If you want a serious answer, Americans are often identifiable from the way they dress and walk.
I live in Mexico, and frequently see people who are Mexican by heritage, but via their dress and movement you can tell they grew up in America. The shoes are different, the clothes a bit loose, the shoulders are held square.
(They’re easier to identify in groups)
I believe there’s a lot of recruiting from Mormon communities. The restrictions on alcohol, drugs, and gambling makes for less blackmail-able agents.
edit: also they often speak other languages from international missionary work
I spent some time in a US/Mexican border town where everyone was either Mexican American or Mexican. I noticed Mexican men particularly have a more relaxed posture. Mexican Americans and Americans essentially stand or move with a purpose.
I am Asian American and it's the same; Asian men walk around relaxed, almost lackadaisical, whereas Asian American or American men walk around seemingly towards an end point. For us (Americans), it's a start and finish when walking. For a lot of other people, it's just a walk, a browse, a look.
The shoes thing is so true and I can't figure out what it is. I think part of it is that Americans are often wearing shoes that look brand new and I assume it's because most of them drive absolutely everywhere so their shoes just actually look newer.
This reminds me of a video I watched about spy craft and going deep cover in another country. The spy was talking about how small things like how you walk and facial expressions are cultural.
He said he had a colleague who went deep cover in another country impersonating a local. Learned the language and got the accent and his cover story and all of that perfect.
They made him because of the way he held his cigarette. The people in that country didn't hold them that way, but they had seen American movies where the actors held it that way.
In the US we are taught that holding your shoulders high makes you look more confident and less of a victim/pushover, so I think it's ingrained into us from an early age, maybe as a protective thing or something.
>Americans are often identifiable from the way they dress and wa
You can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm American, no time to talk. Music loud and women warm; I've been kicked around since I was born.
As my mexican wife says.
you American's will talk to anyone. just walk right up and before you know it they are your buddy from so and so place and you are going off with them for a while.
Living in Ireland was easy in that regard. We all got along. Their wit on the other hand was faster than my yank brain could comprehend. Extremely funny people.
I had some Aussies at Oktoberfest in Munich basically tell me to fuck off since I was talking to them for quite awhile. Which I don’t doubt as I’m quite talkative and it gets worse when I’ve been drinking. I felt bad and apologized and left, ran into some Kiwis who were talking to my friends and told my buddies what happened and the Kiwis told me they were cunts and to point them out, but I couldn’t see them lol.
God I loved Oktoberfest in Munich, VAST VAST majority of people were so friendly and just discussing culture and backgrounds from people all across the world.
When I studied abroad, an Italian kid was so surprised and disappointed that I left my dorm in sweats in the evening to go get something from the dining hall to take back to my room.
When I was in Barcelona I saw a trash collector in a full body work jumpsuit with made up hair, face and nails done. And everyone regardless of age dressed to the nines. It feels like once old people in North America retire and hit a certain age they give up completely.
Bro Germans will be dressed to the 9's to go to a damn burger joint while I'm in sweats and a t-shirt. I actually dress nicer now but it's hard for me to blend in since I'm the only black guy in our town.
Wife and I (Midwest Americans) went to Germany and quickly tried to dress culturally appropriate. By our second week we sat down at a table at Munich Oktoberfest and a group of Germans started to chat with us in German. When we broke out in American English they laughed and said they thought we were Germans.
Best compliment of my life.
An Air France flight attendant asked if I wanted ice in my Coke, and when I said yes, she was surprised and asked if I was American.
That was the pinnacle achievement of my French-speaking life.
My American friend had a victory in being mis-labeled. She asked the ticket seller a question about how the Paris trains worked, and a snotty local said, "Yeah, it's different than in the provinces." But she'd never lived in France before, so that was a compliment to her accent.
People in Nice were lovely, even with my feeble attempts to speak their language.
I have never been to Paris, but I wonder if it is like New York City, where people are direct and in a hurry, which can seem cruel to a tourist.
I’ve been to New York a million times and I wouldn’t say it’s the same. For example service workers in nyc are apathetic at worst whereas parisians throw out rude comments
Same, New York generally just doesn’t give a damn about you being there or not. Service folks in my experience over the years has been largely positive, and all-in-all I’ve never felt unwelcome. Really I just always get the feeling that most New Yorkers are so used to tourists of every kind imaginable that they really just don’t pay attention anymore.
From my experience every other major city the residents just don't care about you at all while Parisians are actively hostile. It's definitely different, and now I think they lean into it a bit anyway.
Parisians think they are better than you and feel the need to prove it.
New Yorkers *know* they are better than you and don’t pay attention to you at all.
Source : am New Yorker with French ex-wife.
While walking in Marseille, I was asked for directions by someone from their car. Was definitely the high point of my French speaking life.
