Are YOU Offended?
This question was triggered by a comment here: https://www.experts-exchange.com/discussions/220182/Please-participate-in-the-Great-Pound-vote.html (and do go to the link and participate there too!)
Having worked in retail dealing with people from different countries, I see it over and over. When you try to pick someone's accent if they're from US or Canada - a Canadian will always be offended if you call them American, whereas in my experience, someone from the states if asked if they're from Canada will generally chuckle and tell you they're from the US. Same applies to those folks from Zimbabwe and South Africa - you will offend a Zimbabwean by calling him South Efrican, but call the South African man Zimbabwean and he will laugh and say no. I guess this would also apply to Belgians and Frenchmen and the Portuguese and Spaniards, German, Austrian and Swiss, and even to those in the U.K. Whose accents frequently get muddled.
So my question is: are you offended if someone mistakes you for being from a country or region that is not your own? This may also apply as an example to those of Pakistani descent who are called Indian.
Having worked in retail dealing with people from different countries, I see it over and over. When you try to pick someone's accent if they're from US or Canada - a Canadian will always be offended if you call them American, whereas in my experience, someone from the states if asked if they're from Canada will generally chuckle and tell you they're from the US. Same applies to those folks from Zimbabwe and South Africa - you will offend a Zimbabwean by calling him South Efrican, but call the South African man Zimbabwean and he will laugh and say no. I guess this would also apply to Belgians and Frenchmen and the Portuguese and Spaniards, German, Austrian and Swiss, and even to those in the U.K. Whose accents frequently get muddled.
So my question is: are you offended if someone mistakes you for being from a country or region that is not your own? This may also apply as an example to those of Pakistani descent who are called Indian.
are you offended if someone mistakes you for being from a country or region that is not your own?
The situation has never come up.
The situation has never come up.
none... not being offended.
it happened to me that someone thought I'm from Taiwan but the fact that I'm a Malaysian (Malaysia Chinese) whom working in Singapore. some others thought I'm a Singaporean but I'm not :)
it happened to me that someone thought I'm from Taiwan but the fact that I'm a Malaysian (Malaysia Chinese) whom working in Singapore. some others thought I'm a Singaporean but I'm not :)
i'm from Canada and i worked in Togo, West Africa for some years (mid 701's)
no matter what i tried to tell people, i was considered to be an American. but that never really bothered me
of course if you are from the British Isles, when you speak, you'll never be mistaken as an American
no matter what i tried to tell people, i was considered to be an American. but that never really bothered me
of course if you are from the British Isles, when you speak, you'll never be mistaken as an American
Here in the US we have a general stereotype for Canadians being the nicest people you'll every meet. I could see why they would be offended if you mistook them for being a dumb American, but they would probably forgive you.we have lots of jerks here too!
If someone mistook my accent I'd be more curious why than angry. I had some good friends from England that moved to the states for work in the 90s. They would often get asked if they were from Australia, which was probably due to people who's main point of reference being what they saw in the movie theatre. They likely expected Australians to sound like Paul Hogan and the English to sound like Sean Connery. Some laughed it off, others got annoyed. I thought it was hilarious when they asked the same of me by association.
Either way when someone responds negatively to a mis-categorization it probably has more to do with their feelings of the other culture than it does contempt for you not being able to distinguish. For example if someone asked Donald Trump if he was from Mexico he'd probably burst a blood vessel. (Not trying to go into politics here, it's just a really good example of my point :))
I got curious and found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8VTuM129HA but it appears it died off. A bit more searching lead me to find this http://www.dialectsarchive.com/
I highly doubt the general public will spend the time to study this database, rather they will base it on what experiences they have. People who have traveled more are generally better at spotting accents and I'm willing to bet different dialects merge over time.
Either way when someone responds negatively to a mis-categorization it probably has more to do with their feelings of the other culture than it does contempt for you not being able to distinguish. For example if someone asked Donald Trump if he was from Mexico he'd probably burst a blood vessel. (Not trying to go into politics here, it's just a really good example of my point :))
I got curious and found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8VTuM129HA but it appears it died off. A bit more searching lead me to find this http://www.dialectsarchive.com/
I highly doubt the general public will spend the time to study this database, rather they will base it on what experiences they have. People who have traveled more are generally better at spotting accents and I'm willing to bet different dialects merge over time.
