speech used as filler such as "like" and "you know"?
"food, which they praise for its quality and variety (and portion size) in a tone of near-disbelief" huh, really? Whenever I get back from traveling I feel the opposite. Sure in places like NY you can get any kind of food. But in my mono-cultural hometown there is little besides hamburgers or pizza.
Yes, but visitors that buy guidebooks do not go to your mono-cultural hometown. They go to New York! Even in my (relatively) small-medium town in New Hampshire[1] there's an amazing variety of high quality restaurants. A lot of people abroad in their own similiar-sized towns don't get to ever try authentic Mexican, or Cajun, or American comfort, or sushi, or Greek, etc, all of which are available here. For most touri…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an American who does this in pretty much every conversation I have, this is a difference I would never have thought of. Semi-related: Do other countries have fragments of speech used as filler such as "like" and "you know"?
We sure do. In Danish "ikke?", "ikke også", "du ved" among others. In Bulgarian I hear "бе", "така" and "такова".
No mention of our odd restaurant tipping practices? I thought they are unusual compared to the rest of the world...