I think the politeness thing is part of a bigger cultural trait. People try not to be a nuisance, they have consideration for others. For example, when crossing a zebra crossing a lot of people will walk faster than normal, so they don't hold up the traffic for too long. When walking in a car park they will wait for moving cars to stop before walking where they want to go. In a restaurant people talk quietly so they won't be a nuisance to those at other tables. Rather than noticing this behaviour I noticed the absence of it when living in other countries.
I can’t possibly agree with the assessment that British people are polite since some of the rudest humans I’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with have been British.
I’ve been known to break in to a little run so that the car on the bit of the road I’ve already crossed doesn’t break the law by entering the crossing while I’m on it.
@@DanielsPolitics1 And quite a few British drivers might do that too which isn’t a portrayal of politeness. I’ve pressed pelican crossing before and waited for the Green man and had cars not stop for the red light. So it shows that you cannot trust them. So anyone rushing across probably isn’t doing it out of politeness, more out of necessity
I've always liked David Beckham, he's always kept out of trouble, but I repect him even more when he queued to see the Queen laying in rest, when other celebrates didn't, Beckham even turned up with a bag of donuts and passed them out to others who were queueing, he knows the food to keep you going.
I also do a passive aggressive thank you, when someone doesn't say thank you to me. It's usually an over the top "Cheers Mate!" with a double thumbs up.
They insult you politely if they don't like you, they do it more blunt if they love you. And then there are layers/combinations of that, combined with humor
While we do have accents in Sussex and Kent I think ours are very gentle ‘entry level’ accents. Easy to learn and master before you head ‘up north’ where the big boy accents come out to play.
eee tha's reet tha no's ;) (translation you are quite correct in that) i have 3 accents really, i have telephone voice, then i have my normal every day and then my when i am completely comfortable relaxed it goes dialect
I am British and, yes, I also once apologized to a door after walking into it... although it was a bit odd when the door responded by saying 'Don't worry about it, old boy, happens to us all! Chin Chin!' Of course that might have been the concussion talking but still...
The first date I had with my wife (in Ecuador) was to drink tea, she didn’t believe that you could put milk in tea. When the waiter first served it he gave us a pot of hot milk with teabags in it. He didn’t have a clue.
Nope like Japan, or India. Milk tea. They actually brew the tea on the stove in hot milk. Cause you would never add milk. Otherwise tea in a cup with both milk and the bag before it's finished brewing is a fast food thing.
I ordered tea in America when I was there a few years ago, and was asked whether I wanted cream with it. Cream with tea is disgusting, so I assumed the waitress meant milk and it was an Americanism. No chance, it really was cream and tasted awful.
Queueing for the Queen: Remember David Beckham, our A-list football star, won high praise from the 'silent majority' of respectable mature Brits, for queuing anonomously (at first!), alongside thousands of other mourners over two days Even those who frowned on his tattoos and jet-set lifestyle. Meanwhile, certain previously cute, bankable TV presenters who used their 'press' status to jump the queue, were slammed by the tabloids, and their fall from grace continues still.
Last time I went hunting the police came round and told me I shouldn't have shot those animals. They said I was selfish as other people want to enjoy the zoo too.
An example of 3 topics in one - gun laws and dark humour with (police) politeness on the side. Quite the mixed grill. Congratulations. You're British, whether you come from here or not.
I think you hit the nail on the head about us and our teeth. They may not be as aesthetically "perfect" as an American, but they're probably a lot more structurally sound. I get the impression that a lot of Americans may have a perfect smile, but it's just a veneer. Underneath, their teeth are probably in a lot worse of a state than ours. Obviously, this is a sweeping generalisation, but then isn't that what stereotypes are, anyway?!
Many Americans seem to literally have veneers to make their teeth look JFK White. There are also a lot of permanent "retainers", which appears to be a way for dentists to continue to extract revenue from people who have had unnecessary straightening that seems to have led to permanent loss of structural integrity. Poor people in the US seem to have terrible teeth, because they can't afford dentistry. IF you don't have adequate teeth in the UK, it's more of a lifestyle choice (notwithstanding difficulties associated with oversubscribed NHS dentists).
According to the World Health Organisation British dental health is markedly better than in the US, but of course that's based upon averages. Despite NHS dental charges, Brits are on average much more likely to have access to affordable dental care than in the US, where, as with all aspects of health care, the extremes are more pronounced.
@@dbracer Bleaching your teeth bright white actually weakens them, also we have fluoride in the water questionable as that is it is proven to strengthen teeth and from what I heard most people in the US drink bottled water because they still have old lead water pipes in a lot of places and they actually have a government safe limit on the amount of lead in drinking water where as in the EU the safe limit is none at all, there is no safe limit for lead exposure.
Hi Alanna, we're strange around saying "sorry". If someone runs into us in the street, most of us say instinctively say "sorry". But there are lots of people acting like a-holes and it wouldn't cross their minds to say it !
I’ve never understood the “queuing” thing that gets talked about. I don’t enjoy queuing (probably like most British people in all honesty) but isn’t it the normal thing to get in line and wait your turn for something?
I remember going skiing in Germany and of course the Germans are very upright and proper and polite - but they still manage to find ways to wheedle and edge their way in front of you! So maybe it's not so much the queuing as the sticking very rigidly to the rules of queueing.
@PGHEngineer yes, that makes sense. It is considered extremely rude to cut into the line. Maybe it’s the British fairness, which does only apply between ourselves obviously as we weren’t very fair to the rest of the world! But it isn’t in the British nature to put up with bad or unfair treatment.
my friends is French, after 5 years of living in the uk, she visited home (Beziers), waiting in line at the patisserie some one walked in front of he to push in! she immediately said, in french, "there is a queue!". apparently the look she got made her wish the floor would open up!!!
I watched a UK TV programme about Spain which interviewed both Spanish workers and British holiday makers. Certain of the Brit holiday makers had such strong regional accents that the producers decided to use subtitles on screen whereas none of the Spanish workers needed to be subtitled!!!
im in my early 60s and when growing up all our parents had perfect straight white teeth, which were like stars they came out at night . and put in some steredent in a jar. so having your own teeth was a badge of honour . it meant you looked after your teeth you were well nourished, no matter if they looked a bit croocked
Great video! My stereotype about brits is indifference to inclement weather. I remember watching some tough old boys outside a pub in Yorkshire. Gale force winds, ice cold rain pouring down. But they went outside, popped their collars and proceeded to smoke cigarettes, weather be damned!
The 'flooded beer garden in Leeds' photo that went viral in 2015 is the perfect example of this. One of the guys in that photo said "I stood and shouted at the water but it didn't seem to do much ... so we decided we might as well sit in the beer garden anyway and have a pint." They're built different in Yorkshire (the people, not the pubs.)
We had a tragic school shooting and the country came together to say that it should never happen again. In the US, they have them all the time and say things like, “now’s not the time to talk about it” and, “we need more good guys with guns”
That’s because they cannot change the law since the right to bear arms is one of their amendments, which supersede law. So how would coming together make any difference to anything?
You have to remember that gun bans only really affect the law-abiding gun owner. In the UK it was relatively easy to ban handguns because most of them were already licensed and in the hands of responsible shooters, whereas in the US there are millions of guns in the hands of criminals. Plus the differences in law, of course.
@@vatsmith8759 They also seem to have far stricter sentencing for murder over there. Killing someone over there often means never getting out of prison or been executed so there is definitely a strong deterrent for people not to kill there. Over here I’m guessing our comparatively lenient sentencing is in part thanks to strict gun laws
@@vatsmith8759 Not really. The sociopath in the UK can just mug you. He doesn't have to assume you might be concealed carrying and shoot you first and then mug you.
