why do yanks say if it weren't for them we'd be speaking German! when its the other way around?

Question

Like if it weren't for us Brits the yanks would be speaking German.

Well we helped defeat hitler and we kept off the british isles which would have been used as an almightly launch pad to carry on the conquest to capture the united states.

But also when the united states was being conceived wasn't there a vote on which language to adopt? and English won the vote by just one over German?

Answer 1

I believe it is a two way street. One helped the other to overcome a mutual enemy. Otherwise we would all be speaking German.... Could you see that? Me eating weinerschnitzel and speaking German........LOL

Well I didn't know that this question was going to become a debate........So here goes. Yes you kept the Germans off the British mainland. The only part of the British Isles ever captured and occupied by Germany in WWII was a small island in the English Channel that had a lighthouse on it. But the supplies that were sent to you were from the U.S. otherwise you would have been finished off by Germany eventually. You didn't have the resources to fight a sustained war even with the Soviet Union fighting in the East. Germany had already pushed the British troops across the channel and the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse when the U.S. entered the war in Dec. 1941.

The reason that the U.S. didn't enter sooner was because President Roosevelt had to find a way to get the large population of German people in the U.S. to decide to back a war against Germany. One of the major people who tried to stop the U.S. from fighting against Germany was Charles Lindbergh who was a national hero at the time. Also Roosevelt had survived a plot to have him assassinated by people such as Edsel Ford ( Ford Motor Company) and Walter P. Chase. They even had General Douglas MacArthur planning to help them. They viewed President Roosevelt as a socialist because he implemented the new deal and Social Security. It took time for him to get the whole of America behind the war effort. The Japanese gave that reason on Dec.7th 1941. Even a close friend of Roosevelt's, Joseph Kennedy Sr. had told Winston Churchill that Germany would defeat England in an all-out war when he was U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. F.D.R. then pulled Kennedy back out after that one.

As far as the issue of the U.S. nearly having German for it's official language. The meeting where that was to be decided in the 1700's took place in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. What was in Pennsylvania at that time? Dutch people had settled there. Dutch people spoke German. It failed by one vote being the official language based on the number of Dutch present at that meeting.

If you really want to get technical about what stopped the invasion of England, it could be accredited to one Dutch border guard. When Germany invaded Holland he hid in a field of tulips and thinking he would die anyway he managed to shoot and seriously wound the one German General that Hitler had chosen to lead the invasion of England. By the time he had recovered, it was too late. Because of his action Hitler became so angry that he killed an entire village of people and leveled that town.

Answer 2

That's not exactly true when talking about the 1940's, America would never had fallen to Adolf Hitler, it is too far from Europe for him to have attacked. Hitler was defeated by Starlin - and Japan would not have had the resources to invade, but were hoping to get America to settle for a peace settlement that gave them some mineral resources.

Go back in History further, and when America declared Independence, they voted for a national language, and English got 4 more votes than German, so If it was not for George Washington's wife, the Americans would be speaking German.

She was from Dorset and made him hold out for English, not for language reasons, but because her family was Catholic, and she distrusted the Lutheran German settlers. her coat of arms - two red bars over one white star on a blue background is also the source of old glory...

If it was not for England during the second world war, Europe including the UK would be talking in Russian as a second language.

Answer 3

I don't see how it would be the other way around. Lets pose the question this way: What would Britons be speaking if the Americans did not enter WW2? Russian?

The U.S. alone did not win the war in Europe. But if it wasn't for the U.S. involvement, however late it became, the U.K. would have suffered deeply. Due to the island isolation from the rest of Europe the U.K. may have held off for a longer time than other countries. However, the British Isles would have been cornered by the Axis and the Communistists. Britain eventually would have looked to the U.S. for assistance to salvage its english existance.

Answer 4

Well in reality the arrival of the americans did turn the tide, the war had been going on for years before the americans came in, as a result they boosted the morale of the troops.

On the down side though in the 1st WW for the amount of time they wer in the war they lost a larger percentage than any other nation. Most of it was from just having a look out onto no mans land or going for a walk. Just goes to show, they weren't that bright then either.

Answer 5

Possibly the only thing worse than war is the garbage blowhards trot out ever after. Britain had nothing like the industrial capacity of America and to have played a part in defeating facism is a more realistic view of what happened as Britain and its empire still could not have fought Germany, Italy and Japan to a standstill and unconditional surrender.
It was Allies who defeated facism and friends don't try to claim all the credit for their contribution.

Answer 6

Good question - especially with the double-entendre about the vote..!!

I'd like to point out that the Americans did NOT do anything much to help the 'allies' until they were forced to join the war effort properly.

Americans are very keen to point out that they SOLD the UK ships and various war equipment, but they forget that they mostly sold us OLD, and USELESS things that were due to be scrapped anyway..!! And at TOP prices!! It's not very helpful to make someone pay top whack for a grotty old rust-bucket, and I'm not even sure that the UK has finished paying it off yet! I know we were still paying roughly ten years ago, but we could still be forking out good money for your old Yankee rust-buckets for all I know...!

Answer 7

They have little or nothing else to shout about, they've never won a war you see and for a violent country they need to validate themselves somehow. That and the fact that they have no history to be proud of they cling on to the only decent act they've ever done.

Yes they helped in the war but only for two and a half years, we fought the war on two fronts for eight years all told, and anyway it was the magnificent Russian that first defeated the nazis at Leningrad and Moscow and that was what turned the tide and meant we won the war and you don't hear any Russians bragging about "saving our asses"

Answer 8

Did you know that America very nearly voted German as the national language in 1776?That would have made WW2 interesting

Answer 9

Yanks like taking the credit for just about anything.

Let's Yank their chain (wind 'em up) by telling them they're wrong.

Answer 10

because they are big headed self obsesed twats that need braught down a peg or two they cant even spell correctly