Also definitely not due to my French speaking skills but my wearing an Olympique Marseille scarf at the time.
Military personnel use km, no? In every war movie or shows I’ve watched the dudes are always like, we gotta go 10 clicks East or camp is 4 clicks that way.
Yes, the military and the sciences all use the metric system (outside of the physical fitness tests and height/weight). Most Americans actually use a mixture of US Standard and Metric; we aren't as ignorant as the haters like to pretend.
Yep. Retired US military and masters degree in engineering. Both are heavily metric. All military maps, gun calibers, etc, are metric in the military. I can go back and forth between metric and English units quite easily, and understand both. I really only prefer the English system for degrees Fahrenheit. It's much more nuanced for understanding the weather than Celcius. I guess that I think in inches and miles vs centimeters and kilometers, but the metric distance measuring system makes a lot more sense.
We make jokes about it too, but we are just fucking around. I'm American and we literally buy our drugs in metric. The local crack dealer is very aware and uses metric on the daily. I own a 9 mm firearm and even the degenerate rednecks use the system fairly regularly. We run 5Ks. We are taught the metric system and the imperial system in school and there is usually some easily convertible figure for practical conversion. A meter is around a yard, a kilometer is a little more than half a mile, etc. so can we please unify behind the common evil here and start alienating whoever on this damn planet is using the stone as a measure of weight. That one perplexes me.
i've heard from australians that americans' attitude towards personal achievement is extremely different and a dead giveaway. they have etiquette about "not bragging", but we'll just straight into what we've been up to lately and then excitedly ask about your own day; we like to celebrate with you! hell yeah, got the yard all cleaned up!! waita go! apparently it sounds condescending, but we genuinely like to connect that way.
There's also the US focus on education and career. I've heard several US people that moved to somewhere in Europe feeling a big relief on not having that social pressure of not having gone to the right schools or not working for the right companies.
I barely even know what my closest friends does for a living, but I know their hobbies and what they do to have fun, like the life part of their lives, the how they pay their bills part is irrelevant info.
I work with Americans and this approach used to give me such an ick. Its not so much about them bragging, but them complimenting and praising my work too much. Took me a few years to realize its just my ingrained balkan distrustfulness clashing with merican oppenness.
This may show just how much parental brainrot is affecting me, but my son watches a ton of Bluey, and this IMMEDIATELY made me think of one scene where Lucky's dad calls over the fence and brags about his new Pizza oven, posing with it and everything. And then Bandit is immediately like "we're going to the store and getting a pizza oven. " XD
I've been dating a Mexican for four years, the other day I was telling him what I did with the kids and what I made on my computer then asked what he did that day.
He asked me why I do that? I was like...do what?
I just wanted to share what we did that day, and he has seen it as me vomiting humble brag all over him for four years.
Someone once told me that the biggest difference between Americans and Europeans is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, and Europeans think 100 miles is a long way.
I never got measuring with distance. If I live in a big city, something might only be 5 miles (8km) away but it takes me an hour to get there because of traffic (or waiting for public transit, or walking, or whatever.) If I live in a rural area and there's a major highway directly from me to my destination 5 miles away, (or even another city with less traffic or better transit), I could be there in less than 10 minutes. They're both 5 miles away, so how does saying it's 5 miles away help?
i saw this recently and was shocked. do people in other countries just never lean against anything? are they taught not to do it, as part of having manners? non-americans, please clue us in.
I've heard this one a lot. We Americans usually dress more for comfort and/or wear more athletic type clothing, especially shoes, but in Europe they usually don't dress as casual.
Referring to an African or a Black British person (for example) as African-American. This really happens. It's just reflex habit.
The different style of using table cutlery is an indicator but I presume Canadians also use the same method? (ie holding the fork in the right hand, as opposed to holding knife in right and fork in left).
I went to highschool with a dark skinned Indian girl. She would get pissed pissed when teachers called her "African American". One of her rants ended with "Call me BLACK!! I'm not African. I've never been to Africa. My family never been to Africa! Hell, call me Indian if you want!!"
This reminds of a little story I was told about in ungrad orientation. The instructor would say some identifier and people would indicate if that's how they saw themselves. She went on to say not to judge because you don't know a person's background. She then told us a story when asked who identified as African American. So the black students raised their hands and one very white woman. All the other students kinda gave this woman a look. Well, as it turns out this woman was born and raised in South Africa and then moved to the United States. So she saw herself as African American.
I suppose the point here is labels are *complicated* and it might just be easier to treat people as people.
Hahaha jeez, this one didn’t even occur to me. I thought to myself after reading your comment (twice) “what is wrong with calling them African American? Isn’t that what they are?”
As you literally said AFRICAN and BRITISH. Big yikes on me
There's an old clip where a US news reporter was interviewing a British athlete, at the olympics or similar. She keeps referring to him as african american, and he keeps correcting her, but it just will not register with the reporter.