I live in Ontario but was born and raised in the UK. I saw a new dentist recently who examined my teeth and declared that they were the healthiest British teeth he had ever seen. I still don't know quite how to take that. Love the channel, makes me a bit homesick :)
**Brilliant video, Alanna!** I can vouch for the obsessive apologising - when I first moved to London, I had a female roommate (I'm a guy). One weekend, I had planned to be away, but came home early. I knocked on her bedroom door and opened it (that was what we did - just knock and open) and there she was, on her bed with some random guy, going at it like rabbits. And they paused briefly to APOLOGISE to me!! 🤣🤣🤣
At cafés, if they have a good coffee machine, then you can almost guarantee that they couldn't make a passable cup of tea if their life depended on it. If you spot china teapots in a café, then you're usually on to a winner (unless you spot a big box of PG Tips one cup teabags, which means your tea will very likely be stewed). Propper tea rooms with home made cakes are like gold dust these days 😩
Yeah, I agree. The type of cafe does influence my choice. I don’t usually buy tea in a coffee place (e.g. Costa), nor would I entertain the idea of drinking coffee in a tea-room or greasy spoon cafe.
A stereotype that is only true sometimes is that beer is served warm. Beer should be served at the correct temperature, which varies between lagers, bitter and ales. In reality sometimes it isn't cold enough and sometimes it's actually a bit too cold. We've had refrigerated beer here for 35+ years.
Stephenlewis9159 we have had refrigerated beer certainly since 1970, probably before (I’m 66, I can remember drinking lager & lime at 13) maybe before 1967
It's all about the definition of BEER. Lagers (carbonated camel urine) are not BEERs - served chilled Pilsners (carbonated cattle urine) are not BEERS - served chilled Draught ales, mild, stout or bitter are BEERS and are traditionally served at ambient temperature - NOT warm. Since the advent of beers in cans, they are more often now served chilled.
@@unclegreybeard3969 Nothing is served at ambient temperature, a cask or trad ale which is live and requires a secondary fermentation in cellar is kept at an optimum of 11 degrees C which is the correct temperature to serve trad ale at, keg beers, lagers and stouts which are pasteurised and served under pressure with specific gas mixes from sealed kegs are usually precooled in a separate cellar section and will be served at 5 degrees C or lower in some extra chilled products, as for the definition of beer, an alcoholic drink made from yeast-fermented malt flavoured with hops: Lager is just another type of beer.
"Sometimes it feels like my life is a bunch of embarrassing moments strung together" - CONGRATULATIONS! You've definitely been here long enough to truly fall into our headspace.
I think the teeth thing comes from us having free or heavily subsidised NHS dentists that keep teeth healthy, but who aren't so incentivised to sell cosmetic treatments compared to their US counterparts. Another part of it is probably the cosmetically enhanced smile with caps and crowns and whatever always look a little bit too perfect and fake and it stands out a mile. We think it's weird how celebrities pay for such obviously fake smiles thinking they look much better, when in reality they remind us of our grandparents false teeth.
"us having" should be "having had" in many places in britain. NHS is so overworked, even people with toothache aren't getting appointments in some places. One NHS dentist just opened up in a scottish neighborhood and the instant queue on the street was horrendous. I'm not even from Britain, or never been and I know more about your society evidently than you do.
@emad Dunning-Kruger effect. _"I'm not even from Britain, or never been and I know more about your society evidently than you do."_ translates to "I'm not from your country and I've never even been there, but I'm so brimming with unearned confidence that I will loudly proclaim to know more about it than people who are from there and do live there"
@@VeritasAbsoluta Yep, or it might, be that you're just in an echo chamber. Reading carefully curated fluff pieces that try to hide problems. It's not like people, who live in well to do areas, know much about the lives of those who don't. It's the exact same kind of echo chamber that the owner of this channel is in when it comes to American gun laws for example. Have you even seen the story about hundreds of people queuing on the street, for days, after a new NHS dentist opened up in Bristol? YT comments under that piece, in large part, consisted of horror stories along the lines of having to wait for 2 years for an appointment, or not being received with tooth ache.
@@raifthemadYou have neutralized your “having” “had” comment by admitting that “in many places” there exists a queue for dental care. In America there is no queue because there is no coverage.
@@raifthemadFor the most part I would agree with you. Health care access is an issue not only in the United States but elsewhere and even in places that have universal coverage. There are problems. On the Americans and their guns issue, that is a topic best avoided here. I believe Alanna was doing her best to tiptoe around the topic and rightly so. What’s that saying about opinions and a southerly orifice.
Guns - the person who posed the question, suggests automatic weapons are allowed in the UK, this is absolutely not the case, automatic and semi automatic weapons (apart from .22 rimfire self loading rifle) are banned and cannot be owned by the general public. Handguns are effectively banned in the UK, although rare exceptions occur (for example a professional deer stalker has a legal magmun hand gun for despatching wounded animals).
The multiplicity of accents is down to the fact that Britain was invaded and settled for centuries before the invention of long-distance travel. Until the late 17th century the only reliable transport was by sea, and only the more wealthy had horses so people stayed where they were. Their world was the parish and the nearest market town. Because of the 'invaded and settled' history local dialects developed which often differed quite markedly over relatively short distances.
Automatic weapons are massively restricted in the UK. The UK used to have a lot more weapons in circulation. Lots here shoot using .22 or even full bore rifles and shotguns for food, though a far smaller percentage than in the US or Canada
The flipside of the accents thing is the number of Americans (specifically USA-ians, not so much Canadians) who will aggressively insist that they "do not have an accent" like it's deeply insulting to suggest that they do. And yeah I get what they mean but if you speak, you have an accent. As for British humour, it's at its best when you're trapped somewhere (like a queue! or a traffic jam or an airport departure lounge) with the same small group of people for at least an hour. That's when the really dark stuff starts to come out of sweet little old ladies' mouths who you'll never see again. Absolute best of times.
I have a friend who lives in a similar part of Ontario to your family (from what I gathered from your Canada visit videos) and I am always shocked at how many weather types they get in one day, particularly at certain times of year! It makes our UK weather seem boring!
I'm British watching this as I lay on the bed in my semi truck (artic) here in Indianapolis USA drinking a cup of Tetley Tea that I just made. Yep stereotypical tea drinking Brit across the pond. The only thing missing is some Custard Cream biscuits😣 Great video Alanna.
May I recommend- very politely, of course - "Watching the English" by Kate Fox. She is an anthropologist who investigated many of the topics you have been discussing in this video. It is specifically about the English, rather than the Scots, Irish or Welsh, but is a fantastic read (It's also available as an audio book). So, why not make yourself a cup of tea, choose your favourite biscuit and hunker down, whilst its's cold, wet and dreary outside and read, or listen to, this very informative and revealing book. I'll apologise in advance if you don't like it. Sorry . . .
As a Canadian, I started watching Still Game and it took me quite a while to learn to understand the Scottish accent/slang but I was so proud to finally "master" it. Then I encountered a Scottish bar tender here and he was so nice but I couldn't understand a word he said to me. I felt terrible that I couldn't communicate with him. Before this, I thought I was pretty good with accents.
