Asked By GaG Members; British Culture

[Hannah591]

I asked you guys what you wanted to know about the British and our culture and you certainly gave me a lot to think about!

"How often do you shower?"

Asked by @pooper89

Right now, the UK is fitness mad and all the gyms are packed, even at 7am before they go to work so those people often shower twice a day. I generally shower once a day unless I go to the gym but I know some people who shower up to three times a day. Others literally just strip wash themselves and bathe once a week.

"What would happen if the Queen spontaneously declared war on France tomorrow?"

Asked by @Octavius

I'm not too sure but I do know that she doesn't have as much power as people think and a lot of questions would be raised as to why she would want that before anything happened. The prime minister has control over our forces.

"Explain tea time. What if I don't like drinking tea?"

Asked by @ConsultantIsBack

"Tea time" is basically dinner time which is the third meal of the day. We don't have a set time for tea drinking, we drink several cups throughout the day. I find that many prefer coffee in the morning. You won't get judged too much if you don't like tea but I have yet to meet someone who doesn't like tea. I'm currently on my second mug of tea in the last ten minutes.

"Is fat acceptance propaganda as pervasive there as US?"

Asked by ConsultantIsBack

It's usually just posts on Facebook about how men prefer "curves" over "bones" but the majority of people don't pay attention to it.

"Why does everyone care about the royal family so much?"

Asked by ConsultantIsBack

I don't know. I guess it's the pinnicle of patriotism and something that many countries don't have. My mum loves Kate and William for the cute romance and baby side of it. She loves Harry because he's a cute ginger. I think that reason goes for the majority really.

"Why is the British accent so addictive and like royalty?"

Asked by @kartoos

There are hundreds, potentially thousands of accents in the UK depending on where you go so saying "the British accent" is extremely vague. It's not addictive to me and I find a large amount of the accents unattractive. It's just addictive to non Britons!

"While I know and like a number of British folks online, I've noticed they all have a common trait of elitism when it comes to comparing themselves to people from other countries, what is that about?"

Asked by @Krillanr

Maybe because Americans constantly say how posh we are (false stereotype), that we're all prim and proper (false stereotype), speak perfectly (false stereotype) and they love our accents. I think we might be a generally arrogant country though, yet we're too scared to talk to strangers.

"Is there any traditional British food that tastes good and is not Fish and Chips or Shepherds Pie?"

Asked by @Whoooooooooo

I had fish and chips today and it was beautiful! Well here in Wales, we have Welsh cakes and they're lovely. We eat a lot of sandwiches - my favourite is egg and salad cream! 'Bubble & squeek' is okay, it's mainly a side dish made of left overs from a previous roast. In my house, it's usually swede and carrot mashed together. 'Toad-in-the-hole' is sausages in batter that have been roasted and of course, 'bangers and mash' which is just mashed potato and sausages. If you go to the South of England, nearer the sea, they eat a lot of pasties. You can't beat a full English breakfast either.

"A lot of girls (non-British) seem to fancy the British accent, is it the same for British girls?"

Asked by @BertMacklinFBI

I'm assuming you mean do British girls also like the British accent? Girls will usually like an accent if it's very different to theirs. If you mean British girls liking foreign accents, I think the most preferred is the French accent.

"How do you guys understand the Liverpoolian accent?"

Asked by @Mesonfielde

We do struggle at times, but every accent is a variation from your own, sometimes simply by a change in how they say one or two letters. The Scottish accent can sound like total gibberish and you'd definitely need a translator. It took me about 5 months to understand t hat accent. You just have to learn how they pronounce each letter individually. Once you know that, then it all pieces together.

"I was wondering if I got a work Visa for 6 months to a year, and I lived there, how people from the UK perceive "outsiders" who are there temporarily for work or holiday?"

Asked by anonymous

The UK is very multicultural so the British are used to foreigners being here and they won't really care much about why you're here either, though they'd probably be happier to hear that you're staying temporarily seeing as we have an immigration problem.

"British women always seem so uptight and very prim and proper. I really like that but they also are very liberated in the bedroom. Why do you think that is?"

Asked by @Mcminamins123

If you came here on a night out, you'd see that women aren't as prim and proper as you assume. I'm not sure why they're so liberated but maybe because the UK is such a relaxed country in terms of acceptance so they feel comfortable in being who they are.

"Should the former prime minister have apologised for slavery?"

Asked by @ThePragmaticRomantic

I wasn't even aware of this but looking up, it wasn't Gordon Brown's fault for what happened so no, he shouldn't have apologised. He should've simply said that what happened would never be allowed to happen again.

"What's with the rampant xenophobia? The anger, bitterness and misplaced superiority to the rest of the world?"

