i think most naysayers are english, and therefore not "idiots"-- i think (i'm not positive here) that the proper term is "cunts".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunt

???

Is there not purity anymore?

in germany?

i'm not speaking of nazism of course...

http://brewingmuseum.org/purity_law.htm

Actually I think it was less of a wager and more of an agreement that you would almost certainly perform the aforementioned tasks. The extra action of calling someone a prick means you do indeed win. You win the nebulous and useless prize of my faint praise.

America hasn't got a lot of history, so some nebulous link is grasped a bit stronger. Such is my interpretation.

The thing that always confuses me is that the majority of English people would describe themselves as British (especially non-Caucasian English), while the majority of Northern Irish, Welsh and Scottish would describe themselves as such. It's a pretty difficult territory to negotiate - apart from the Patrick's day absurdity ("I shook hands with an Irishman once, ergo I'm Irish") I think it's easier to let people describe themselves as an how they feel - it's a compliment to English culture that the notion of 'Englishness' is such an incredibly ambiguous thing, like 'all things to all wo/men'.

Faint praise, you say? I'm sort of a bit touched. Kind of.

By the way, happy St. Patrick's Day to Fishmonkey and Pauly, who are the only two actual irish guys who haven't even posted on here yet.

They're probably sick of drunken English cunts invading Dublin in oversized novelty hats, drinking to excess and generally patronising them. I doubt that would have stopped them sinking a few Guinesses if they're anything like the Irish people I know (and god knows we can conveniently base the attributes of an entire nation of the example of a few)

it has more to do with cultural identity, as all of white people in this country descend from recent immigrants. "native" americans, commonly known as indians, have been here for milennia. everyone else is not a "native' but the descendent of a colonist or immigrant of some kind.

it's more complicated you see because the "history" is a bit longer (not written mind you) except that it's not the history of the dominant groups.

the english, by the way, have history of appropriating irish and scottish writers that are deemed "good enough" to be "english"-- whereas lesser writers are praised for their provincial color & kept in the provincial anthologies. parallel to that, i suspect one wouldn't want to be scottish or irish in england because it might be like declaring yourself a country bumpkin. in america the social pressures are applied differently and so people will construct their identities differently.

this is of course a long fucking discussion i'm not willing to pursue here, much less under the spell of a hangover, but it gets tiring to see people in one country making misinformed judgments about another country they do not understand-- just like when americans start talking out of their asses about the french... so please don't think im saying "america rah rah rah"-- it's often much worse here. just pointing that out.

Well, yesterday, someone did not want to sell me a box of fags(cigarettes, for Americans.) They thought I was sixteen, pricks. I am 22.

I think it's a bit silly as well. It doesn't bother me in the slightest whatever people want to call themselves, but it does make me chuckle sometimes the way Americans or Australians (let's just say white people descending from European colonists or even convicts) seem so keen on claiming some distant heritage... or even being proud of it.

While I was in Australia a few years ago I was working at some dude's sugar cane farm for a while. His grandfather had emigrated from Italy to Australia after world War I(!) and had never gone back. His father was born and grew up in Australia and had never been to Italy and neither had this guy himself, but he couldn't stop talking about Italy-this-Italian-that-blablabla. I just couldn't understand why someone would cling so much on to a heritage that was so distant in both time and space. But what amazed me even more is how proud he seemed to be of that as well. I don't know why anyone would actually be proud of their heritage anyway. It's not an achievement to be born somewhere, neither is it an achievement that your grandfather was born somewhere. I'll never take pride (or embarassment) in "being Dutch" or "being born in the Netherlands". It wouldn't make sense.

One of my uncles traced my family tree (mother's side) back to the 17th or 18th (I don't remember) century somewhere in Germany. I don't know how many generations that goes back, but I'd feel really dumb when I'd start calling myself partly German because of that.

how about the other side of the arguement, some of the people we know don't like mentioning what country they are from(more acurately when they ask someone not to say where they are from) , I find that odd, nothing i know comes to mind as to why it's an issue

American- Irish and American- Italians are the main culprits for that, and it annoys me because you only happen to be born in one place, not two at the same time.

right. culturally, i am american. genetically, i am mostly irish.

I'm not partly anything. I have an irish name and I have a lot of close scottish relatives but I'm not really concerned about it.

I think people cling on to old heritages because they would like to be something else, something different from their boring selves.

jesus christ, the only reason i mentioned it was because of the fucking holiday and you all had to have a shitfit about it. I'M A FUCKING AMERICAN, WE ALL KNOW THIS NOW WHETHER IT WAS APPARENT BEFORE OR NOT.

I wasn't referencing you, I was just talking about it... you know, generally. It's a good discussion point.

that it is.

I'm done.

Yeah, don't take it too seriously.It is also a normal topic of conversation for people who have some sort of heritage from other ethnic backgrounds, so it's nothing new or shocking.It's only odd when some of your friends tell you that they are irish or jamaican, when they were born here and even their parents are second generation.It just puzzles me as to why that happens.