I'm English (as in southern UK), and believe me, I still sometimes struggle to understand broad native accents from some British regions - northern Scottish especially. It really is like a different language sometimes, but I love it.
yeah it can be tricky, ui have an ear sometimes its not the words it the tone and the cadence of the sentence Rab C Nesbit the comedy show its a little hard but @@Raelworld
Hey Alanna, the whole teeth thing is as you say more to do with the Hollywood/LA search for the perfect body which hasn't taken hold here as much, I mean just take a look at the people on any beach at a UK seaside resort and you will see that we don't tend to care too much what we look like. 😀
Thanks Alanna. I have to agree with the British stereotypes especially the queuing one. I have stood at a bus stop in a polite, orderly queue and the bus pulls in and then someone just queue jumps and gets on first. The absolute horror this brings to the those in the queue is just very British, when you get on the bus you give them a glare or someone will say something to the perpetrator. 😁
It must be a southern thing. I live in north east England and I’ve never seen this, nobody really cares here if someone pushes in, especially since most buses are close to empty these days so they know they will get a seat
Queue up, with a flask of tea and talk about the weather and you've hit the jackpot. Extra points for having an accent the other person can't understand who keeps saying 'sorry, I didn't quite get that!'
Saying sorry is so common in the UK there was even a sitcom called Sorry played by an actor called Ronny Corbett. Every part of the UK has a different accent even varying from different parts of the same city.
The thing about bad teeth is that before the NHS, people couldn't afford to go to the dentist. Also, the diet of the poorer sections of the community was not that good, so bad teeth were quite common. This is what the GIs saw when they were stationed here in WW2 before D-Day and took this impression home with them.
I so love your vlogs as I too was an English speaking foreigner that lived in England. Two differences, I’m a Yank and I lived there in the 70’s. Put the kettle on because I have a lot to say. A cup of tea helps one cope with all of what the world throws at us and it used to be more universally the norm. I blame Americans for the switch to coffee. Humor, Monty Python say no more. Teeth, they were much worse decades ago. Now you will hear people proudly declaring they have Turkish teeth which means they went off to have veneers installed and come back looking like they swallowed a flashlight. Biscuits, no argument there. No one would deny that they love them only now half are consumed with coffee. Accents, I was thrown into the deep end when I was there because although I had been to Kent often I found that accent easy whereas in London there exists neighborhood accents the most famous being the Eastenders and cockney but also, Sloan Rangers, North London, South London, throw in Scottish, Irish and Welsh because they all exist in London as well . Oh and the tea lady where I worked was Spanish. Lovely but my coworkers would have to explain what she was saying. Ok I’m winding down and I have more but I will end on queuing. This is related to the politeness as well. It’s summer on the Kings Road and a group of us were queuing for a 19 or 22. I was standing next to an elderly Mary Poppins. We were number two and three in the queue and when the bus approached ( I must add that in those days it was very simple to get on and off. No doors just a platform. I could do a whole dissertation on that) so when the bus pulled up the queue dissolved into chaos. Germans, Americans and all manner of foreigners jumped ahead in front of us and dear sweet Mary and I had something to say. She, “Oh dear what has happened to the queue?” I on the other hand said, “Bloody Foreigners get back in line” and the conductor tried to restore order whilst I cursed the summer tourist season. Remind me to tell the story about guns. It’s too long to include now. Cheers.
Almost guarantee that the people being rude to Alanna out in the wild think she's American. Reminds me of being on holiday as kid in Greece. At that time I was very blonde, as was my sister and my mum. Shop owner was quite rude and dismissive until we spoke when she went "ah English! No German!" Very friendly every time we went in after that lol
I say thank you to the cash machine , I did the same in Australia , turned around and saw the lady waiting behind backing away..... If I travel by bus or train , which is very rarely , I make a point of starting conversation.... Well it gives them something to talk about when they get home 😁
Yes all the stereotypes you raised are true. Sarcasm I think is a way of releasing your frustration without having to shout at someone. Absolutely love your channel. Always look forward to the next video ❤😊
According to a recent survey more coffee than tea is now drunk in the UK, not that horrible weak American stuff but the nice strong European/Italian types, with the exception of that strong very sweet Turkish coffee with the sludge in the bottom of the demi-tasse/coffee can. Most houses have a coffee machine these days. Don't mention teeth to me, thanks to an incompetent, dragged out of retirement locum that I once had the misfortune to encounter as a young teenager, I now have only a few left as he destroyed the enamel on them during a routine clean and a week later put me in A&E from an overdose of anaesthetic, he was later struck off after many complaints to the Dental Association. He put me off going to the dentist for life.
Re Accents… Many years ago, as a teenager, I was in Wigan, pushing my nephew in his pram. A guy came up, smiled and said something I couldn’t make out. After asking him a couple of times to repeat himself, I laughed nervously and nodded and he then walked away. He said, “Aste ge’en a bruh?” Gesticulating at the pram whilst doing so. It took me weeks to work out that he said, “Have you been getting a brother?” 😂
Always enjoy your channel, and as a Canadian (from Ontario), I can relate to a lot of your Canada references. You are very easy on the ears and on the eyes.
Talking about humour I love it when hosts of serious/semi serious TV shows lose it over something. I know this isn't unique to Britain but it does seem that whatever the situation humour is never far from the surface and we are especially good at laughing at ourselves.
I remember the first time I visited my relatives in Canada, they took me out hunting gophers from the back of a moving truck (with a 0.22 rifle). I managed not to hit any of them.
You belong here, your attitude to people is wonderful and your approach to the country around you is perfect. Please stay and help us see ourselves for what we are! Good, bad or indifferent; we should be able to be happy as whatever we are.
UK accents are due to millennia of evolution and invasions. North America was functionally colonised in in under two centuries. So the few base accents were carried across the continent, from a few starting points.
Accents have softened with time. In Lancashire it was possible to know which town someone was from by their accent 50 years ago. Stepping off a train you would be immediately hit by a fresh accent too. But tv and radio spread a more unified accent now.
One stereotype about Canadians which I have discovered with people I have met and visiting Vancouver many times (with work) is that they are really nice and friendly. Every one I have met has been tip top!
Alanna, I can assure you that it is much more difficult to get a licence for a hunting rifle in the UK than it is in Canada. My nephew shot game regularly in Canada, butchered the carcasses and sold the meat. He held a licence to do so, which he acquired easily. When he came back to Scotland he had to jump through all the hoops: Go on a course to establish his competence to handle a rifle (costly), get a mental health certificate from a doctor (also not free), which many doctors simply won't give as a matter of principle, get a secure armoury and ammo store in his premises (again costly), be interviewed and certified as a suitable person by the police (yet more expense) and then get landowners to certify that they would allow him to shoot over their land. Farmers won't do this (except for lampers but I won't even go into that) because if they do, their land is then classified as sporting land, which has detrimental effects on their tax and subsidy status.... and all this before he could get a rifle or a licence (even more money, to be renewed annually at even more expense). My nephew gave up and doesn't shoot any more. Not a good thing for him perhaps, but the fewer people with firearms the better, don't you think?
As a brit I love that comment about the Verbal Doctors Signature. There are some accents I just don't get until I've had several days exposure. And I do mean days...
A late comment. Lived in US for a few years and liked a cuppa but quickly learned that American catering establishments cannot make tea that is acceptable to a Brit so I started drinking coffee. The quality varied dramatically from OK to terrible, so I moving to Italy and sacrificed tea for a few years but boy was the coffee great. Now back in the UK and enjoying a nice cuppa again.
I am British and lived in : a Derbyshire mining village (childhood); Manchester (University); Glasgow (1st job); Derby (2nd job); Ealing (London suburb 3rd job) for a few months before the whole factory moved to the Newcastle area. I have friends and relatives from all over the North of England and Scotland and in general have no major problems with local accents. To be honest (?😂), I only have problems when I travel in “foreign parts”, south of the Trent😂😂😂. I gave up trying to understand those “southern furriners” and have spent the last 50 years in France and now Germany!
