Things people in other cultures say that drive you mad

bobbysands81

Stheno wrote: »

Americans calling me ma'am

What do they talk to her about when they ring her?

Billy86

endacl wrote: »

“The Mainland”

To be fair I hear the a good bit from irish people when talking about europe... usually "mainland europe" (and "continental europe" is about as popular) instead of "the mainland" but close enough. I've also got a few family members in Ireland who always refer to the irish mainland as "the mainland".

Gimme A Pound

Lusocu wrote: »

Spoken like a delusional feminist who can blame any failings on the patriarchy. You are not oppressed.

Is it privileged that females do better in exams and more go to college? Is there something inherent in the education system maybe that disadvantages males? Why isn't there a concern over forcing an equality of outcome in leaving cert results. Every year it's triumphantly announced by smiling RTE news anchors that females outperformed the boys yet again. Men are more stupid and more intelligent. They occupy more extreme ends on a Gaussian IQ distribution. The further towards each end you go you have more males. Therefore you have more male geniuses and also the opposite is true for males. More females in the middle is probably a factor in consistently edging ahead in leaving cert and going onto college. Anecdotely women are probably more dutiful in school, males more likely to take part in sports outside school hours, males lack role models in the classroom and because of their biology are on average likely to be more boisterous, rebellious all of which feeds into the final performance.

Males are 4 times more likely to commit suicide. More likely to do dangerous jobs and die at work. Women live longer lives. Women throughout the entirety of their 20s earn more than men. Women make the decision to have families and only then men pull ahead. Women are the primary spenders of money in households, so even then they are in control of spending the money in the economy. Courts favour the woman for custody of children In seperations. In America Asians make more money than any other race followed by whites. There is affirmative action for acceptance to colleges which puts Asians at a disadvantage whereby they need score higher in SATs to secure a place. If anything it should be called Asian privilege. But that would be racist. Generalizing against a whole demographic of "white males" is a very good example of sexism and racism

I agree with or don't dispute a lot of that - but just wondering, how do women earn more than men throughout their 20s?

Gwynplaine

The English call the ground "the floor"

Witchie

Gwynplaine wrote: »

The English call the ground "the floor"

Just thinking that myself. Am reading a book that has that in it and it's driving me nuts.

pickarooney

Gwynplaine wrote: »

The English call the ground "the floor"

What, like outside? Never noticed that.

CalamariFritti

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Spaniards don't seem to know what a zebra crossing is.

Drivers will mow you out of it.

As a matter of fact it's common behaviour in all of southern Europe.

As opposed to here where you can step right onto it without looking even fully sure that nothing will happen to you?

Edit:
I am always grateful that Irish drivers are separated from the continent by a huge amount of water.
If they ever made it in numbers to the continent with their cars there'd be thousands of casualties within a few days. I'm convinced of that.

homerjay2005

Witchie wrote: »

Just you. Seriously good looking people. Big brown eyes, chocolate skin and a lot of charm. Yum.

Hmmm, id say you are in the minority here.

Have heard many people praise indian woman for their looks (and im a fan too) but as regards the men, as pointed out above they are in general not known for their looks.

Lets not forget the population is 1.5billion...you are always going to have some attractive people in that volume!

_Brian

Misleading thread title.

Should be changed to

“how ignorant and intolerant can Irish people make themselves sound”

the beer revolu

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Spaniards don't seem to know what a zebra crossing is.

Drivers will mow you out of it.

As a matter of fact it's common behaviour in all of southern Europe.

As a matter of fact, this is remarkably untrue of Portugal.
I've even had to cross the road when I didn't really want to because the traffic stopped because I was loitering near a pedestrian crossing!

The Crowman wrote: »

One annoying thing I notice with some Middle Eastern/Pakistani people is when they've withdrawn money at an ATM instead of moving on they will either stand there counting their money or reading the receipt totally oblivious to the people waiting behind them in the queue.

I notice this with many Irish people - particularly ones with hand bags.


Does Galway count as another culture?

I had a flat mate that always, always, always greeted me (and I assume, everyone else) with "what's the craic?". What was doubly annoying was that he appeared to expect an answer every time.

He was a really nice guy and I liked him but this habit drove me so mad that once he moved out, I really made little effort to stay in touch with him.

topper75

All those Ja interjections in the wrong place that the Germans do as a verbal tick...und ja.

topper75

_Brian wrote: »

Misleading thread title.

Should be changed to

“how ignorant and intolerant can Irish people make themselves sound”

The obligation to tolerate everything and suppress all annoyance comes from where exactly? is it in Das Kapital? Or is in some student union handbook?

Billy86

topper75 wrote: »

The obligation to tolerate everything and suppress all annoyance comes from where exactly? is it in Das Kapital? Or is in some student union handbook?

You have to admit it is funny seeing Irish people giving out about, of all things, bad drivers in other European countries and middle easterners taking too long to go from the ATM after taking their money, in a thread titled "Things people in other cultures say that drive you mad"

They'll be moaning about the bloody foreigners standing in the middle of escalators and holding up everyone else, next!