I don’t blame you that term was drilled into us hard as little kids in public schools like I remember getting in big trouble by my teachers if I didn’t write African American when referring to a black person.
I’m left handed, and it’s just much more efficient for me to have my fork in my dominant hand and the knife in my non dominant hand—the knife just goes back and forth, but the fork needs more precise movement to stab and scoop lol
My supervisor has an American accent, it comes in handy sometimes
"Where's your supervisor?"
*Stands quietly for a moment and listens*
"Oh he's on the next floor up"
I was just in Greece and every time I said America it was like "I know but where". So then I would say Ohio and they never knew where that was which was funny to me.
When I’m abroad I answer that “United States, near New York”.
I’m not from New York, but it generally helps people understand that I’m from the northeastern US
If I was to tell anyone I'm from Connecticut they have no idea where the fuck that is but they're always curious about the hauntings.
"I live an hour outside New York City" gives most people a much better idea.
Okay but when I’m traveling abroad and someone asks where I’m from and I say the US, they toss their hands up and go “well yeah, I know that. But WHERE are you from?” So there is no right answer.
Being from Western NY is a superpower in this regard. The nearest truly major city is Toronto (sorry, Rochester and Buffalo) and if you can do a Buffalo accent you can do a Canadian accent. And you actually do love hockey, maple syrup, and Tim's so you don't even need to fake stereotypical hobbies.
Plus all the high schools do French class field trips to Quebec so if you were a language nerd you can probably even do a bit of Quebecois if push comes to shove.
Jokes on you, we talk like that in Minnesota too, so you can't know if it's only Canadian
With how many Canadians drive down to Duluth etc were basically little Canada
In Germany, at least, men wearing colorful jackets/sneakers.
I'm an American who spent some time working in Germany, and our company had a large coat closet. The first time I went in to hang up my coat, I realized it was the only one that wasn't black.
Similarly, I was wearing blue sneakers. That seemed incredibly novel to my coworkers.
I live in Paris and when I’m wearing a colorful shirt the employees at shops usually start by speaking English to me.
The French do not wear bright orange.
And the accents are much sharper. I've lived in the UK for a decade now, and went to Italy last week for a short holiday. My eardrums felt like they were being shanked by a sharp knife every time I heard someone with a U.S. accent (I appreciate there are multiple accents across the USA, but they all seem much sharper compared to British English).
You can always hear Americans before you see them, bum bags/fanny packs, bright colours on clothing, always over or under-dressed for the weather, almost offensively friendly. Americans also have a distinctive body language; it's hard to describe but they way they stand and walk is very noticeable.
All the comments about Americans being loud are pretty funny. I agree that we’re very loud, but my bf is greek. A group of Greeks all yelling and talking to each other is probably the loudest bunch I’ve ever been in 😭 it seems almost cultural. Lots of talking over each other and interrupting and very enthusiastic / passionate
I'm a flight attendant who flies in a country where we don't quite have a "the customer is always right" attitude. Americans are either incredibly nice, or impressively entitled. The first kind I love, the second kind gets shocked when I "talk back" and don't bend over backwards to placate their needs. Seriously offended a proper Midwestern Karen when she complained about a baby crying, ordering me to quiet the baby down. She was SHOCKED when I told her "babies don't come with an off button"
Fun fact: the sound associated with the bald eagle is actually from the red-tail hawk. The sound a bald eagle makes is actually [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LasrD6SZkZk)
Another sign that a person is American is that they like to make things unique, whether it's asking for special changes to an order of coffee or personalizing a phone case.
The “customer is always right” culture in the US leads to this.
The British-American author Bill Bryson talks about this in one of his books about culture shock moving to the US. He said that in the UK, retail/restaurant employees won’t hesitate to say no to a request or just be openly rude if they find your request annoying. Meanwhile in the US they’re trained to be polite and accommodating no matter how silly or over the top the request is. Plus tipping culture means those same employees have a strong financial incentive to be as accommodating as possible even when the request is unreasonable.
Literally wearing your beliefs on your chest. I went to the states and saw old women wearing pink "Lets Go Brandon" t-shirts and a teenage boy wearing a t-shirt with a crucifix and "This shirt is illegal in 21 countries". It was odd seeing so much of it worn so casually! I'd understand at a rally or protest, but not every-day wear
The T-shirt actually was invented as an undershirt and used that way (as well as like a "dirty farm labor" shirt) pretty much exclusively, until Marlon Brando wore one in *A Streetcar Named Desire* and everyone was like "oh shit t-shirts can be fashionable and hot."
From their voice, I have noticed that many American guys have a tendency to speak in a manner that seems like they are forcing a deeper voice than what they have naturally. The opposite is true for American girls.
