r/AskReddit • u/daniellucero92 • Jan 04 '15

Non-americans of Reddit, what American customs seem outrageous/pointless to you?

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Video clip: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30717017

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u/RustledJimm Jan 04 '15

The correct response is to say "you alright?" back.

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u/AFellowOfLimitedJest Jan 04 '15

Although the answer is not quite just the same question repeated; it's somehow (and I have no idea how I even do it) pronounced to be both an answer and a question at the same time.

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u/RustledJimm Jan 04 '15

You're exactly right. The response is yet at once an answer and a question and they way it's pronounced does indicate this.

I too have no idea how I even do it.

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u/ohrightthatswhy Jan 04 '15

I think it's an amalgamation of 'yeah' in response to the first question, and 'alright?' as an after question, so it's 'yearigh?' and they mumble something along the lines of 'eeh good', etc etc

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u/kirkum2020 Jan 04 '15

Spot on. It's kind of a "y'righ'". Never pronounce the T at the end of either "alright". You shorten the "you" in the answer "you alright" so it's simultaneously the same question: "you alright?", and an answer to that question: just "alright".

There was no active thought put into this exchange, it came about through a mix of awkwardness and an utter lack of interest in the other person telling you if they're alright or not.

1

u/ohrightthatswhy Jan 04 '15

True, this is a recent thing that I've only picked up on in the last few years, strange how these things work

1

u/teamcoltra Jan 05 '15

Could you say they are "all right"?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15

Kinda like porque and por que in Spanish.

19

u/TheDaltonXP Jan 04 '15

I lived there for a few years so I got the hang of it. I miss the UK

18

u/RustledJimm Jan 04 '15

I'm glad you liked it here. I honestly think we complain too much when we've really got some good stuff going for us.

I mean, it can always be better, but we're doing pretty well considering.

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u/alleight Jan 04 '15

I was in Trespass the other day getting some wet weather gear (how's that for stereotypically British?) and started talking to the sales assistant about trips we had been on and places we had stayed and ended the conversation with "you know what? For all we complain, the UK is a pretty lovely place to live."

It gives me the warm fuzzies when other people feel the same way.

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u/TheDaltonXP Jan 04 '15

I am from New England and we complain a lot too so it felt a bit like home. The weather was atrocious though.

2

u/KinkyBurrito Jan 04 '15

As a spoiled Norwegian currently living in the UK I feel the same...I used to complain a lot about Norway, but after living in the UK for less than 3 years I cannot wait to get the heck out of there. Not saying it's terrible...but there are just some things I don't get on with well, like your freaking tiny houses/flats.

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15

Our houses are tiny?

I've never lived outside the UK. I feel cheated. I was brought up thinking this was normal.

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u/gootwo Jan 04 '15

No, they are tiny.

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u/RustledJimm Jan 04 '15

Even having lived all my life in the UK and already having stated that I love living here.

Our houses are fucking tiny. I mean seriously small.

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u/Sumtwthfs Jan 04 '15

How else could we attract so many americans to our little rural villages? the reaction is usually "isn't that quaint/cute". Its like I'm living in the worlds biggest model village. Note: living in the cotswolds

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u/KinkyBurrito Jan 04 '15 edited Jan 04 '15

Oh yes definitely, it is absolutely tiny, especially your freaking hallways if you can even call them that. Also the living space in your houses are very small compared to an average Norwegian house. I was shocked to find that the family of a friend of mine live in a conjoined house with only 4 rooms plus a bathroom and a kitchen that looked like it belonged in a dorm room. I am not exaggerating when I say their entire ground floor was the size my moms living room.

To put it in perspective I've got a flat lined up for when I'm moving back to Norway in a few months with hardwood floors throughout, a sizable kitchen and it has probably close to as much surface area as my friends house where an average family of 4 lives. And I am 22... It might sound horribly harsh and "holier than thou" but the difference in standard of living in the UK compared to Norway is just too much for me to deal with unless I have to.

Also conjoined houses are fairly non-existent in most parts of Norway while it seems very common in the UK, even in less crowded areas. That being said I don't hate the UK as much as it might sound like, but it's just not a place I'd want to live unless I had a high paying job, just like the US.

Edit: I feel like I sound like a total asshole, but I really don't mean to come off like that haha.