There are many documented instances of if a party of one country is assumed to be from another country they are highly offended. It mostly comes down to stereotypes and people wanting to button hole others into a specific category. Stereotyping is poor practice. I'd like to believe that it is done due to ignorance.
in some neighborhoods every Jamaican is suspected of being a crack dealer and every oriental is a heroin dealer. The polish are supposed to be stupid yet they made the initial Enigma breakthroughs.
About the closest I came to being offended was when American Students wore Canadian Flags on their backpacks to prevent being tossed into the Canals in Holland. I actually was rather amused since my uniform had CDN flags on it.
Personally I could care not what you call me, except late for dinner!
in some neighborhoods every Jamaican is suspected of being a crack dealer and every oriental is a heroin dealer. The polish are supposed to be stupid yet they made the initial Enigma breakthroughs.
About the closest I came to being offended was when American Students wore Canadian Flags on their backpacks to prevent being tossed into the Canals in Holland. I actually was rather amused since my uniform had CDN flags on it.
Personally I could care not what you call me, except late for dinner!
Personally, I really don't care what people think. I've lived in Australia for almost 50 years, and nationality means nothing to me. I'm as Australian as all the others with funny accents around me.
However, I'm from Belgium (Flemish) originally, so I suppose I should be insulted if someone thinks I'm Dutch. As I've been known to say before, there are only two thing the Flemings & Walloons agree on: their dislike of the Dutch, and their common language: English.
But from this distance, who cares?
However, I'm from Belgium (Flemish) originally, so I suppose I should be insulted if someone thinks I'm Dutch. As I've been known to say before, there are only two thing the Flemings & Walloons agree on: their dislike of the Dutch, and their common language: English.
But from this distance, who cares?
If I was easily insulted I would be "triggered" after reading the following sentence in Craig Kehler's comment:
"They likely expected Australians to sound like Paul Hogan and the English to sound like Sean Connery."
Sean Connery is Scottish, not English. Although his accent has been "watered down" somewhat over the many years of acting and from living and working in England and America, in my opinion he has a distinctly Scottish accent. When I say "watered down", he has lost the very strong gutteral accent of his native East Coast (Edinburgh). I would call his a "polite Scottish accent". In Scotland there is a huge variation in regional accents. You can travel less than 15 miles and immediately detect a different accent, and there are also a number of old languages and dialects that are still in use. (Parts of England, Wales, and Ireland are the same in this regard).
The United Kingdom (Britain) comprises the separate countries of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Although Southern Ireland (Eire) is on the same island named Ireland, it is not part of the United Kingdom. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have their own devolved parliaments and can make a lot of their own decisions independently of the seat of the United Kingdom's government in the country's capital, Westminster, London, England. Each of the devolved countries have their own flags (derived from the different colours used in the UK's "Union Jack" flag) and their own capital cities, namely Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast. It wasn't always this way though. Scotland in particular had a very, very long history of being downtrodden and abused by English nobility, royalty, and government. The problem was that even the Scottish people couldn't unify, with Highlanders and Lowlanders fighting each other and Highland clans constantly warring.
Many Scottish people become anything from disgruntled to enraged when their (my) country is regarded as just another region of England stuck onto the top of the British mainland. I get a little disgruntled when I hear this from people who know better or should know better (for example TV weather reporters), but this misunderstanding is mostly by people from "overseas" who are less acquainted with how the United Kingdom is divided and simply regard us all as having a "Briddish" accent and culture.
I used to work with a Cockney Londoner years ago. They have a very distinctive accent that is (badly) exemplified by Eliza in My Fair Lady when she has to repeat "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" to banish the accent (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJr9SSJKkII). To me he still sounded like an East-end Londoner despite having lived in Scotland for 25 years, however when he was once stopped for directions by a "real" Cockney he was asked what part of England he was from. He was surprised and annoyed to learn that he had assimilated some Scottish pronounciations and lost some of the Cockney ones.
