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On this trip, I’ve been reminded of three stereotypes the rest of the world thinks of Americans:
1. We’re always politically correct.
2. We’re fat.
3. We’re stupid.

Over the last few days at my hostel, I think I’ve thoroughly debunked the first one.

Although I consider myself quite PC (even moreso than most Americans thanks to my two years teaching), I apparently surprised my fellow guests this weekend when I was talking with an English woman, a Scottish guy and his Irish girlfriend. We were discussing the differences in our common language when the term “ginger” came up. Apparently the Brits use it as a term for redheads. One of them asked if Americans had a phrase for people with red hair. Evidently, they weren’t talking about a phrase “like ‘beat them like a red-headed stepchild’?” I said it in all sincerity, but they were just tickled ginger. Although I beforehand hadn’t thought of it as being not-so PC, they definitely enjoyed the fact that the sentence came from a Yank’s mouth.

Then the next night, one of our new Norwegian friends was drinking a Guinness. I turned to the Irish girl and asked if she’d ever had an Irish Carbomb. “Oh, well, I guess it’d just be a carbomb for you…do you have those in Ireland?” Ummm…open mouth, insert foot and realize where the drink got its name. And be told that yes, Ireland does/did have carbombs, but they’re not drinks.

So, while I’ve done a good job debunking stereotype numero uno for us, I think I may have just reconfirmed number three. Sorry, y’all.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 7:43 pm and is filed under *Australia, language. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.