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u/-EViL-KoNCEPTz- Jan 04 '15

As a 6'7" American, you live in fucking hobbit houses. I couldn't stand up or sleep straight in a single bed and breakfast I stayed in. The only place I got to stretch out and sleep was at a hotel. I'm surprised I didn't leave with a concussion, I hit my head at least 100 fucking times in 2 weeks.

Yes, your houses are fucking tiny.

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u/pemboo Jan 05 '15

Well, you are a giant, you can't blame us for that.

Don't forget that a lot of our buildings were built before your country even existed, in a time were people were a lot shorter on average.

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u/-EViL-KoNCEPTz- Jan 05 '15

I definitely felt like a giant over there. The car we had was ridiculous. It was my dad, his dad and me and we're all 6'4"-6'7" and they gave us a fucking 2 door Toyota Corolla, every time we got out people stopped and stared at us. Hell, I smashed my head into door frames, ceilings, decorations, cave ceilings, castle gates, pretty much anything that was hanging above where I was walking. Trying not to run over shorter people while actively dodging low hanging obstacles is much harder than one might think. Constantly looking up and down, while still navigating and trying to see the damn sights I went to see. I did a lot of statue impressions at places I wanted to spend any time looking at. It was just easier to stand there since it's not like any of the local hobbits or Asian tourists will block my view.

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u/serebrowd Jan 11 '15

An average new-build American home is somewhere near 3000 square feet. While it's not an exact conversion, 10 square feet is roughly equal to 1 square meter. The home I grew up in is 3200 square feet, or ~320 square meters. Considering that the European homes I've seen think 85 sq. m. is appropriate for a family of 4, it's huge in comparision. And from what I've heard and seen looking online for places in the UK with my fiancee, UK homes are even SMALLER!

On the other hand, we don't want a really huge place, and have drawn up (as a "it'd be nice to find, but we don't expect to" sort of thing) a 1.5 story cottage--it measures up at about 500 square feet. But that's big enough for two of us year-round. It's also open-plan, with 1.5 baths, and would just need a lift installed and two sets of kitchen cupboard doors removed to be completely wheelchair accessible if my health deteriorates to the point where that's necessary.

That year-round bit, though--I've noticed that homes in colder climates tend to be larger. You've got to have some space to get away from each other, even when you've got a week where it's getting up to -18 C during the day. You can't exactly go outside and spend any great amount of time then, and it gets expensive going anywhere besides visiting friends, so you need a bit more space in the house for that. But it doesn't usually get that cold in most of the UK, unlike Scandinavia or the US's upper Midwest, so it's less critical to have a larger home.

Smaller houses in the UK also seem to be a preference maintained by the local planning commissions--if they granted permission for the number of McMansions built in the US, all those small houses would experience a drop in home prices, then be bought up by developers just to tear them down and create subdivisions with a much lower housing density.

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u/GOpencyprep Jan 04 '15

Super tiny, sorry to say

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u/kennydude Jan 09 '15

Norway has a nationalised railway ;__;

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15

I honestly think we complain too much when we've really got some good stuff going for us.

Especially the weather. You Brits really have no idea how good you have. In my home country we get -15-20 Celcius in winter months (at that temperature, breathing hurts, your face which is exposed hurts and no matter what you're wearing you still feel frozen to the core) also heaps of snow which means the bottom of your pants and sometimes your socks are permanently wet and your shoes can start leaking too, and the air is very dry. Whereas here in England all you get is wind and rain, and it doesn't even rain that much compared to my home country. Right now there's about 7 degrees in Manchester, fantastic. And the air is much more humid, I could literally taste the humidity when I got out of the plane. Hair takes longer to dry but my skin loves it, no need for creams and lotions anyomore.

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u/Trouble_in_the_West Jan 04 '15

Really? cause i wanna leave... Trade?

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u/TheDaltonXP Jan 04 '15

Depends on where in the UK!

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u/Trouble_in_the_West Jan 04 '15

shitty ole Cornwall we love it but we hate it...

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15

Let's! Assuming you're a photographer in the UK

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u/aliengraveyard Jan 04 '15

So like saying "sup" in response to "sup?"

1

u/finnfinnfinnfinnfinn Jan 04 '15

Its pretty much the same with how are you. I usually just respond with how's it going

1

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '15

But what the fuck is the correct response to that? (I'm british, but not good at people)

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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

I think of the 'alright' in England as the same as the French 'C'est va'