Monday, October 18, 2010

Cultural awareness

Dr. Grumpy: "I'm glad you enjoyed your trip."

Mr. Traveler: "It was wonderful. Did you know that in the European language they call mountains "'alps'?"

26 comments:

  1. Say it ain't so. That's just too much incompetence for one day!

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  2. Words fail me.
    [lets out a slow whistle]

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  3. Awesome!
    Especially getting a kick out of "European language", being an European myself and all!

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  4. "And the European version of my name is 'Arschloch.'"

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  5. Wow. Was he referred to your practice for intractable stupidity?

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  6. at least he didn't complain about the people not speaking 'american'....whatever that is.

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  7. Wow! I speak European myself but I call it French, German, Italian, Spanish and English. Sometimes I get my wires crossed and it's just European.
    Glad this person validated me.


    WV ouste (definitely Yurrupian)

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  8. "It's amazing the things you learn in Branson."

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  9. And we wonder why American tourists get such a bad rap all over the world.

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  10. arrogance, ignorance, affluence, and a dose of entitlement.

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  11. I had somebody today tell me Guatemala and Costa Rica are in South America...

    <>< Katie

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  12. In the American language they call them "Appalachians". Amazing, this language stuff, isn't it?

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  13. I'm even more specific - this side of the road (the side I live on) is the Dolomites, the other side - the one on the northern, pointing towards Austria side, I just call the Alps. Bless him - which European language did he mean? I still get Americans surprised at how well I can speak English, since I was born in the United Kingdom an' all.

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  14. An American is the only person who can go to another country and be surrounded by foreigners

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  15. Speaking of traveling...
    I have trouble with time changes... one day, I left JFK airport at 7 in the morning. When I got to Branson, Mo it was 1960....

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  16. So very glad to know that I don't have the monopoly on stupid people to deal with.

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  17. "The lord alps those that alps themselves" - Groucho Marx

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  18. Hahaha! This one really cracked me up.

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  19. While travelling in Italy recently my (new) husband and were horrified to hear a very obnoxious man at the other end of the train car comment that he was "travelling as a Canadian" because foreigners don't like Americans.

    We felt like going over and asking him "what, so they can start to hate Canadians too?". I think the irony was completely lost on him...

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  20. Get him to take his next holiday in New Zealand, where he will be staggered to find that the mountain chain that runs the length of the South Island is called the Southern Alps. He can spend the rest of his life telling people that the Maori word for mountain is the same as the European word.

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  21. I think he was in the right office..."european language"?

    (belly laugh)

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  22. ...And in the rocky mountains they call stupid travellers *scalps*!

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  23. LOL @ Branson! When I was in Springfield MO for college (Go Drury Panthers!), Branson was close enough that lots of friends worked there. In fact, one of my sorority sisters was a window dresser for Silver Dollar City- arranging the displays to bring in shoppers (Silver Dollar City at the time was like a giant mall of kitch with a few water rides). She had this big red hair (it was the 80s), dated a biker dude, a wild child... and her job was re-arranging spun glass crucifixes and doo-dads made of lacquered cedar to make them enticing. And she was good at it! Go figure! But I can't imagine hanging out in Branson now. ACK.

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  24. "Excuse me, but which way is it to Europe, France?"

    ---Marilyn Monroe, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"

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So wadda you think?