The idea of never drinking tea is shocking to me, just can't imagine it as here everyone drinks tea as a given and everyone has tea at home and quite a selection usually. I never drink coffee and we usually take tea at cafes as well. And I'm not even in Britain but hope to go someday.
The thing with the biscuits made me nearly spit out my morning coffee laughing. So true. I'm a fellow Canadian in the UK. Been here 15 years and just the other day while shopping in Tesco discovered a whole new range of biscuits I'd never noticed before which my British partner assured me had always been there. Magical. Hope that biscuit ride never ends
As a young delivery driver I had a regular customer in Newcastle. He spoke to me each time but I never understood a word for years, I just nodded and smiled politely.
I suggest you read Kate Fox's book Watching the English... In which, she, an English person tries to identify the character traits and societal norms that make up typical englishness.
As someone from her original neck of the woods at the western end of Lake Ontario I can confirm what she’s saying about our changeable weather. I’ve driven to work on mornings when I put the heated seats and heat on, then used the air conditioning on the drive home. I’m also a tea drinker surrounded by mostly coffee drinkers.
Good video Alanna. One of my cousins just married a Canadian here in the UK - she and her family are lovely. So we are practically related. If your life is a series of embarrassing moments, then you are British, basically. Don't fight it. Other countries have biscuits or cookies but they just lack something somehow, even if they have great packaging (Italy). They are too hard or too soft. British people are wary of ordering tea when abroad - it is rare for it to be made properly. There is a sad truth about British issues with alcohol (I hold my hand up here in confession) but that is not unique to the UK (hello Sweden and Russia). Queuing is a national pastime - as George Mikes observed: "An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one." The British could have better teeth but I think the stereotype is from the pre-1960s period - even some actors in films has terrible teeth (including some Americans).
I rarely order tea when out and about, as the quality is so variable! I feel like coffee is harder to screw up, so i just have a cuppa when i get home.
My youngest said the most English thing I have ever heard her say yesterday. She was complaining that we had got the wrong buacuits. The rich tea biscuits aren't as good as the digestives as the milk ratio isn't as good as the digestive hold more milk when she dunks it in her warm milk than the rich tea. 😂 Some day when she graduated from milk to tea with the aame mindset. I still can help laugh about it. My American family will find it funny. Our English side is proud. 😂
I knew someone who claimed his dad could put a postcode to any London accent. I have been in London since 1983 and a whole new London accent has evolved in that time. We only have crumpets for the foreigners. Loose tea in a pot is a habit I have reacquired in old age - not just a drink but a ritual. I had braces in the 1970s and had to sacrifice two teeth to make room. I remember snow on 1st June 1976. Gas man just came to my home - opening remark about terrible weather.
We were going round a National Trust property and went round a corner and almost walked into people coming the other way. We said Sorry of course, but they said something along the lives of “it’s OK”. Immediately, we think, they’re not British! Think they were American..
The person who posted about "underdog stories" probably used the wrong word but I think I know what they mean. It's more about how, in comedy shows, etc., our 'heroes' are always the relatable failures rather than the slick, cool guys. To some extent, we like to watch people fail (think about how we cheer when people drop a glass in the pub). I think that's what they meant, anyway!
Humour: I agree that Canadian humour is similar to British; certainly much more so than American. A while back I discovered Red Green and I was instantly rolling around on the floor in fits of laughter! Why has no-one in the UK seemingly other than me ever heard of him? (He's here on RUclips if you want to see what you're missing.)
Ah, the queuing thing. I think I'm accurate in saying that British people hate queuing - it's boring and frustrating and we don't like doing it. BUT, it's vastly superior to the alternative, where you jockey for position until you get what you want. That's not boring, but it's certainly frustrating and also anxiety-inducing for us Brits. About ten years ago, we had to queue up for the Vatican during the canonisation of John Paul II, and there were people there from all over the world. Let's just say it would have been quicker for everyone if the Vatican police had enforced the queue etiquette!
Nice one Alanna !! Oh with the word arse you pronounce it ArSe soft r not like a pirate, as in ‘you are’ with an s on the end.hope this helps a bit. Cheers Aah Kid!
I'm a tea drinker (about 8 mugs a day) but I rarely buy tea when I'm out because, unless you are in a tea shop (a café that specialises in afternoon tea) or a village hall they don't know how to make it properly. Better a reasonable cup of coffee than a rubbish cuppa (tea).
I'm sure that you must get mistaken for an American all the time and then they find out you're Canadian and then they're like, yeah no worries, i'm cool with you.
I think the politeness thing is part of a bigger cultural trait. People try not to be a nuisance, they have consideration for others. For example, when crossing a zebra crossing a lot of people will walk faster than normal, so they don't hold up the traffic for too long. When walking in a car park they will wait for moving cars to stop before walking where they want to go. In a restaurant people talk quietly so they won't be a nuisance to those at other tables. Rather than noticing this behaviour I noticed the absence of it when living in other countries.
Dam you nailed that so hard! Well articulated and know exactly how you fell - you notice it when it's not there ^^
That’s it exactley
I can’t possibly agree with the assessment that British people are polite since some of the rudest humans I’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with have been British.
I’ve been known to break in to a little run so that the car on the bit of the road I’ve already crossed doesn’t break the law by entering the crossing while I’m on it.
@@DanielsPolitics1 And quite a few British drivers might do that too which isn’t a portrayal of politeness. I’ve pressed pelican crossing before and waited for the Green man and had cars not stop for the red light. So it shows that you cannot trust them. So anyone rushing across probably isn’t doing it out of politeness, more out of necessity
I've always liked David Beckham, he's always kept out of trouble, but I repect him even more when he queued to see the Queen laying in rest, when other celebrates didn't, Beckham even turned up with a bag of donuts and passed them out to others who were queueing, he knows the food to keep you going.
What a sad sack, queueing for all those hours just to see a coffin ⚰️
We also like a passive aggressive "sorry" when someone does something to you and they dont apologise!
😂
I also do a passive aggressive thank you, when someone doesn't say thank you to me. It's usually an over the top "Cheers Mate!" with a double thumbs up.
Omg, the voice instantly kicks in my brain when I saw you comment 😂
They insult you politely if they don't like you, they do it more blunt if they love you.
And then there are layers/combinations of that, combined with humor
Humour*
@@fionagregory9147 We'll let Mats off. I think he may have learned English from Americans.....
@@PGHEngineer Quite, I was taught Brittish English in School in Sweden, but learned the bulk of the language in USA
@@matshjalmarsson3008shun the heathen! 😂
While we do have accents in Sussex and Kent I think ours are very gentle ‘entry level’ accents. Easy to learn and master before you head ‘up north’ where the big boy accents come out to play.
eee tha's reet tha no's ;) (translation you are quite correct in that) i have 3 accents really, i have telephone voice, then i have my normal every day and then my when i am completely comfortable relaxed it goes dialect
'Up north for the big boy accents' *Laughs in west country*
Then you progress to advanced level and visit Glasgow ;-)
@@themightymash1ooo arrrr my luverrrrr
@@Greenwood4727same my friend
I am British and, yes, I also once apologized to a door after walking into it... although it was a bit odd when the door responded by saying 'Don't worry about it, old boy, happens to us all! Chin Chin!' Of course that might have been the concussion talking but still...
It was probably made by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation
The first date I had with my wife (in Ecuador) was to drink tea, she didn’t believe that you could put milk in tea. When the waiter first served it he gave us a pot of hot milk with teabags in it. He didn’t have a clue.