Asked by @meatballs21

In terms of the xenophobia, it wasn't that prominent until the immigration problem. Less than a decade ago, it was rare to see a foreigner. Now you see more foreigners than British people. Understandably, Britons don't like it because they feel like they're losing their identity and it's been a fairly quick and noticeable change. There are huge areas of the country that are completely full of foreigners and it's like walking into another country where many don't know English, something that never used to exist and honestly, it's saddening.
This kind of question seems to be quite prominent. I've not heard of this stereotype until today so I'm not entirely sure about this superiority.

---

[Bluemax]

BUBBLE AND SQUEAK IS HORRIBLE!!! JUST HORRIBLE!!!

My father was born and raised in Manchester (he lived in England during WW II and has some fascinating stories to tell growing up during the war). He used to have my mother make bubble and squeak and I ate it as a kid. It became popular in England as the result of the WWII and food rationing. BUT IT IS JUST GODAWFUL!!! It makes me wretch just thinking about that damn stuff. I wanted to tell my dad, "Hey, good news, Dad! The Allies won WWII. There's no food rationing. We don't have to eat crap anymore! Live a little!"

Kippers are good. I know technically they're more Norwegian and Danish cuisine, but the Brits like 'em, too. And so do I. My mother and my wife left the house when my father and I prepared them respectively. I think they're delicious!

Part of the reason why Yanks think that Brits have a snobbish accent is that it's a stereotype somewhat encouraged by Hollywood (and I don't even think Hollywood is aware of it). In many movies in fictional settings, if the enemies are imperialistic, the actors they hire are frequently English. I think Star Wars is a great example. Most of the Empire's officers in the Star Wars saga have British accents... more specifically British BBC news accents. Or if we want someone to sound wise and Shakespearian, we hire a Brit. Lord of the Rings, another good example.

[Hidden_P]

You missed out pie! Like steak pie and mash. That's quite a British dish.

I find it hilarious that the top English dish is Tikka Massalla. And before people go oh that's Indian, yes it is Indian because it's a curry. However, during the days when Britain had an empire and was in India, it was a dish the British created so they could embrace India but not being used to the spice it was much milder. It is actually a British dish with Indian routes. Coronation chicken was created along the same lines - served at a coronation but embracing those times.

[meatballs21]

Thank you very much for the response. As a foreign person who lived in the UK for nearly a decade and a half, I was subject to the mistrust and hostility on a daily basis. I assimilated better than anyone could be expected to (British parents) into the culture but their is a negative attitude and need to tear people down for any reason they could find. I wish I could say this was a few individuals but it wasn't - it was rife, in every corner of the country that I lived or worked in.

Jeremy Clarkson wrote an op-ed on this bizarre phenomenon: www.topgear.com/.../jeremy-clarkson-brits

I am sorry to say that I have been permanently soured to the UK as a result of my experiences. I made some friends but never stopped feeling like an unwanted outsider.

Thanks again for the thoughtful response. I apologise for the angry tone. Nobody here (Canada) understands when I try to explain to them that it's not all rolling hills, manor houses and high fucking tea.

[Hannah591]

Well I love Americans and Canadians! I met some last night. I loved their accent and I directed them to some good clubs. I did notice they were extremely friendly and happy. We're not like that here haha.

That Jeremy Clarkson post was spot on. We're painfully cruel to each other, but it's more about who can say the worst most creative thing or it's "banter". It makes us stronger and harder ;D It's what we're used to though, so it can probably make an outsider feel uncomfortable.

[DeenaGupro]

well since you're stupid enough to still have our Queen, then yeah... and label 60 million people the sam due to your bad experiences... cool.. haha.

[Anonymous]

Wow, where on earth do you come from? Tea Time, is a time, it is afternoon tea served between lunch and an evening meal of dinner.

Secondly its Liverpudlian.

Thirdly, the commander in chief of the armed forces is the Queen. She is in charge however she would have to go through the defense secretary (Michael Fallon - I have met him, nice chap!) and the house of commons before declaring war on anything. Not to mention the implications of this in the UN, EU and NATO. Whoever asked the question really was a little silly there.

The accent thing, I can understand everyone, Most Scottish are fine unless you get to the Highlands. I have struggled with some welsh, you may be able to explain why but I think its your slang words are often welsh words so unless you speak the language you are kinda 'huh?' and a blank face!

All in all its nice to see some good answers for your My Take, I just wanted to correct the bits where you were more unsure for a more definite answer :)

I have a question for the american's why do they all ask when you visit, if you know the queen?

[Hannah591]

I come from Britain and I'm Welsh. We have slang but it's very rarely Welsh words. The only one I can think of right now is "cwtch".

Official tea time was created hundreds of years ago where they literally did have a time for tea but that doesn't happen nowadays. Also, "tea time" to me literally means dinner time.

Liverpoolian and Liverpudlian is like the same to me, plus I didn't say Liverpoolian.

