American things

smore

wtf?

Steely Dan
The Beat Generation

10. "democracy"
11. mac 'n cheese
12. sherrifs

It's s'mores and it's short for some more.

13. those varsity jackets with a big letter on the front
14. propeller beanie hats

15. grits

16. Shriners

https://s.hswstatic.com/gif/shriners-little-cars-1200x800.jpg

monster trucks

bison
bass fishing tournaments
Yellowstone Park

Looney Tunes cartoons

22. tipping

Mate,

https://i.imgur.com/kjgsMLQ.jpg

I mean, don't forget 23. Indigenous Genocide, but, you know.

if we're going down that route let's not forget 24. slavery

and of course 25. egg creams

slavery has existed everywhere for all recorded history. hardly confined to America, although we certainly embraced one of the most brutal forms of it for a couple centuries.

26 white ppl
27 mayonnaise
28 conway twitty
29 all the bad things
30 no good things

31 guns guns guns love guns need guns
32 sabermetrics
33 god

(Holland surely king of mayonnaise though, for better or for worse)

34. (With drawl) PICKUP TRUCK. GIDDY UP COWBOY.

35. 99.9% of all "cultural appropriation"

36. $$$

37. Road Trips
38. Self Help
39. Seminars on how to flip properties with no money down

40. Hawaii

41. Grand slams

42. Brian Wilson

43. drive-in cinemas

44. john cena

(19)45. the atomic bomb

(19)46. Donald John Trump

Just sayin some of these things aren't exclusively American. They're everybody's!

47. Superhero movies for "grownups"

48. jack kirby

49. jack ruby

27 mayonnaise

27 "ranch"

ranch-style houses

Ranch might be the most american word there is. The sound of it, the meaning, the house style, the dressing. It's 100% American.

https://i.imgur.com/IOlj6Lw.jpg

51. Saturday Night Live and dozens of comedy series and comedians no-one's ever heard of.

... no-one else, that is.

Every nation seems to have its b-list comedy that doesn't escape its borders though

I mean there are all these british comedians called "Jimmy Pram" or "Tolliver Whelk" or whatever that the britishers on the board seem to reference a lot.

52. happy endings
53. late night shows
54. hyper-capitalism
55. "football"
56. "soccer"

Italians
Irish

57. Barack Hussein Obama
58. Velveeta

Misuse of the collective clause when referring to sports teams

Every nation seems to have its b-list comedy that doesn't escape its borders though

Saturday Night Live is b-list?

'Math'

American comedy is painfully unfunny. There's no real bite, no real cynicism, it always has to be nicey nicey in the end. A or B list, SNL fits that bill surely.

today, sure. I think SNL at its best (maybe 80s-early 90s) was good exactly because it captured and spoofed that wide-eyed lack of cynicism. Kevin Nealon comes to mind, and all of the fake commercials. Since at least Will Ferrell and maybe going back to Chris Farley and Adam Sandler though the style of comedy has been very "I AM BEING FUNNY RIGHT NOW! DO YOU SEE ME BEING FUNNY!"

(kind of a dumb comment I guess since Nealon overlapped with Farley and Sandler)

I worked at Tower in lower Manhattan in the early 90s, a shitty place to work but a really cool spot. You could get good deals sometimes and we had great in-stores.

I get inappropriately nostalgic when I think about Tower Records, especially the one on Watt Ave in Sacramento

they were my happy places

The Strand-Tower-Other Music axis was huge in my college years.

lol yes, same - I think we're similar in age and those were THE places. The 4th and Broadway Tower/Other was so good too because at the time they had the best clothes store around there. I can't remember if it lasted until I was at NYU it was there when I was in HS - Antique Boutique! I somehow wound up paying Tower video $100 for a copy of Pi.

Ha, I remember seeing Pi “in theaters” summer 1998 somewhere in the village, not sure what theater it was. Soooo into it, and yet I have little interest in rewatching it today.

Not sure if I remember Antique Boutique.

I don't think I ever even watched it. Timing tracks - I rented it the year I graduated so 1998/99.

