Wow why are people so cruel? English/ British confusion?

Question

I have been noticing lately that people really like to take their anger out on ths website. I am an American and I made the mistake of confusing English and British. (sorry about that) I got an earful about the difference and I felt bad because I didn't mean to offend anyone, but is it really necessary to attack someone when you know they made and innocent mistake. O and why do the people who do this always bring up the country the other person is from and say "I'm tired of the AMERICANS confusing us..." I didnt make the mistake because I am an American, I made the mistake because I was uninformed, you know? And then they don't even answer your question, they just dwell on your mistake.Has anyone else noticed this? Does this bother anyone else? Once again sorry and now I know! :D

haha thanks guys well put... i was just fenting ;-)

ooops...meant venting

Answer 1

People use this particular strand of possible areas to ask questions to advance their own agenda. It is easy to tell when someone has their own motives versus correcting a wrong. Don't feel bad because of people who are looking for a reason to explode. A time bomb is a time bomb! ☻

Answer 2

I haven't read the question you're talking about, but people in different parts of the UK (different again from Great Britain and England!) can get extremely defensive about their own heritage, which is fair enough I suppose. If however they then start generalizing about Americans, then that just makes them hypocrites, surely?

I for one have met some incredibly dumb, ignorant Americans, and I've met some astoundingly smart and well educated ones too, and the same goes for all nationalies I've encountered.

Unfortunately Americans do have a worldwide reputation as being loud, stupid and self-absorbed, the same as the British have a reputation for being stuck-up and pretentious. I suppose some people just find it easier generalising about other groups rather than taking each individual as they come, and I think they also like finding fault in others because it makes them feel better about themselves.

I agree also that people do have a habit of airing their grievances on Yahoo Answers, instead of just answering whichever questions they can. Maybe they just don't know much stuff and want the points, or maybe they have no other way of venting their anger and expressing their opinions?

Even so, I'm really happy to have received lots of good advice and information from people here. On the whole, I think people do use Answers the way it was intended most of the time, and I think that's really nice. Don't let the minority get you down! x

PS what my Scottish associate says above (successful Englishman = English, successful Scot = British) is unfortunately completely true. As an Englishman I find this rather embarrassing! Luckily this is happening less and less, but there is still inconsistency.

Answer 3

I am sorry you got that but have to be honest some here

Americans are not educated and don't want to become. I think that your question wasn't meant as any disrespect to the British. It was just a question.

As a Canadian we are attacked on continually by Americans and we live next door to each other and yet we don't get along; but, I will say that as person you didn't deserve that. Honestly I don't hate Americans...I hate the ignorance of them...the ones that think America is the best...we are all equal...

For instance the war in the Middle East was begun because the Trade Towers were hit....you blamed Canada for letting these men in to your country...you country trained these men to fly...

What about after the big black the US attacked Canada again because we provide all of the power to your northern eastern seaboard....after time it was admitted by the US that the problem was created by a person in some power station in the US...and the US wanted the topic closed quickly...

The US joined WWII only after a bomb hit your country...and you feel you WON the war that many other countries had been fighting for years....you were the last country to enter the war...I do believe that with out your countries assistance the war would of taken longer and that it would ended the way it did...

I hope this will explain a bit of why Americans are not well respected outside of there own country...this is not just by countries of the British Commonwealth...but by most countries of the world...the meanness has been there since I can remember during the 1960's to today.

Last but not least the American dollar has taken a beating in the world market and the Canadian dollar is making a come back and it will over succeed the American as it did during the War in Viet Nam. It is just economics not hatred.