[Opinion Owner]

I know I wanted to correct the American - lets try and get them to speak some English at least :)

cwtch I know, thats a cuddle :)

We still have tea time up here in the North, also if you work for some supermarkets such as Morrisons etc they do an afternoon break referred to as 'tea break' = afternoon tea.

The trend of 'Afternoon Tea' seems to have returned because everyone aspires to be elitest for some reason and its so annoying!!

[GirlScout]

"Less than a decade ago, it was rare to see a foreigner"

Just not true, Britain has had a rich mix of people for a long while, Indians coming over from our colonies have been settled here for nearly 100 years, hell curry is a national dish! There are also lots of other nationalities that have been here more than ten years. Saying foreigners were rare is very very misleading.

Also, we don't all like the royal family. A lot of people, a LOT think it's disgusting we keep a bunch of inbred Germans in pocket. A lot of people are very angry about it.

But you got the food bit ok, Welshcakes rule :)

[godfatherfan]

I do find it weird that so many of us in the USA love finding out about the royal family. Even though I think it is totally ridiculous to have a kind / Queen, I watched Princess di get married, I watched a ton of coverage on her death (funny enough I always remember that we were having sex when the notice came on the TV lol). I always read about the 2 princes. I do think that Prince Charles will get stepped over and the queen will hand the thrown to Prince William. Admittedly, I have no idea if that is even possible to do. I think it is because of the roots of the USA. and that they are our closest ally. Also, unlike the French assholes, Britain will back up their promises and their threats with troops if needed.

[abacaxi84]

@meatballs21 - In the UK, the xenophobia thing is closely linked to people's political leanings. It's generally the Tory and UKIP voters -- and especially Daily Mail readers -- in the UK, who like to like to try to attribute all the country's problems to immigration.
As for being "angry and bitter and superior" few Brits fit this description, I think this is just a bit of a cultural clash. I appreciate that British people might seem unfriendly, unwelcoming or cold to Americans and Canadians, but by the same token Americans and Canadians can (also mistakenly) come across as uncomfortably over-familiar and fake to British people. Neither of of these interpretations are correct, they're just the result of different cultural norms as to how much you share when you first meet people.
Here it's just the norm to hold back a bit, in terms of friendliness, until you know someone reasonably well and this seems to get misinterpreted as arrogance by Americans and Canadians.

[abacaxi84]

Whoops - only just saw your other post, above, saying that you actually lived here for a decade, so that explanation is going to be a bit redundant!
I am sorry you had such a shitty time in the UK. It may have been the part of the UK that you were in. In some cities having people from all over the world the norm, but other parts are less welcoming. I live in a pretty multicultural city now, but I spent my teenage years in a town in Essex. I thoroughly hate that area of the UK due to the right of centre politics and xenophobic attitudes held by most of the people who live there.

[meatballs21]

@abacaxi84 No worries. "The part of the UK" was the southeast, London itself, the southwest, South Wales and also the Midlands, Yorkshire and Scotland. Work and life took me everywhere.

[ThePragmaticRomantic]

A lot of the 'British Superiorety' is largely thanks to people on the internet playing up to the jingoistic stereotypes as a sublt form of trolling [insult the French call us a rebelious collony, tea jokes for everyone rofl rofl].
That and leftover resentment from the time the island controlled the largest empire human civilisation has ever seen and standard foreign policy was the same as for more modern superpowers (act superior and if they dont like it they can enjoy being crushed). Superpowers tend to be arrogant. But perhaps people shouldn't throw stones on that regard.

[Kerbie]

Is there anything the french dont blame us for? Nope they blame us for the immgration problem at calais saying we are not doing enough yet the french have not got any powers of arrest.

[ThePragmaticRomantic]

... Probably... But of course they are going to be wrong a lot of the time: They're french.

[Northeast106]

en.wikipedia.org/.../Declarations_of_war_by_Great_Britain_and_the_United_Kingdom

The Monarchy is more powerful than you think. She is your head of state, and the head of all your armed forces. The queen also appoints the Prime Minister, one who should lead the House of Commons.

en.wikipedia.org/.../Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom

[Northeast106]

Otherwise, great my take.

[Curmudgeon]

She *nominally* appoints the Prime Minister, but since when did she ever defy the election results?

[far2gud4u]

@Curmudgeon EH? She has to be politically neutral. She simply does the equivalent of a 'swearing in' with the Prime Minister as a final representation of her people because they chose them.

[DeenaGupro]

cool story dude... except she does shot and your racist fucking country has it's own issues

[Northeast106]

She has power and wealth, and she may not go against "the people", but it doesn't mean she's not exercising her power behind the scenes. The U. K's house of lords isn't even elected by the people, and they outnumber the House of Commons. They still have a class society, there are still nobles in England. Just because it's not flaunted in everyone's face doesn't mean the power structure isn't still there.