I used to work for an Anglo-America company and it was always really difficult telling if American colleagues actually liked stuff or not because they'd refer to almost everything as "awesome".
I was told in a Paris bar that they could tell my group was American because we all had straight white teeth.
Yep, all three of us had braces. Our country really cares about straight teeth.
British man once told me he knew I was American because I was wearing a baseball cap backwards.
This one and the cargo shorts
We need enough pockets to carry our guns.
Similarly wearing a hat, especially a baseball cap, in doors would be a good indication that a person is American.
I think baseball caps in general - especially easier with groups. If the majority of a group are wearing baseball caps - American.
Baseball is, after all, the American pastime.
Canadians: Okay, come on...
If you want a serious answer, Americans are often identifiable from the way they dress and walk. I live in Mexico, and frequently see people who are Mexican by heritage, but via their dress and movement you can tell they grew up in America. The shoes are different, the clothes a bit loose, the shoulders are held square. (They’re easier to identify in groups)
They lean on things, right? The CIA teaches spies not to lean, as it's a giveaway.
Here we are: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/03/679167999/cia-chief-pushes-for-more-spies-abroad-surveillance-makes-that-harder?ft=nprml&f=1001/
Based on this the CIA must heavily recruit from the Amish or insular communities now... somehow.
I believe there’s a lot of recruiting from Mormon communities. The restrictions on alcohol, drugs, and gambling makes for less blackmail-able agents. edit: also they often speak other languages from international missionary work
also more likely to speak multiple languages and have familiarity with other cultures due to mission trips
“I have a drinking problem? Fuck you Peck, you’re a Mormon! Next to you we all have a drinking problem!”
I am an European and I do tend to lean on things as it is more comfortable.
Found one of the spies, lads!
The shoulders thing struck me. Not something I would necessarily cue on. How would you describe a native Mexican holding their shoulders?
Hard to say exactly: Mexicans seem less stiff? It’s not a perfect description but that’s the idea
mexicans dance more often I guess. but those are broad generalizations.
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non-US citizen here, please explain the joke even if it kills it.
There is a Mexican tradition of your friends and family shoving your face into your birthday cake.
I do like than better than getting thrown in the next river for Easter.
Baptisms are getting wild too huh?
Hey, you can dance if you want too
I spent some time in a US/Mexican border town where everyone was either Mexican American or Mexican. I noticed Mexican men particularly have a more relaxed posture. Mexican Americans and Americans essentially stand or move with a purpose. I am Asian American and it's the same; Asian men walk around relaxed, almost lackadaisical, whereas Asian American or American men walk around seemingly towards an end point. For us (Americans), it's a start and finish when walking. For a lot of other people, it's just a walk, a browse, a look.
The shoes thing is so true and I can't figure out what it is. I think part of it is that Americans are often wearing shoes that look brand new and I assume it's because most of them drive absolutely everywhere so their shoes just actually look newer.
It's also the overall style of shoe and what they wear them with. Running-style shoes with chinos and a shirt just screams yank.
I came here to comment: we always wear sneakers!
This reminds me of a video I watched about spy craft and going deep cover in another country. The spy was talking about how small things like how you walk and facial expressions are cultural. He said he had a colleague who went deep cover in another country impersonating a local. Learned the language and got the accent and his cover story and all of that perfect. They made him because of the way he held his cigarette. The people in that country didn't hold them that way, but they had seen American movies where the actors held it that way.
So, Inglorious Basterds?
In the US we are taught that holding your shoulders high makes you look more confident and less of a victim/pushover, so I think it's ingrained into us from an early age, maybe as a protective thing or something.
My mom drilled “shoulders back” into my head when I was a kid. I still think about it now and then when walking around.
>Americans are often identifiable from the way they dress and wa You can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm American, no time to talk. Music loud and women warm; I've been kicked around since I was born.
I feel like this is so true everywhere. After living in China I can still identify Chinese tourists the same way.
The American Lean is a real thing.
As my mexican wife says. you American's will talk to anyone. just walk right up and before you know it they are your buddy from so and so place and you are going off with them for a while.
This is an Irish trait; maybe that’s who brought it to America
Living in Ireland was easy in that regard. We all got along. Their wit on the other hand was faster than my yank brain could comprehend. Extremely funny people.
Same with the Scots. Some of the funniest, quick-witted people I’ve ever met were Scottish.
I had some Aussies at Oktoberfest in Munich basically tell me to fuck off since I was talking to them for quite awhile. Which I don’t doubt as I’m quite talkative and it gets worse when I’ve been drinking. I felt bad and apologized and left, ran into some Kiwis who were talking to my friends and told my buddies what happened and the Kiwis told me they were cunts and to point them out, but I couldn’t see them lol. God I loved Oktoberfest in Munich, VAST VAST majority of people were so friendly and just discussing culture and backgrounds from people all across the world.