Oh no 😂
😮
Like the USA, then.
Nope like Japan, or India. Milk tea. They actually brew the tea on the stove in hot milk. Cause you would never add milk.
Otherwise tea in a cup with both milk and the bag before it's finished brewing is a fast food thing.
I ordered tea in America when I was there a few years ago, and was asked whether I wanted cream with it. Cream with tea is disgusting, so I assumed the waitress meant milk and it was an Americanism. No chance, it really was cream and tasted awful.
Queueing for the Queen: Remember David Beckham, our A-list football star, won high praise from the 'silent majority' of respectable mature Brits, for queuing anonomously (at first!), alongside thousands of other mourners over two days
Even those who frowned on his tattoos and jet-set lifestyle. Meanwhile, certain previously cute, bankable TV presenters who used their 'press' status to jump the queue, were slammed by the tabloids, and their fall from grace continues still.
Last time I went hunting the police came round and told me I shouldn't have shot those animals. They said I was selfish as other people want to enjoy the zoo too.
Hang on I'm going to laugh!
No, it didn't happen 🤷🏻
An example of 3 topics in one - gun laws and dark humour with (police) politeness on the side. Quite the mixed grill. Congratulations. You're British, whether you come from here or not.
@@Russ_KeithYep, I'm a Brit.
@@0cgw Never doubted it but you have to be inclusive these days. 😀
Under a banner of politeness, I say thank you to Alanna for being a wonderful channel, and offer well wishes and a hug to those who need it :) 😂
🙏
@@AdventuresAndNaps why DO canadians call buscuits cookies, why copy the yanks? this is just a question. dont get triggered lol.
I think you hit the nail on the head about us and our teeth. They may not be as aesthetically "perfect" as an American, but they're probably a lot more structurally sound. I get the impression that a lot of Americans may have a perfect smile, but it's just a veneer. Underneath, their teeth are probably in a lot worse of a state than ours. Obviously, this is a sweeping generalisation, but then isn't that what stereotypes are, anyway?!
Many Americans seem to literally have veneers to make their teeth look JFK White. There are also a lot of permanent "retainers", which appears to be a way for dentists to continue to extract revenue from people who have had unnecessary straightening that seems to have led to permanent loss of structural integrity. Poor people in the US seem to have terrible teeth, because they can't afford dentistry. IF you don't have adequate teeth in the UK, it's more of a lifestyle choice (notwithstanding difficulties associated with oversubscribed NHS dentists).
According to the World Health Organisation British dental health is markedly better than in the US, but of course that's based upon averages. Despite NHS dental charges, Brits are on average much more likely to have access to affordable dental care than in the US, where, as with all aspects of health care, the extremes are more pronounced.
@@dbracer Bleaching your teeth bright white actually weakens them, also we have fluoride in the water questionable as that is it is proven to strengthen teeth and from what I heard most people in the US drink bottled water because they still have old lead water pipes in a lot of places and they actually have a government safe limit on the amount of lead in drinking water where as in the EU the safe limit is none at all, there is no safe limit for lead exposure.
Hi Alanna, we're strange around saying "sorry". If someone runs into us in the street, most of us say instinctively say "sorry".
But there are lots of people acting like a-holes and it wouldn't cross their minds to say it !
I’ve never understood the “queuing” thing that gets talked about. I don’t enjoy queuing (probably like most British people in all honesty) but isn’t it the normal thing to get in line and wait your turn for something?
I remember going skiing in Germany and of course the Germans are very upright and proper and polite - but they still manage to find ways to wheedle and edge their way in front of you! So maybe it's not so much the queuing as the sticking very rigidly to the rules of queueing.
@PGHEngineer yes, that makes sense. It is considered extremely rude to cut into the line. Maybe it’s the British fairness, which does only apply between ourselves obviously as we weren’t very fair to the rest of the world! But it isn’t in the British nature to put up with bad or unfair treatment.
@@andrewhaywood3853 "we weren’t very fair to the rest of the world!" . Do f-off Andrew.
Youd think it makes sense but a lot of countries dont
my friends is French, after 5 years of living in the uk, she visited home (Beziers), waiting in line at the patisserie some one walked in front of he to push in! she immediately said, in french, "there is a queue!". apparently the look she got made her wish the floor would open up!!!
I think drinking coffee in the morning then transitioning to tea later in the day is pretty common for many Brits
I watched a UK TV programme about Spain which interviewed both Spanish workers and British holiday makers. Certain of the Brit holiday makers had such strong regional accents that the producers decided to use subtitles on screen whereas none of the Spanish workers needed to be subtitled!!!
I agree about the Canadian sense of humour, as soon as you cross the border from the US the sense of humour immediately improves!
im in my early 60s and when growing up all our parents had perfect straight white teeth, which were like stars they came out at night . and put in some steredent in a jar. so having your own teeth was a badge of honour . it meant you looked after your teeth you were well nourished, no matter if they looked a bit croocked
Great video! My stereotype about brits is indifference to inclement weather. I remember watching some tough old boys outside a pub in Yorkshire. Gale force winds, ice cold rain pouring down. But they went outside, popped their collars and proceeded to smoke cigarettes, weather be damned!
The 'flooded beer garden in Leeds' photo that went viral in 2015 is the perfect example of this. One of the guys in that photo said "I stood and shouted at the water but it didn't seem to do much ... so we decided we might as well sit in the beer garden anyway and have a pint." They're built different in Yorkshire (the people, not the pubs.)
I was going to say something in proper Yorkshire dialect, but the spellchecker won't let me!
you just have to look at the ladies out on a night out up they wear the skimpiest clothing in the coldest weathers no worries
The British go a bit crazy on holiday/ vacation because we have to hold everything in all year 😂
Lol. You might be on to something there.
I think it is the sudden exposure to sunlight.
We had a tragic school shooting and the country came together to say that it should never happen again. In the US, they have them all the time and say things like, “now’s not the time to talk about it” and, “we need more good guys with guns”
That’s because they cannot change the law since the right to bear arms is one of their amendments, which supersede law. So how would coming together make any difference to anything?
You have to remember that gun bans only really affect the law-abiding gun owner. In the UK it was relatively easy to ban handguns because most of them were already licensed and in the hands of responsible shooters, whereas in the US there are millions of guns in the hands of criminals. Plus the differences in law, of course.
@@vatsmith8759 They also seem to have far stricter sentencing for murder over there. Killing someone over there often means never getting out of prison or been executed so there is definitely a strong deterrent for people not to kill there. Over here I’m guessing our comparatively lenient sentencing is in part thanks to strict gun laws
@@vatsmith8759 Not really. The sociopath in the UK can just mug you. He doesn't have to assume you might be concealed carrying and shoot you first and then mug you.
@@vatsmith8759It’s funny how most of the mass shootings in America are by people using legally owned guns.
I live in Ontario but was born and raised in the UK. I saw a new dentist recently who examined my teeth and declared that they were the healthiest British teeth he had ever seen. I still don't know quite how to take that. Love the channel, makes me a bit homesick :)
Uk ranks no 1 globally for teeth the bad teeth is a utter myth official ranking we are no 1
**Brilliant video, Alanna!** I can vouch for the obsessive apologising - when I first moved to London, I had a female roommate (I'm a guy). One weekend, I had planned to be away, but came home early. I knocked on her bedroom door and opened it (that was what we did - just knock and open) and there she was, on her bed with some random guy, going at it like rabbits. And they paused briefly to APOLOGISE to me!! 🤣🤣🤣
Apology accepted
At cafés, if they have a good coffee machine, then you can almost guarantee that they couldn't make a passable cup of tea if their life depended on it. If you spot china teapots in a café, then you're usually on to a winner (unless you spot a big box of PG Tips one cup teabags, which means your tea will very likely be stewed). Propper tea rooms with home made cakes are like gold dust these days 😩
Yeah, I agree. The type of cafe does influence my choice. I don’t usually buy tea in a coffee place (e.g. Costa), nor would I entertain the idea of drinking coffee in a tea-room or greasy spoon cafe.