Having lived my life from the age of 9 months old to 18 in the country formerly known as Rhodesia, Africa (now Zimbabwe) to Scottish parents I grew up speaking with a polite watered-down Scottish accent amongst my family, and would flip to a "white Rhodesian" accent when talking to friends and other non-Scots. It came naturally. On returning to Scotland people frequently used to ask me if I was Irish (Southern) or Welsh, but over the passing of time my accent has now almost fully evolved to the area I have lived since and I doubt whether I could even speak with a convincing Southern African accent now. There are probably people in Nova Scotia who have a stronger Scottish accent than me, and there are people in Patagonia, South America who are more Welsh than the Welsh.
In Britain anybody who has a general appearance of being from the Indian sub-continent is referred to as a "Paki" by racist scumbags and low-lifes. I used to be friendly with an Indian Sikh shopkeeper whose father had flown in the Royal Air Force for Britain during WWII. He told me once how insulted he was being referred to by teenage thugs as a "Paki" when he was Indian. It wasn't so much that he detested the word, it was that he was angry at being mistaken for a Pakistani. This annoyance at being mistaken as a different nationality extends worldwide.
"They likely expected Australians to sound like Paul Hogan and the English to sound like Sean Connery."
Sean Connery is Scottish, not English. Although his accent has been "watered down" somewhat over the many years of acting and from living and working in England and America, in my opinion he has a distinctly Scottish accent. When I say "watered down", he has lost the very strong gutteral accent of his native East Coast (Edinburgh). I would call his a "polite Scottish accent". In Scotland there is a huge variation in regional accents. You can travel less than 15 miles and immediately detect a different accent, and there are also a number of old languages and dialects that are still in use. (Parts of England, Wales, and Ireland are the same in this regard).
The United Kingdom (Britain) comprises the separate countries of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Although Southern Ireland (Eire) is on the same island named Ireland, it is not part of the United Kingdom. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have their own devolved parliaments and can make a lot of their own decisions independently of the seat of the United Kingdom's government in the country's capital, Westminster, London, England. Each of the devolved countries have their own flags (derived from the different colours used in the UK's "Union Jack" flag) and their own capital cities, namely Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast. It wasn't always this way though. Scotland in particular had a very, very long history of being downtrodden and abused by English nobility, royalty, and government. The problem was that even the Scottish people couldn't unify, with Highlanders and Lowlanders fighting each other and Highland clans constantly warring.
Many Scottish people become anything from disgruntled to enraged when their (my) country is regarded as just another region of England stuck onto the top of the British mainland. I get a little disgruntled when I hear this from people who know better or should know better (for example TV weather reporters), but this misunderstanding is mostly by people from "overseas" who are less acquainted with how the United Kingdom is divided and simply regard us all as having a "Briddish" accent and culture.
I used to work with a Cockney Londoner years ago. They have a very distinctive accent that is (badly) exemplified by Eliza in My Fair Lady when she has to repeat "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" to banish the accent (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJr9SSJKkII). To me he still sounded like an East-end Londoner despite having lived in Scotland for 25 years, however when he was once stopped for directions by a "real" Cockney he was asked what part of England he was from. He was surprised and annoyed to learn that he had assimilated some Scottish pronounciations and lost some of the Cockney ones.
Having lived my life from the age of 9 months old to 18 in the country formerly known as Rhodesia, Africa (now Zimbabwe) to Scottish parents I grew up speaking with a polite watered-down Scottish accent amongst my family, and would flip to a "white Rhodesian" accent when talking to friends and other non-Scots. It came naturally. On returning to Scotland people frequently used to ask me if I was Irish (Southern) or Welsh, but over the passing of time my accent has now almost fully evolved to the area I have lived since and I doubt whether I could even speak with a convincing Southern African accent now. There are probably people in Nova Scotia who have a stronger Scottish accent than me, and there are people in Patagonia, South America who are more Welsh than the Welsh.
In Britain anybody who has a general appearance of being from the Indian sub-continent is referred to as a "Paki" by racist scumbags and low-lifes. I used to be friendly with an Indian Sikh shopkeeper whose father had flown in the Royal Air Force for Britain during WWII. He told me once how insulted he was being referred to by teenage thugs as a "Paki" when he was Indian. It wasn't so much that he detested the word, it was that he was angry at being mistaken for a Pakistani. This annoyance at being mistaken as a different nationality extends worldwide.