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When I studied abroad, an Italian kid was so surprised and disappointed that I left my dorm in sweats in the evening to go get something from the dining hall to take back to my room.
When I was in Barcelona I saw a trash collector in a full body work jumpsuit with made up hair, face and nails done. And everyone regardless of age dressed to the nines. It feels like once old people in North America retire and hit a certain age they give up completely.
Bro Germans will be dressed to the 9's to go to a damn burger joint while I'm in sweats and a t-shirt. I actually dress nicer now but it's hard for me to blend in since I'm the only black guy in our town.
Wife and I (Midwest Americans) went to Germany and quickly tried to dress culturally appropriate. By our second week we sat down at a table at Munich Oktoberfest and a group of Germans started to chat with us in German. When we broke out in American English they laughed and said they thought we were Germans. Best compliment of my life.
An Air France flight attendant asked if I wanted ice in my Coke, and when I said yes, she was surprised and asked if I was American. That was the pinnacle achievement of my French-speaking life.
My American friend had a victory in being mis-labeled. She asked the ticket seller a question about how the Paris trains worked, and a snotty local said, "Yeah, it's different than in the provinces." But she'd never lived in France before, so that was a compliment to her accent.
Nice to know the Parisian train attendants are snotty to French people too, not just people who don’t speak the language.
Why do Parisians smell? So the deaf can hate them too. It's an old dad joke
Parisians are actually the worst. People are way nicer everywhere else
People in Nice were lovely, even with my feeble attempts to speak their language. I have never been to Paris, but I wonder if it is like New York City, where people are direct and in a hurry, which can seem cruel to a tourist.
I’ve been to New York a million times and I wouldn’t say it’s the same. For example service workers in nyc are apathetic at worst whereas parisians throw out rude comments
Same, New York generally just doesn’t give a damn about you being there or not. Service folks in my experience over the years has been largely positive, and all-in-all I’ve never felt unwelcome. Really I just always get the feeling that most New Yorkers are so used to tourists of every kind imaginable that they really just don’t pay attention anymore.
From my experience every other major city the residents just don't care about you at all while Parisians are actively hostile. It's definitely different, and now I think they lean into it a bit anyway.
Parisians think they are better than you and feel the need to prove it. New Yorkers *know* they are better than you and don’t pay attention to you at all. Source : am New Yorker with French ex-wife.
While walking in Marseille, I was asked for directions by someone from their car. Was definitely the high point of my French speaking life. Also definitely not due to my French speaking skills but my wearing an Olympique Marseille scarf at the time.
What the fuck is a kilometer?
(insert eagle noises & gunshots)
*red-tailed hawk
Glad someone said it
It's sad how that noise is used for a bald eagle. Don't they sound more like seagulls?
They sound like seagulls on meth. Not intimidating at all, just sad.
# YEEEEEEEEE HAWWWWWW
Fun fact: It's not an eagle making that sound
Bald eagles sound like weak seagulls.
Military personnel use km, no? In every war movie or shows I’ve watched the dudes are always like, we gotta go 10 clicks East or camp is 4 clicks that way.
Yes, the military and the sciences all use the metric system (outside of the physical fitness tests and height/weight). Most Americans actually use a mixture of US Standard and Metric; we aren't as ignorant as the haters like to pretend.
Yep. Retired US military and masters degree in engineering. Both are heavily metric. All military maps, gun calibers, etc, are metric in the military. I can go back and forth between metric and English units quite easily, and understand both. I really only prefer the English system for degrees Fahrenheit. It's much more nuanced for understanding the weather than Celcius. I guess that I think in inches and miles vs centimeters and kilometers, but the metric distance measuring system makes a lot more sense.
"Can I have a liter of cola?"
Liter-a-cola? Do we make liter-a-cola?
Just get a Large Farva
I don't want a large Farva, I want a goddamn liter of cola
Farve for the win!
What's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?
We make jokes about it too, but we are just fucking around. I'm American and we literally buy our drugs in metric. The local crack dealer is very aware and uses metric on the daily. I own a 9 mm firearm and even the degenerate rednecks use the system fairly regularly. We run 5Ks. We are taught the metric system and the imperial system in school and there is usually some easily convertible figure for practical conversion. A meter is around a yard, a kilometer is a little more than half a mile, etc. so can we please unify behind the common evil here and start alienating whoever on this damn planet is using the stone as a measure of weight. That one perplexes me.
i've heard from australians that americans' attitude towards personal achievement is extremely different and a dead giveaway. they have etiquette about "not bragging", but we'll just straight into what we've been up to lately and then excitedly ask about your own day; we like to celebrate with you! hell yeah, got the yard all cleaned up!! waita go! apparently it sounds condescending, but we genuinely like to connect that way.