A stereotype that is only true sometimes is that beer is served warm. Beer should be served at the correct temperature, which varies between lagers, bitter and ales. In reality sometimes it isn't cold enough and sometimes it's actually a bit too cold. We've had refrigerated beer here for 35+ years.
Stephenlewis9159 we have had refrigerated beer certainly since 1970, probably before (I’m 66, I can remember drinking lager & lime at 13) maybe before 1967
It's all about the definition of BEER.
Lagers (carbonated camel urine) are not BEERs - served chilled
Pilsners (carbonated cattle urine) are not BEERS - served chilled
Draught ales, mild, stout or bitter are BEERS and are traditionally served at ambient temperature - NOT warm.
Since the advent of beers in cans, they are more often now served chilled.
@@unclegreybeard3969 Nothing is served at ambient temperature, a cask or trad ale which is live and requires a secondary fermentation in cellar is kept at an optimum of 11 degrees C which is the correct temperature to serve trad ale at, keg beers, lagers and stouts which are pasteurised and served under pressure with specific gas mixes from sealed kegs are usually precooled in a separate cellar section and will be served at 5 degrees C or lower in some extra chilled products, as for the definition of beer, an alcoholic drink made from yeast-fermented malt flavoured with hops: Lager is just another type of beer.
Why do the English like warm beer? Lucs makes the fridges. Old car/motorcycle joke. (Very old.)😁
Beer should be cool,not cold. Too cold and you can't taste it.
"Sometimes it feels like my life is a bunch of embarrassing moments strung together" - CONGRATULATIONS! You've definitely been here long enough to truly fall into our headspace.
I think the teeth thing comes from us having free or heavily subsidised NHS dentists that keep teeth healthy, but who aren't so incentivised to sell cosmetic treatments compared to their US counterparts. Another part of it is probably the cosmetically enhanced smile with caps and crowns and whatever always look a little bit too perfect and fake and it stands out a mile. We think it's weird how celebrities pay for such obviously fake smiles thinking they look much better, when in reality they remind us of our grandparents false teeth.
"us having" should be "having had" in many places in britain. NHS is so overworked, even people with toothache aren't getting appointments in some places. One NHS dentist just opened up in a scottish neighborhood and the instant queue on the street was horrendous. I'm not even from Britain, or never been and I know more about your society evidently than you do.
@emad Dunning-Kruger effect. _"I'm not even from Britain, or never been and I know more about your society evidently than you do."_ translates to "I'm not from your country and I've never even been there, but I'm so brimming with unearned confidence that I will loudly proclaim to know more about it than people who are from there and do live there"
@@VeritasAbsoluta Yep, or it might, be that you're just in an echo chamber. Reading carefully curated fluff pieces that try to hide problems. It's not like people, who live in well to do areas, know much about the lives of those who don't. It's the exact same kind of echo chamber that the owner of this channel is in when it comes to American gun laws for example.
Have you even seen the story about hundreds of people queuing on the street, for days, after a new NHS dentist opened up in Bristol? YT comments under that piece, in large part, consisted of horror stories along the lines of having to wait for 2 years for an appointment, or not being received with tooth ache.
@@raifthemadYou have neutralized your “having” “had” comment by admitting that “in many places” there exists a queue for dental care. In America there is no queue because there is no coverage.
@@raifthemadFor the most part I would agree with you. Health care access is an issue not only in the United States but elsewhere and even in places that have universal coverage. There are problems. On the Americans and their guns issue, that is a topic best avoided here. I believe Alanna was doing her best to tiptoe around the topic and rightly so. What’s that saying about opinions and a southerly orifice.
Guns - the person who posed the question, suggests automatic weapons are allowed in the UK, this is absolutely not the case, automatic and semi automatic weapons (apart from .22 rimfire self loading rifle) are banned and cannot be owned by the general public. Handguns are effectively banned in the UK, although rare exceptions occur (for example a professional deer stalker has a legal magmun hand gun for despatching wounded animals).
The multiplicity of accents is down to the fact that Britain was invaded and settled for centuries before the invention of long-distance travel. Until the late 17th century the only reliable transport was by sea, and only the more wealthy had horses so people stayed where they were. Their world was the parish and the nearest market town. Because of the 'invaded and settled' history local dialects developed which often differed quite markedly over relatively short distances.
Automatic weapons are massively restricted in the UK. The UK used to have a lot more weapons in circulation. Lots here shoot using .22 or even full bore rifles and shotguns for food, though a far smaller percentage than in the US or Canada
The flipside of the accents thing is the number of Americans (specifically USA-ians, not so much Canadians) who will aggressively insist that they "do not have an accent" like it's deeply insulting to suggest that they do. And yeah I get what they mean but if you speak, you have an accent. As for British humour, it's at its best when you're trapped somewhere (like a queue! or a traffic jam or an airport departure lounge) with the same small group of people for at least an hour. That's when the really dark stuff starts to come out of sweet little old ladies' mouths who you'll never see again. Absolute best of times.
I so agree with this, the worst occasions can definitely bring out the best in people.
I have a friend who lives in a similar part of Ontario to your family (from what I gathered from your Canada visit videos) and I am always shocked at how many weather types they get in one day, particularly at certain times of year! It makes our UK weather seem boring!
I'm British watching this as I lay on the bed in my semi truck (artic) here in Indianapolis USA drinking a cup of Tetley Tea that I just made. Yep stereotypical tea drinking Brit across the pond. The only thing missing is some Custard Cream biscuits😣
Great video Alanna.
Hope you enjoyed that cuppa, mate. I'm a Yorkshire Tea man myself.
@@mehallica666PG tips 😳👍
May I recommend- very politely, of course - "Watching the English" by Kate Fox. She is an anthropologist who investigated many of the topics you have been discussing in this video. It is specifically about the English, rather than the Scots, Irish or Welsh, but is a fantastic read (It's also available as an audio book). So, why not make yourself a cup of tea, choose your favourite biscuit and hunker down, whilst its's cold, wet and dreary outside and read, or listen to, this very informative and revealing book. I'll apologise in advance if you don't like it. Sorry . . .
It should be called "Watching The South-East Of England"-the north. midlands and south-west of England are ignored in Fox's book
As a Canadian, I started watching Still Game and it took me quite a while to learn to understand the Scottish accent/slang but I was so proud to finally "master" it. Then I encountered a Scottish bar tender here and he was so nice but I couldn't understand a word he said to me. I felt terrible that I couldn't communicate with him. Before this, I thought I was pretty good with accents.
I'm English (as in southern UK), and believe me, I still sometimes struggle to understand broad native accents from some British regions - northern Scottish especially. It really is like a different language sometimes, but I love it.
yeah it can be tricky, ui have an ear sometimes its not the words it the tone and the cadence of the sentence Rab C Nesbit the comedy show its a little hard but @@Raelworld
I bet he could make himself understood if you didn't pay him.