If I was easily insulted I would be "triggered" after reading the following sentence in Craig Kehler's comment:
"They likely expected Australians to sound like Paul Hogan and the English to sound like Sean Connery."
I thought about explaining that but my post was already quite lengthy. Fully aware that Sean Connery is Scottish. I was drawing the connection to Crocodile Dundee and James Bond, yes every accent Sean Connery does sounds a bit Scottish :). People who get their references from movies probably think he's English.
I was very astonished at all the different accents I encountered in England. Some of the time I started wondering if they were in fact speaking English. My good friend taught me some Cockney but I could never really pull it off. Sounds funny with my accent.
Many Scottish people become anything from disgruntled to enraged when their (my) country is regarded as just another region of England stuck onto the top of the British mainland.
Funny story. I was sent to the Glasgow Daily Times to do an upgrade. I decided to drive from Cambridge to Glasgow so I could see a bit of the country. When I got to Glasgow late that evening I checked into my hotel and left in a random direction to find a local pub. When I was asked if it was my first time there I mistakenly tiredly answered "Yes it is my first time in Eng... (self corrected) Scotland". It was too late, I could already see I offended him. Then I proceeded to ask for a scotch I couldn't get in the states. He smiled real wide and poured me something. As I sipped it I realized why he was smiling. It was definitely a scotch I couldn't get in the states, nor would I want to. I took my punishment and then asked for a good scotch I couldn't get in the states. We were all good from there.
It seems you were a bit triggered, but I get it. As my good friend used to say "Water off a duck's back mate!"
Aaaah, I see. You were being too subtle for me with the Sean Connery example. I suppose that's just a stereotype we British have of Americans when it comes to humour. British humour and comedy has always been perceived as being less direct than American humour, and is riddled with innuendos, puns, metaphors, and other subtleties that often seem to go right over the heads of Americans, but it is probable that there are many aspects of American humour that we British completely miss. Of course, America is a huge place and there must be a lot of very different cultural differences between people from all the different states and Californians no doubt perceive New Yorkers as being brusque, while New Yorkers probably perceive Californians as being overly courteous and air-headed.
I'm glad you escaped unscathed after your adventure in a random pub in Glasgow. Your Scotch was most likely the Famous Grouse. That is an affordable blended whisky that proves popular as an easily recogniseable go-to drink for toasting New Year and for mixing with fizzy drinks. It's reasonably palatable, but it is obviously not in the same league as a proper single malt Scotch for those who want to savour the flavour.
I'm glad you escaped unscathed after your adventure in a random pub in Glasgow. Your Scotch was most likely the Famous Grouse. That is an affordable blended whisky that proves popular as an easily recogniseable go-to drink for toasting New Year and for mixing with fizzy drinks. It's reasonably palatable, but it is obviously not in the same league as a proper single malt Scotch for those who want to savour the flavour.
I suppose that's just a stereotype we British have of Americans when it comes to humour.Haha yes, when I lived and worked in England the most common "compliment" I received was "You're not bad for a yank!" I've always enjoyed British humour.
Californians as being overly courteous and air-headedFrank Zappa made a song about this, called Flakes. For any viewers not familiar with Zappa, he will definitely attempt to offend you, so listen to his music at your own risk. :) Flakes is pretty tame, however.
I'm glad you escaped unscathed after your adventure in a random pub in Glasgow. Your Scotch was most likely the Famous Grouse.Thanks! I vividly remember being very concerned about the gravity of my mistake.
ASKER
I guess from the comments here, that the EE community is pretty laid back, unlike the reactions I've had in the real world. It doesn't appear that nationalism is a problem at all
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I think we (United States) have a reputation with the rest of the world for being arrogant and dumb. When I went to Japan I was treated a lot nicer if I said I was from California instead of the United States.
Here in the US we have a general stereotype for Canadians being the nicest people you'll every meet. I could see why they would be offended if you mistook them for being a dumb American, but they would probably forgive you.