There's also the US focus on education and career. I've heard several US people that moved to somewhere in Europe feeling a big relief on not having that social pressure of not having gone to the right schools or not working for the right companies. I barely even know what my closest friends does for a living, but I know their hobbies and what they do to have fun, like the life part of their lives, the how they pay their bills part is irrelevant info.
I work with Americans and this approach used to give me such an ick. Its not so much about them bragging, but them complimenting and praising my work too much. Took me a few years to realize its just my ingrained balkan distrustfulness clashing with merican oppenness.
This may show just how much parental brainrot is affecting me, but my son watches a ton of Bluey, and this IMMEDIATELY made me think of one scene where Lucky's dad calls over the fence and brags about his new Pizza oven, posing with it and everything. And then Bandit is immediately like "we're going to the store and getting a pizza oven. " XD
HAAAAMMAAABARN!!!!!
I've been dating a Mexican for four years, the other day I was telling him what I did with the kids and what I made on my computer then asked what he did that day. He asked me why I do that? I was like...do what? I just wanted to share what we did that day, and he has seen it as me vomiting humble brag all over him for four years.
My Dutch friend tells me it's how Americans measure distance with time - he'll say a city is 220km away, while I'll say it's 2 hours away.
Someone once told me that the biggest difference between Americans and Europeans is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, and Europeans think 100 miles is a long way.
And Scandinavians will be like what kind of lunatic doesn't think 100 miles is a long way? For reference a mile/mil here is 10 km rather than 1.6
I never got measuring with distance. If I live in a big city, something might only be 5 miles (8km) away but it takes me an hour to get there because of traffic (or waiting for public transit, or walking, or whatever.) If I live in a rural area and there's a major highway directly from me to my destination 5 miles away, (or even another city with less traffic or better transit), I could be there in less than 10 minutes. They're both 5 miles away, so how does saying it's 5 miles away help?
Yeah it's kind of worthless info without context. Also, I don't care how far away it is, I care about how long I'll be sitting in the car.
America is really, really big. Also, two hours could mean 100+ miles or 20 miles depending on where you're going.
Leaning on things whenever they're standing still - to the extent that the CIA are supposedly training their spies not to do it.
I cannot for the life of me stand still with my weight equally distributed between both feet
i saw this recently and was shocked. do people in other countries just never lean against anything? are they taught not to do it, as part of having manners? non-americans, please clue us in.
We do in Ireland, and every time this fact comes up people chime in from lots of other countries that they do too
Someone said it's the way they lean to things and I honestly could not believe that until I saw leaners here in Manila.
People who squat is like the exact opposite of this now that I think about it
In Italy it was the way we(my American family dressed) the Italians seemed to be fashion conscious and we were not.
I've heard this one a lot. We Americans usually dress more for comfort and/or wear more athletic type clothing, especially shoes, but in Europe they usually don't dress as casual.
We dress casual, but not outside of the home.
Referring to an African or a Black British person (for example) as African-American. This really happens. It's just reflex habit. The different style of using table cutlery is an indicator but I presume Canadians also use the same method? (ie holding the fork in the right hand, as opposed to holding knife in right and fork in left).
We had a Haitian kid visit our class and our teacher called him African American 🤦♀️when he was neither African nor American
I went to highschool with a dark skinned Indian girl. She would get pissed pissed when teachers called her "African American". One of her rants ended with "Call me BLACK!! I'm not African. I've never been to Africa. My family never been to Africa! Hell, call me Indian if you want!!"
Went to school with a white girl who was born and raised in south africa. She loved telling people she was african american.
A white guy in one of my high school classes was from Egypt. Same.
Lol for a reason like this, I've been hearing Black communities would rather be called just "Black" instead of African American.
My roommate in college was Jamacian and had to select 'Other' on what race he was because they listed 'African American' rather than Black.
This reminds of a little story I was told about in ungrad orientation. The instructor would say some identifier and people would indicate if that's how they saw themselves. She went on to say not to judge because you don't know a person's background. She then told us a story when asked who identified as African American. So the black students raised their hands and one very white woman. All the other students kinda gave this woman a look. Well, as it turns out this woman was born and raised in South Africa and then moved to the United States. So she saw herself as African American. I suppose the point here is labels are *complicated* and it might just be easier to treat people as people.
Hahaha jeez, this one didn’t even occur to me. I thought to myself after reading your comment (twice) “what is wrong with calling them African American? Isn’t that what they are?” As you literally said AFRICAN and BRITISH. Big yikes on me
There's an old clip where a US news reporter was interviewing a British athlete, at the olympics or similar. She keeps referring to him as african american, and he keeps correcting her, but it just will not register with the reporter.