[BruceJender]

In regards to accents, there are about 56 main "accent types" in the British Isles (or less controversially the "Anglo-Celtic Isles"), but within each of those accent types there are scores or even hundreds of distinctive variations. Yorkshire, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and Cockney, form but a few of them.

Question though, is Gordon Brown the Prime Minister lol?

[Hannah591]

No, David Cameron is.

[BruceJender]

Omg I'm so sorry I didn't read "former" LOLOLOL

[chuppachup]

"The Scottish accent can sound like total gibberish and you'd definitely need a translator. It took me about 5 months to understand t hat accent. "

Gonna have to disagree with you there. Our language is just as regionally-diverse as England's and Wales'. For example, I'm Aberdonian and the Glasweigan accent is even tricky for me to understand. It sounds as "strange" as the Liverpoolians to Londoners or some regions in Wales, I'm sure. The Aberdeen accent isn't that hard to understand so I don't think anyone would need 5 months to understand me. I'd just have to watch my slang is all.

[Femdomina]

If we disregard the stereotypes, Americans don't know much about the British, they also mistake all British for English... they usually forget about the Welsh, Scottish, Cornish and North Irish people.

[Hannah591]

This bugs me more than anything.

[samsw]

great take Hannah, enjoyed reading it.
the 'Tea Time' question really made me laugh :-)

Its such a pity that the majority of the country is judged by the minority.

I personally live in an old mining village and when I moved here my Dad (an ex-miner) was panicking because of the villages reputation of being violent/nasty people... however, I love it here and the people are really friendly and welcoming etc.

[Kerbie]

Good job Hannah 😊 I had to learn to understand scottish properly part of my family lives there family there but still struggling with welsh and liverpool lingo

I remember keeping the telly glued to skynews when wills and kate when they had baby george and then again when Princess Charlotte was was born.

A night out in derby is sometimes like a war zone one bar got closed due to trouble there is no end of girls in derby ending up in the back of police van's

[front2back]

Does anybody enjoy the fucking M25?

https://youtu.be/V3Vgptnstyc

[Hannah591]

I love this guy.

[TJ-Laser]

"What would happen if the Queen spontaneously declared war on France tomorrow"

Actually, all serving members of the armed forces pledge allegiance to the queen. Im speaking from experience here, and as im ex army i can safely say that 90% of the army would side with the queens decision over the governments.

[far2gud4u]

yeah who wants to die for David Cameron?

[BraidsGirl]

This is a perfect myTake except for the last point, I don't think it's saddening that immigrants choose to live in the UK it doesn't really affect others.

[Hannah591]

It's saddening to me that nowadays, British children are a minority in British schools and it gets worse every year which I've seen personally. Regularly, the news film parts of the country or in schools and you genuinely believe they're in another country, until they state it's somewhere in Britain. It also doesn't help that the immigrants believe in having 5-8 kids per family. If nothing is put in place, British people will become a minority. It's been predicted that in a few years, there will be next to no genuinely British people like me, they will all be mixed race. I don't have a problem with mixed race people but when there's a genuine threat of no fully British people remaining in x number of years, it saddens me. We're not a big country.

[BraidsGirl]

Why does it sadden you? Plus it's only a few certain areas of London that have a minority of British people. There are many, many others that are predominantly British, don't worry, immigrants aren't going to take over the UK.

Am I hearing a UKIP supporter here? Just wondering?

[Hannah591]

I'm from Cardiff and it's terrible.
Yes, but people brand UKIP as racist when actually, they also see what I see; an overwhelming influx of immigrants.

[BeeNee]

You sound like some of the Anglo Americans I hear in the US who are still talking about how it was first all the black people who were going to breed and take over and now its all the Mexicans they say that are going to breed and take over. No one type of person owns a place. Human beings in this century travel, they move, they migrate, they settle. Your own history of colonization should illustrate that to you in fine detail except a good majority are coming to your shores not by force, but through the law. Why not try and embrace the change, and the people. I learned a hell of a whole lot about life by attending an international school and living in pretty diverse places throughout the US that I wouldn't ever have gotten or been exposed to otherwise.

[ambertaylor]

I love this article haha. Having to explain british-isms is something I've never considered but I suppose some of the things we do may seem alien! Love the one about tea time and not liking tea 😂 I love being British ❤

[COCOCHANEL]

the last one is sad. i hope you can stop that influx.

[Hannah591]

I can't do anything to stop it unfortunately.

[Krillanr]

Good stuff, I'd love to visit Britain, just wasn't sure if they'd like my visiting or not.

[orphan]

what's the politically correct way to refer to a black person? america has 'afro-american'... does the UK have an equivalent?

[Hannah591]

We just say black person.

[orphan]

this is why i love the uk.

[Anonymous]

Nice Take, thank you for answering the questions! The UK has been at the top of my destination list for some time. I have been playing a vacation there since I was 6 years old haha.