What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S. • Hacker News Board

Re: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

#31

Post by AYBABTME » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 5:56 AM UTC

ericras wrote: post #12

bufordtwain wrote: post #8

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"?

In Quebec's french, we will replace nearly any word by a swear word (criss/osti/tabarnak/caliss), which can be used as a noun, a verb, an adverb, and adjective, etc. Basically, like smurf-talk.

Also there's a one-to-one relationship between english's use of "like" as a filler by our use of "genre". In this case, "genre" means "similar to". So one could say "J'ai genre... mangé une criss de grosse poutine" in the same way an english speaker would say "I have like.. eaten a fucking huge cheese-and-gravy covered bowl of french-fries".

Re: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

#32

Post by HazzyPls » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 5:57 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #21

martythemaniak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Article also fails to mention that using something like factcheck.org will typically get you branded a liberal.

Liberal isn't a dirty word, it's not something you're branded with.

It is in some circles.

Re: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

#33

Post by gnaritas » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 6:04 AM UTC

HazzyPls wrote: post #32

gnaritas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberal isn't a dirty word, it's not something you're branded with.

It is in some circles.

Not intelligent ones.

Re: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

#34

Post by xelfer » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 6:05 AM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #30

ericb wrote: post #6

No mention of our odd restaurant tipping practices? I thought they are unusual compared to the rest of the world...

What are those odd tipping practices? I'm from Canada (Ontario/Quebec), and the standard is to leave 15% of the bill as tip. Less is considered being extremely rude. In other countries, the tip is included in the bill. In other countries, tipping is rare and made in very specific circumstances.

As an Australian any kind of expected tip is odd.

Re: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

#35

Post by eropple » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 6:19 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #21

martythemaniak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Article also fails to mention that using something like factcheck.org will typically get you branded a liberal.

Liberal isn't a dirty word, it's not something you're branded with.

In a large (but shrinking, year by year) part of the country, it most definitely is.

Those aren't places most people want to go, though.

Re: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

#36

Post by eropple » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 6:19 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #21

martythemaniak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Article also fails to mention that using something like factcheck.org will typically get you branded a liberal.

Liberal isn't a dirty word, it's not something you're branded with.

In a large (but shrinking, year by year) part of the country, it most definitely is.

Those aren't places most people want to go, though.

Re: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

#37

Post by AYBABTME » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 6:22 AM UTC

xelfer wrote: post #34

AYBABTME wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are those odd tipping practices? I'm from Canada (Ontario/Quebec), and the standard is to leave 15% of the bill as tip. Less is considered being extremely rude. In other countries, the tip is included in the bill. In other countries, tipping is rare and made in very specific circumstances.

As an Australian any kind of expected tip is odd.

The justification for this 15% is that government assumes that customers give tip to waitress/er, and thus take taxes off the waitress/er pay-check according to this 15% supposition. So basically, when you don't pay the 15% tip, the waitress/er is paying extra taxes because of you. Unless the service is bad, the normal would thus be to pay the 15% tip, unless its a tip-less kind of job.

Some jobs are identified by governments as being tip-supported. Thus, the minimal wage for these jobs is lower than the normal minimum-wage, assumed that the real revenue comes from tip (which is actually true). To get their taxes share, they use the waitress/er sales to compute how much is due in taxes. Basically, governments have destroyed the whole purpose of tipping, which is to recognize good service. However, they make it cheaper for restaurant owner to hire new employees (the minimum wages is lower).

Re: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

#38

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 6:29 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #11

derleth wrote: post #5

"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…

[deleted]

Re: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

#39

Post by _delirium » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 6:36 AM UTC

ericb wrote: post #6

No mention of our odd restaurant tipping practices? I thought they are unusual compared to the rest of the world...

Tipping practices are pretty common in a lot of countries. In India, for example, it's expected that you tip a wide variety of people for a lot of small services. I find American tipping practices somewhat middle-of-the-road.

Re: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S.

#40

Post by refurb » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 6:46 AM UTC

a-priori wrote: post #4

joshAg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it that's not the case in Canada?

It is normal here in Canada for a husband to accompany his wife to the hospital, and has been at least since I was born in the 80s. I think refurb's point is that it's strange to include that in something you give a Canadian moving to the US.

That was my point exactly. Canada and the US share 90%+ of their culture, so it was interesting for two reasons:

1. Why send that kind of a book to a Canadian? 2. It's interesting to read what other cultures might find shocking about US culture.