10 Things Canadians Don't Know About Americans

From the inimitable Gavin McInnes.

Posted without comment, and yet, a question.

True, False, or Conspiracy?

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Burnt marshmallows?! Have you no dignity?!

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Hilarity.

But…

We don’t hate the French. We just love hating on the French. Totes different.

We don’t think the Brits are all smart. We just know most Brits think 'Muricans are all dumb, so we respond in kind. Plus generations of programming to associate any British accent with the educated class of Brits, because educated Brits are mainly what the media exposes us to. Hint: we don’t watch a lot of soccer.

Yeah, everyone does seem to know every actors name. It’s to the point where those of us who can’t remember an actor’s name to save out lives turn purple with embarassment when we say that actress that was in such and such movie.

On the uh-huh thing. I definitely do that. I usually wish afterwards that I thought to say you’re welcome. The thing is, when someone says thank you, all of a sudden it’s final exam time and the right answer you memorized the night before escapes you. If I’m on my toes, I usually get out a my pleasure.

USA! eh?

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USAA?

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Ay?

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Anecdotal;

I dont mumble uh-huh in response to “thank you.”

I say “No problem!” because;

A) It generally is no problem utilizing my manners.

B) Not everyone actually is “welcome.”

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I never really thought about the American tendency to say ‘uh-huh’ as a response to expressed thanks, probably because I’ve lived in the U.S. my entire life. I myself usually respond with ‘Sure!’ or ‘No problem’. If I’m responding to a friend or male coworker, I might append it with ‘man’ because hey, that’s how I feel about it, man.

In this context, I think the true marker of an American is not whether you personally use ‘uh-huh’ as acknowledgment of thanks but that you accept it as one. But I understand why visitors to the U.S. might bristle at that.

On all the other points, I seem to be terrible at being American. Well, except the marshmallows thing. I do my best to brown my marshmallows when toasting them but if things go aflame, that’s just life and I’m not about to let a marshmallow go to waste.

ETA: I trudged through two-inch deep muddy slush dozens of times during work today and not once did I experience a soaker because I wear boots that say fuck that noise.

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generations of programming to associate any British accent with (…)

villians.

Received Pronounciation for supervillians, everything else with regular crime, whether organized, ultraviolent, or just hilariously petty.

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I guess this just confirms I’m not actually American…?

Right?

I actually kinda like it when there’s a little bit of char on the marshmallow crust; it sort of caramelizes that part.

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In Star Wars, the Empire tended towards British accents, and by that I mean English ones. (Characters with Scottish accents seem to be the new thing, but it’s a strange non-geographical Scottish accent. Maybe that’s new, but accent used to be better than GPS for localizing.)

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Yeah, if something like that happened routinely enough to consider inventing a new word, we would invent better shoes instead. This video makes me think Canadians routinely wear sandals with socks when hiking through the snow.

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Number 10 isn’t a positive, number 10 is a degenerative disease.


EDIT: Just realized that currently this could also be applied to Number 10 downing street. Look at me, I’m multi-tasking.

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“They don’t know that there’s British trash”

Yeah, they’re called the English

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Misread this as " 10 Things Kardashians Don’t Know About Americans". Probably not the same list…

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AHAHAHAHA!

But seriously, when I was a kid a soaker didn’t refer to a wet running shoe, but when the slush and meltwater overtopped one’s galoshes.

Any Canadian knows sandals don’t give enough traction if you don’t wear socks over them.

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Quite honestly, I’ve only heard people do that in NYC and Chicago, which, along with his theory that Americans are obsessed with The Godfather and watch it constantly, tells me he’s been mostly spending time in one of those two places.

I usually toast it enough to get the whole thing nice and soft, but then intentionally get a bit of char outside. Otherwise it’s an underdone marshmallow.

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