Hey Alanna, the whole teeth thing is as you say more to do with the Hollywood/LA search for the perfect body which hasn't taken hold here as much, I mean just take a look at the people on any beach at a UK seaside resort and you will see that we don't tend to care too much what we look like. 😀
Thanks Alanna. I have to agree with the British stereotypes especially the queuing one. I have stood at a bus stop in a polite, orderly queue and the bus pulls in and then someone just queue jumps and gets on first. The absolute horror this brings to the those in the queue is just very British, when you get on the bus you give them a glare or someone will say something to the perpetrator. 😁
... and there'll be a lot of tutting! 😉
It must be a southern thing. I live in north east England and I’ve never seen this, nobody really cares here if someone pushes in, especially since most buses are close to empty these days so they know they will get a seat
@@cultfiction3865I live in the north west and queue-jumping is highly frowned upon indeed.
Our stereotypes and regional diversity is what makes us unique and so fascinating to north americans 🙂 .Lovely channel. X
Thanks for watching!
Queue up, with a flask of tea and talk about the weather and you've hit the jackpot. Extra points for having an accent the other person can't understand who keeps saying 'sorry, I didn't quite get that!'
Saying sorry is so common in the UK there was even a sitcom called Sorry played by an actor called Ronny Corbett. Every part of the UK has a different accent even varying from different parts of the same city.
The thing about bad teeth is that before the NHS, people couldn't afford to go to the dentist. Also, the diet of the poorer sections of the community was not that good, so bad teeth were quite common. This is what the GIs saw when they were stationed here in WW2 before D-Day and took this impression home with them.
As always you talk complete sense. Got us off to a T. You never fall to put a smile on my face. Keep it up flower.
I so love your vlogs as I too was an English speaking foreigner that lived in England. Two differences, I’m a Yank and I lived there in the 70’s. Put the kettle on because I have a lot to say. A cup of tea helps one cope with all of what the world throws at us and it used to be more universally the norm. I blame Americans for the switch to coffee. Humor, Monty Python say no more. Teeth, they were much worse decades ago. Now you will hear people proudly declaring they have Turkish teeth which means they went off to have veneers installed and come back looking like they swallowed a flashlight. Biscuits, no argument there. No one would deny that they love them only now half are consumed with coffee. Accents, I was thrown into the deep end when I was there because although I had been to Kent often I found that accent easy whereas in London there exists neighborhood accents the most famous being the Eastenders and cockney but also, Sloan Rangers, North London, South London, throw in Scottish, Irish and Welsh because they all exist in London as well . Oh and the tea lady where I worked was Spanish. Lovely but my coworkers would have to explain what she was saying. Ok I’m winding down and I have more but I will end on queuing. This is related to the politeness as well. It’s summer on the Kings Road and a group of us were queuing for a 19 or 22. I was standing next to an elderly Mary Poppins. We were number two and three in the queue and when the bus approached ( I must add that in those days it was very simple to get on and off. No doors just a platform. I could do a whole dissertation on that) so when the bus pulled up the queue dissolved into chaos. Germans, Americans and all manner of foreigners jumped ahead in front of us and dear sweet Mary and I had something to say. She, “Oh dear what has happened to the queue?” I on the other hand said, “Bloody Foreigners get back in line” and the conductor tried to restore order whilst I cursed the summer tourist season. Remind me to tell the story about guns. It’s too long to include now. Cheers.
Almost guarantee that the people being rude to Alanna out in the wild think she's American. Reminds me of being on holiday as kid in Greece. At that time I was very blonde, as was my sister and my mum. Shop owner was quite rude and dismissive until we spoke when she went "ah English! No German!" Very friendly every time we went in after that lol
😂
Don't forget our obsession with carrier bags and collecting them to store in a kitchen drawer, or cubby hole 😂🇬🇧👍
. . or another carrier bag.
I say thank you to the cash machine , I did the same in Australia , turned around and saw the lady waiting behind backing away..... If I travel by bus or train , which is very rarely , I make a point of starting conversation.... Well it gives them something to talk about when they get home 😁
Yes all the stereotypes you raised are true.
Sarcasm I think is a way of releasing your frustration without having to shout at someone.
Absolutely love your channel. Always look forward to the next video ❤😊
According to a recent survey more coffee than tea is now drunk in the UK, not that horrible weak American stuff but the nice strong European/Italian types, with the exception of that strong very sweet Turkish coffee with the sludge in the bottom of the demi-tasse/coffee can. Most houses have a coffee machine these days.
Don't mention teeth to me, thanks to an incompetent, dragged out of retirement locum that I once had the misfortune to encounter as a young teenager, I now have only a few left as he destroyed the enamel on them during a routine clean and a week later put me in A&E from an overdose of anaesthetic, he was later struck off after many complaints to the Dental Association. He put me off going to the dentist for life.
Ouch, that's terrible!
I drink coffee outside the home, simply because most cafes can no longer make competent tea.
stone me that's horrible .
Re Accents… Many years ago, as a teenager, I was in Wigan, pushing my nephew in his pram.
A guy came up, smiled and said something I couldn’t make out. After asking him a couple of times to repeat himself, I laughed nervously and nodded and he then walked away. He said, “Aste ge’en a bruh?” Gesticulating at the pram whilst doing so.
It took me weeks to work out that he said, “Have you been getting a brother?” 😂
Hi Alanna,regarding tea or coffee,I generally drink coffee at home….but when out,tea with fish and chips it is a must for me.Cheers Roly🇬🇧.
I hope everyone is doing well. It can be a tough time of year with the weather getting so cold and dark!
Thank you - hope you're doing OK!
I'm having a pretty good day. I appreciate your kindness and hope your day has been good, too!
We really do talk a lot about the weather. Especially to strangers, its a way of breaking the ice.
Ray Davies said it.. 'I like my football, on a Saturday, roast beef on Sundays. alright. Its' all explained in Waterloo Sunset.
Always enjoy your channel, and as a Canadian (from Ontario), I can relate to a lot of your Canada references. You are very easy on the ears and on the eyes.
Talking about humour I love it when hosts of serious/semi serious TV shows lose it over something. I know this isn't unique to Britain but it does seem that whatever the situation humour is never far from the surface and we are especially good at laughing at ourselves.
😭 we even have an invisible queue at bus stop. No physical queues but we remember whoever came before us.
I remember the first time I visited my relatives in Canada, they took me out hunting gophers from the back of a moving truck (with a 0.22 rifle). I managed not to hit any of them.
But what about the gophers?
Why hunt gophers? Are they even edible? I would have refused to go.
@@pheart2381 I was told they are a pest to farmers (there are loads of links on the net on how to get rid of them)
You belong here, your attitude to people is wonderful and your approach to the country around you is perfect. Please stay and help us see ourselves for what we are! Good, bad or indifferent; we should be able to be happy as whatever we are.
UK accents are due to millennia of evolution and invasions. North America was functionally colonised in in under two centuries. So the few base accents were carried across the continent, from a few starting points.
You said it more succinctly than me - thank you!
Accents have softened with time. In Lancashire it was possible to know which town someone was from by their accent 50 years ago. Stepping off a train you would be immediately hit by a fresh accent too. But tv and radio spread a more unified accent now.
One stereotype about Canadians which I have discovered with people I have met and visiting Vancouver many times (with work) is that they are really nice and friendly. Every one I have met has been tip top!
Alanna, I can assure you that it is much more difficult to get a licence for a hunting rifle in the UK than it is in Canada. My nephew shot game regularly in Canada, butchered the carcasses and sold the meat. He held a licence to do so, which he acquired easily. When he came back to Scotland he had to jump through all the hoops: Go on a course to establish his competence to handle a rifle (costly), get a mental health certificate from a doctor (also not free), which many doctors simply won't give as a matter of principle, get a secure armoury and ammo store in his premises (again costly), be interviewed and certified as a suitable person by the police (yet more expense) and then get landowners to certify that they would allow him to shoot over their land. Farmers won't do this (except for lampers but I won't even go into that) because if they do, their land is then classified as sporting land, which has detrimental effects on their tax and subsidy status.... and all this before he could get a rifle or a licence (even more money, to be renewed annually at even more expense). My nephew gave up and doesn't shoot any more. Not a good thing for him perhaps, but the fewer people with firearms the better, don't you think?