I was at NYU for grad school 1991-93. I moved there from Denver, it was quite a culture shock.

It must have been. One of my roommates senior year was from rural PA. Her first time in NYC was the day she arrived for orientation. I always sort of envied that because, although actually living in the city was def an adjustment, it was never new like that to me if that makes sense.

Yes, it makes sense. I had been there a couple of times for long weekends (which is one of the reasons I wanted to move there), but still. I hated it at first. It didn't help that I arrived in the middle of a very hot August.

there was a good minute there where I thought you were all talking about buying books in B&M (a UK shop which may possibly sell some books, but would not be anyone's first choice when book shopping)

X-post - Oof. There's a reason everyone who can leaves on weekends in the summer. Just thinking about how bad the garbage smells. Ugh.

B&M books would be . . . interesting at the very least.

Do they not have Barnes and Noble here? Hadn't thought about it but it's basically Waterstones.

xp They specialize in books that can be read in short installments.

Not cleaning public bathrooms several times a day.

bread in the fridge
mustard in the fridge

wheat thins

I thought keeping mustard in the fridge is one of the good universal kitchen practices tbf

maybe i just eat a lot of mustard idk

bars that you have to drive to

bread in the fridge does prolong its life, while also drying it out which might be fine or bad.

it's not a sin on par with tomatoes or apples in the fridge

I'm strictly condiments in the fridge and bread in the bread bin, but bread in the fridge is fine really. It will keep good longer. But freezing bread is something I stopped doing.

lots of stuff goes in my fridge strictly as an economic decision. i'd love to have a bowl of produce on my kitchen table but i live alone in a not-temperate climate and it just makes my life and kitchen rhythms easier when i know the life of things are elongated by the fridge

it’s just me, if I don’t use it the day I buy it or have a specific plan for anything fresh that’s guaranteed to happen within 24 hours it goes in the fridge

wheat thins in the fridge

xp I am the same way with bakery bread or even the fake mass produced grocery-aisle-thawed versions like TJ's ciabatta

And then a Ball Park hamburger or hot dog bun will last 6 years on the windowsill

going to the supermarket when your giant fridge is already 3/4 full of mildly rotting food

maybe it’s just my family but they all do this

One of my finest dad joke moments was when my wife asked me to buy a breadbox, and I said, "how big?"

Mustard is so acidic that it seems unlikely to go bad if not refrigerated. But generally I obey the packaging - if it says "refrigerate after opening," we mostly do so. Because why not? It's harmless.

Peanut butter and honey don't get refrigerated. Jelly/jam/preserves/marmalade/chutney generally do (once opened). Ketchup and relish are generally fridged.

Bread in the refrigerator? Hell no. We might freeze some bread if we have too much but that's rare.

it’s so weird just eat the bread

what about fruit in the fridge? most fruit tastes better cold, imo

This is just to say

I have eaten brimstead's plums

Forgive me

a cold apple can be pretty good. soft fruit should be room temp though imo, sorry bill

kinda prefer grapefruit room temp too

tbf, expat hypercritical of american family is an american thing

lol yes

it’s because they do everything wrong

tbf, expat hypercritical of american family is an american thing

― Sufjan Grafton, Saturday, January 13, 2024 10:23 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

somebody had to say it

Rx is a common abbreviation for medical prescriptions derived from the Latin verb recipere, "take / receive".

Not used in the UK. I mean, I have seen it before but I'm not sure in what context?

I got to thinking about this while waiting for some antibiotics today. Over here it's a given that Rx = precription and you'll see it printed everywhere at the pharmacy. But until today I didn't know why.

*prescription

Because Americans originally spoke classical Latin, duh

exactly, just as Jesus did before discovering America

Jesus bought America, excuse me

It's probably some relic from 18th century English apothecaries.

This is the only place I've seen Rx in the UK:

https://i.imgur.com/YaH6h6p.jpg

Indeed... I was gonna say that the Royal Trux logo makes less sense to those unfamilar with the comman usage of Rx in the US.