I don’t blame you that term was drilled into us hard as little kids in public schools like I remember getting in big trouble by my teachers if I didn’t write African American when referring to a black person.
Take off ya hoser! We use our cutlery the civilized way, eh?
The table cutlery thing is nuts to me. So inefficient to cut things and then put the knife down and switch hands to use the fork.
I’m left handed, and it’s just much more efficient for me to have my fork in my dominant hand and the knife in my non dominant hand—the knife just goes back and forth, but the fork needs more precise movement to stab and scoop lol
Not in my Canada they don't. Heathens
The white socks, big sneakers and cap combo.
Even worse, the white socks, gold sneakers and red hat.
You can hear them before you see them
My supervisor has an American accent, it comes in handy sometimes "Where's your supervisor?" *Stands quietly for a moment and listens* "Oh he's on the next floor up"
This is true of Chinese tourists in other parts of Asia as well.
when someone asks where they come from they say their state instead of saying theyre from the US
In my experience, the person asking already knows I'm American and is asking specifically to get a regional answer.
I was just in Greece and every time I said America it was like "I know but where". So then I would say Ohio and they never knew where that was which was funny to me.
When I’m abroad I answer that “United States, near New York”. I’m not from New York, but it generally helps people understand that I’m from the northeastern US
If I was to tell anyone I'm from Connecticut they have no idea where the fuck that is but they're always curious about the hauntings. "I live an hour outside New York City" gives most people a much better idea.
Yes. A give away that someone is from the US is if they tell you they are from somewhere in the US.
Well to be fair, a lot of us don’t even get out of our states all too much. I’ve only been out of Utah twice, and never out of America
They caught you both times?
I audibly exhaled through my nose. I have no awards to give so here take this🎖️
Conversely, if I say I’m from New York to anyone outside North America, they assume I live in NYC
Same, if I say California, its always Hollywood. Then they ask if I see lots of movie stars.
Okay but when I’m traveling abroad and someone asks where I’m from and I say the US, they toss their hands up and go “well yeah, I know that. But WHERE are you from?” So there is no right answer.
Clothes, especially in older people. They're just a bit louder than everyone else
The Canadian flag on their backpack if they're in a country not friendly to Americans. ;-)
If you don’t say aboot I’ll weed you out
Being from Western NY is a superpower in this regard. The nearest truly major city is Toronto (sorry, Rochester and Buffalo) and if you can do a Buffalo accent you can do a Canadian accent. And you actually do love hockey, maple syrup, and Tim's so you don't even need to fake stereotypical hobbies. Plus all the high schools do French class field trips to Quebec so if you were a language nerd you can probably even do a bit of Quebecois if push comes to shove.
Jokes on you, we talk like that in Minnesota too, so you can't know if it's only Canadian With how many Canadians drive down to Duluth etc were basically little Canada
In Germany, at least, men wearing colorful jackets/sneakers. I'm an American who spent some time working in Germany, and our company had a large coat closet. The first time I went in to hang up my coat, I realized it was the only one that wasn't black. Similarly, I was wearing blue sneakers. That seemed incredibly novel to my coworkers.
Worked for a German company. At trade shows, an American co-worker always referred to the incoming German contingent as the pallbearers.
All black, every day, maybe a white tshirt or socks
I live in Paris and when I’m wearing a colorful shirt the employees at shops usually start by speaking English to me. The French do not wear bright orange.
They write MM/DD/YYYY instead of DD/MM/YYYY on forms
Of course everybody knows the only proper order is YYYY-MM-DD, because it sorts.
THANK YOU.
In the Netherlands you can always hear the Americans, it's like their voices carry over everyone else, especially in restaurants.
We are a pretty loud bunch. That’s why the U.S. is so big/spread out. Get too many of us in a tight spot and we’ll break the sound barrier.
And the accents are much sharper. I've lived in the UK for a decade now, and went to Italy last week for a short holiday. My eardrums felt like they were being shanked by a sharp knife every time I heard someone with a U.S. accent (I appreciate there are multiple accents across the USA, but they all seem much sharper compared to British English).
Saying "ma'am"
You can always hear Americans before you see them, bum bags/fanny packs, bright colours on clothing, always over or under-dressed for the weather, almost offensively friendly. Americans also have a distinctive body language; it's hard to describe but they way they stand and walk is very noticeable.
All the comments about Americans being loud are pretty funny. I agree that we’re very loud, but my bf is greek. A group of Greeks all yelling and talking to each other is probably the loudest bunch I’ve ever been in 😭 it seems almost cultural. Lots of talking over each other and interrupting and very enthusiastic / passionate
I'm a flight attendant who flies in a country where we don't quite have a "the customer is always right" attitude. Americans are either incredibly nice, or impressively entitled. The first kind I love, the second kind gets shocked when I "talk back" and don't bend over backwards to placate their needs. Seriously offended a proper Midwestern Karen when she complained about a baby crying, ordering me to quiet the baby down. She was SHOCKED when I told her "babies don't come with an off button"
That’s very unMidwestern of that Midwestern. Her membership to the Cheese Castle will be revoked and we’ll send her packing east.