As a brit I love that comment about the Verbal Doctors Signature. There are some accents I just don't get until I've had several days exposure. And I do mean days...
Alanna, if you can watch the movie Trainspotting without subtitles, then you are a dialect expert.😊
When someone who wants a light asks you if you snake and you apologise
A late comment. Lived in US for a few years and liked a cuppa but quickly learned that American catering establishments cannot make tea that is acceptable to a Brit so I started drinking coffee. The quality varied dramatically from OK to terrible, so I moving to Italy and sacrificed tea for a few years but boy was the coffee great. Now back in the UK and enjoying a nice cuppa again.
I am British and lived in : a Derbyshire mining village (childhood); Manchester (University); Glasgow (1st job); Derby (2nd job); Ealing (London suburb 3rd job) for a few months before the whole factory moved to the Newcastle area. I have friends and relatives from all over the North of England and Scotland and in general have no major problems with local accents.
To be honest (?😂), I only have problems when I travel in “foreign parts”, south of the Trent😂😂😂. I gave up trying to understand those “southern furriners” and have spent the last 50 years in France and now Germany!
Nailed it and made me me laugh on a rubbish day, keep doing what you do
Cheers Alana for an amusing video 😊😊😊
Glad you enjoyed it!
There is nothing to stop you from having bicces with coffee.
Alana, did you know there are not one but two Canadian universities in Britain? There's a story about one on the BBC news website today
Proving the old adage that stereotypes exist for a reason.
We are not pets! Saying I have a British person, he's out there somewhere, like we are cats
Im from the UK and i struggle with some accents too. Especially when its something said in anger or passion!
The idea of never drinking tea is shocking to me, just can't imagine it as here everyone drinks tea as a given and everyone has tea at home and quite a selection usually. I never drink coffee and we usually take tea at cafes as well. And I'm not even in Britain but hope to go someday.
The thing with the biscuits made me nearly spit out my morning coffee laughing. So true. I'm a fellow Canadian in the UK. Been here 15 years and just the other day while shopping in Tesco discovered a whole new range of biscuits I'd never noticed before which my British partner assured me had always been there. Magical. Hope that biscuit ride never ends
What do you mean Canadian accents don't vary much? I visited Montreal and I'll swear it was like a different language!
As a young delivery driver I had a regular customer in Newcastle. He spoke to me each time but I never understood a word for years, I just nodded and smiled politely.
Brits abroad tend to be referred to as Lager Louts! Most other British people despise those people too, and are very embarrassed by them
Please release the British hostages that are in your house. 😂 0:27
I suggest you read Kate Fox's book Watching the English... In which, she, an English person tries to identify the character traits and societal norms that make up typical englishness.
Absolutely! Required reading - excellently written and very funny, while full of really good observations.
As someone from her original neck of the woods at the western end of Lake Ontario I can confirm what she’s saying about our changeable weather. I’ve driven to work on mornings when I put the heated seats and heat on, then used the air conditioning on the drive home. I’m also a tea drinker surrounded by mostly coffee drinkers.
Good video Alanna. One of my cousins just married a Canadian here in the UK - she and her family are lovely. So we are practically related. If your life is a series of embarrassing moments, then you are British, basically. Don't fight it. Other countries have biscuits or cookies but they just lack something somehow, even if they have great packaging (Italy). They are too hard or too soft. British people are wary of ordering tea when abroad - it is rare for it to be made properly. There is a sad truth about British issues with alcohol (I hold my hand up here in confession) but that is not unique to the UK (hello Sweden and Russia). Queuing is a national pastime - as George Mikes observed: "An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one." The British could have better teeth but I think the stereotype is from the pre-1960s period - even some actors in films has terrible teeth (including some Americans).
I rarely order tea when out and about, as the quality is so variable! I feel like coffee is harder to screw up, so i just have a cuppa when i get home.
I once said to a café owner that he sounded like he had a Geordie accent. Big mistake: he came from Sunderland, just a few miles from there.
Life is a series of embarrassing moments strung together…. You have successfully assimilated.
My youngest said the most English thing I have ever heard her say yesterday. She was complaining that we had got the wrong buacuits. The rich tea biscuits aren't as good as the digestives as the milk ratio isn't as good as the digestive hold more milk when she dunks it in her warm milk than the rich tea. 😂 Some day when she graduated from milk to tea with the aame mindset. I still can help laugh about it. My American family will find it funny. Our English side is proud. 😂
I’m a retired ward sister and I love all these videos and thank u honey, I’m a Brit and very proud of being a Brit and love Canada xx 😎🤗😎🤗
I knew someone who claimed his dad could put a postcode to any London accent. I have been in London since 1983 and a whole new London accent has evolved in that time. We only have crumpets for the foreigners. Loose tea in a pot is a habit I have reacquired in old age - not just a drink but a ritual. I had braces in the 1970s and had to sacrifice two teeth to make room. I remember snow on 1st June 1976. Gas man just came to my home - opening remark about terrible weather.
Didn’t believe in the tea and crumpets one until the supermarket ran out during lockdown. Had none for weeks
We were going round a National Trust property and went round a corner and almost walked into people coming the other way. We said Sorry of course, but they said something along the lives of “it’s OK”. Immediately, we think, they’re not British! Think they were American..
Love your thoughtfulness to approaching different subjects. You’re a gem❤
The person who posted about "underdog stories" probably used the wrong word but I think I know what they mean. It's more about how, in comedy shows, etc., our 'heroes' are always the relatable failures rather than the slick, cool guys. To some extent, we like to watch people fail (think about how we cheer when people drop a glass in the pub). I think that's what they meant, anyway!
"With all due respect" is something you hear a lot, and it basically means "I curse you and the next seven generations of your family".
OMG I didn't have my glasses on and thought it said -- licking under a dog
Humour: I agree that Canadian humour is similar to British; certainly much more so than American. A while back I discovered Red Green and I was instantly rolling around on the floor in fits of laughter! Why has no-one in the UK seemingly other than me ever heard of him? (He's here on RUclips if you want to see what you're missing.)
Ah, the queuing thing. I think I'm accurate in saying that British people hate queuing - it's boring and frustrating and we don't like doing it.
BUT, it's vastly superior to the alternative, where you jockey for position until you get what you want. That's not boring, but it's certainly frustrating and also anxiety-inducing for us Brits.
About ten years ago, we had to queue up for the Vatican during the canonisation of John Paul II, and there were people there from all over the world. Let's just say it would have been quicker for everyone if the Vatican police had enforced the queue etiquette!
Nice one Alanna !!
Oh with the word arse you pronounce it ArSe soft r not like a pirate, as in ‘you are’ with an s on the end.hope this helps a bit.
Cheers Aah Kid!
So you apologised to a mannequin because you bumped into it ,i thanked an atm machine when it gave me my money
, lol.
I'm a tea drinker (about 8 mugs a day) but I rarely buy tea when I'm out because, unless you are in a tea shop (a café that specialises in afternoon tea) or a village hall they don't know how to make it properly. Better a reasonable cup of coffee than a rubbish cuppa (tea).
I'm sure that you must get mistaken for an American all the time and then they find out you're Canadian and then they're like, yeah no worries, i'm cool with you.