Answer 4

This touches on a massive national identity question. When the Romans invaded Britain there were no English - only Brits & those living in what is now Scotland. The Brits took a beating from the military might of the Romans. The Angles, Saxons etc who took over in the vacuum left when the Romans left did their own version of ethnic cleansing driving the rump of the British into Wales and probably into Southern Scotland. Then the Danes arrived and took over half of Britain for a few hundred years. Then the Normans moved in and took over the lot. All this happened ages ago but, oddly, even though they claim to have rooted themselves here about 1500 years ago, the 'English' did and still culturally act like recent invaders, as if they could be driven out back to North Germany, Denmark,etc. They made it a capital offence to speak Gaelic in Scotland - they tried damned hard to stamp out Welsh including lying to me as a schoolboy about the popularity that language had at the time. Taking the mickey out of the Scots and Welsh is not seen as being racist in England. Even the 'multi-cultural' pseudo-marxists dominating our Social Services and Schools draw the line at being fair to the Welsh!
The fact is that, as long as the English claim links to their invader past (Anglo-Saxon this, Anglo-Saxon that!), it makes no more sense for them to claim to be British than it would for George Bush to claim to be a Comanche.
Oddly, nobody picks up on your country's aggrandisement of the 'American' identity. You live in the smaller part of the northern bit of a very big dual continent, North & South America. Certainly everyone living in that continent can call themselves Americans including yourselves but you don't mean that do you? You don't visualise the whole thing from Cape Horn to the Arctic Circle when you think 'America'. You don't see the contradiction in calling yourself after the whole when you are only a part. Canada is in fact larger than the USA and they call themselves 'Canadians'! Did anyone in your history ever devise a one word name for the USA as a whole, not the individual states? If they did, what was it and why did it not catch on?

Answer 5

Yes, there's a distinction between not knowing something and not being intelligent, just because you don't know something doesn't necessarily mean you're stupid, but if you show you're prepared to learn something then that says a lot about the type of person you are (in a good way).

I think people come on here to vent. I am guessing that most people who come on to vent are either young and hot-headed, or simply immature, or a combination of the two, and so they just jeer and basically act ignorant, simply because the text they see on the screen means little to them, they just don't connect it with an actual person.

I suggest not taking this kind of nastiness personally, it's just not worth it. If someone has had a bad day and has taken it out on you, just click on the next thing you want to see.

Life is too short to waste on immature little jerks who think it's clever to be nasty.

Answer 6

The people who attack for a genuine mistake are a minority, most Brits would simply explain the difference, we don't make as many mistakes about America because a lot of our tv is from America, otherwise we would not know either, we are not educated in school about America to any major level, and i don't suppose you are about Britain either.

Answer 7

because of the fact the area between us of a and britian are so a procedures away. Plus us of a has some diverse accents (southern, northeastern huge apple and new england accents, hawaiian accessory) Canada and particularly quebec proclaims some words in a various way South africa has its very own diffent accessory particularly some afrikaners australia & new zeeland kinda sounds like a go between american and british english plus there is scottish and irish accents To be effortless all eu languages sound in a various way in the americas as unfavorable to europe. spanish is spain (they lisp lol Ex. cinco is stated thinco) and latin u.s. (particularly Argentinean spanish is a splash diverse) Portuguese from portugal and africa is amazingly diverse than Portuguese from brazil. Then theres quebec, north africa, and france for french additionally i assume dutch is extremely diverse for aruba than the netherlands to not point out that afrikaans stepped forward right into a separate language. English, french, spanish, portuguese, dutch all have diverse "dialects" in diverse areas of the international particularly in europe, africa, north & south u.s..

Answer 8

Someone above said Ireland was part of Britain. Not true. England, Wales and Scotland make up Great Britain (the big island on the right.) Those three countries plus NORTHERN Ireland make up the UK.

Answer 9

Don't worry, It's just one of those things. Scottish and Welsh have an issue when it comes to being labelled English. THey have their own countries which they are rightly proud of. However It's a common mistake for someone not familliar with the UK to make. It really bugs people but to be honest ask anyone else in the world and
a) they don'y know the difference
b) they couldn't care less anyway

Answer 10

whoever attacked you verbally over that issue are pathetic. i am English, as i was born in England. England, wales, Ireland and Scotland (my father a Scot by he way) is part of the united kingdom, therefore i am also British.

i am sorry someone has been rude to you, its totally un-necessary and i also agree that this site seems to be a 'soap box' and a vehicle to vent anger and rudeness and downright nastiness to others on here.

someone was taking the p*ss out of Americans on here the other day, because of culture differences. i laugh at most users on here, and ignore them.

don't you be sorry.

Answer 11

So your confused about being British or English...that's alright because even we English are confused and as uniformed as you.

So sorry to take our anger out on you and don't worry about offending anyone as we get offended all the time not knowing who were are supposed to be.

Part of the UK English or British...the Scots are Scottish the Welsh....are Welsh but the English are not allowed to call themselves English in case it offends someone.....yes confusing is'nt it?

Is it any wonder we get annoyed and give youe Americans an earful...which is unfair seeing as you don't have a clue either.