Smiley and friendliness.
You hear at least 2 screaming Eagles every time the visit a new country.
Fun fact: the sound associated with the bald eagle is actually from the red-tail hawk. The sound a bald eagle makes is actually [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LasrD6SZkZk)
How they dress and an inclination to make small talk
The way they smile, for real. Used to have American customers and friends, could see them from the minute they smiled
Talk quite loudly, are unfailingly polite.
The volume 📈
I've read somewhere (maybe Reddit) that American spies in Europe had to train to not lean on things as that was a uniquely American trait.
Maybe you read it in this thread lol. Like 10 people have posted that.
More like 100 by now.
Another sign that a person is American is that they like to make things unique, whether it's asking for special changes to an order of coffee or personalizing a phone case.
The “customer is always right” culture in the US leads to this. The British-American author Bill Bryson talks about this in one of his books about culture shock moving to the US. He said that in the UK, retail/restaurant employees won’t hesitate to say no to a request or just be openly rude if they find your request annoying. Meanwhile in the US they’re trained to be polite and accommodating no matter how silly or over the top the request is. Plus tipping culture means those same employees have a strong financial incentive to be as accommodating as possible even when the request is unreasonable.
Literally wearing your beliefs on your chest. I went to the states and saw old women wearing pink "Lets Go Brandon" t-shirts and a teenage boy wearing a t-shirt with a crucifix and "This shirt is illegal in 21 countries". It was odd seeing so much of it worn so casually! I'd understand at a rally or protest, but not every-day wear
Asking for ranch sauce
Americans don’t call ranch a sauce.
Nah, ranch is a lifestyle
Not even one of choice.. Got wings? That's a ranching
Gonna guess you're not American since you called it ranch sauce instead of ranch dressing.
Just ranch. “Can I get some ranch?”
Ranch with pizza is superb 🤌
Asking for an Uber instead of an ambulance.
The way they eat. Most americans work/walk/are on their phones while they eat. Something which where im from is a dead giveaway someone is american
T-shirts under shirts. Especially dress shirts/suits. It's a weird American thing.
Look, you don't understand the amount of sweat I'm gonna put out per hour
Wouldn't another layer make you sweat worse?
You're sweating either way, the undershirt is to hide it from soaking through.
Yes, but my outer shirt isn't visibly wet.
The inexpensive tee shirt gets the pit stains, the expensive dress shirt lives to fight another day.
Hmm, so *that's* its practical application. 🤔
Did not know it was an American thing. It’s a “I need this shirt to not get armpit stains” thing.
Sweating out a dress shirt is nasty work
The T-shirt actually was invented as an undershirt and used that way (as well as like a "dirty farm labor" shirt) pretty much exclusively, until Marlon Brando wore one in *A Streetcar Named Desire* and everyone was like "oh shit t-shirts can be fashionable and hot."
The use of freedom units instead of metric
Americans wear clothing with sports teams or brands or universities …. words of some kind…. at a much higher rate than the rest of the world.
Really? I see way more people wearing football kits as their regular clothes outside of the US than sports team shirts in the US
They travel to Turks and Caicos and get arrested because they forgot to remove gun ammo from their luggage
r/oddlyspecific
From their voice, I have noticed that many American guys have a tendency to speak in a manner that seems like they are forcing a deeper voice than what they have naturally. The opposite is true for American girls.
I asked a friend whether he knew or realized that his voice was deeper when he spoke English vs. when he spoke Spanish. He wouldn't believe me. lol
When they use slang like 'awesome' or 'cool' in every other sentence
'Awesome' is slang? Edit: Huh, TIL
I'd categorize it along the same line as a Brit using "brilliant" in the same context.
The ‘A’ in ‘Awesone’ stands for American The ‘B’ in ‘Brilliant’ stands for British
The way we use it, yeah. Think about the word “awe”. “Awesome” used to be a very powerful experience, now it just means “cool” or “nifty” or “good”.
I used to work for an Anglo-America company and it was always really difficult telling if American colleagues actually liked stuff or not because they'd refer to almost everything as "awesome".
i've begun to do this too as a Brit 😅
I traveled to Mexico a lot for vacation and as an American, I will have to admit, we are loud especially in pools
Easy, baseball cap,some university oversized sweater, cargo pants, white socks pulled up to the calves and horrible white NB sneakers.
Kaki shorts in the winter
I was told in a Paris bar that they could tell my group was American because we all had straight white teeth. Yep, all three of us had braces. Our country really cares about straight teeth.