American things

The joke is that there’s no such song as “Freebird”, right? Or has someone written a song based on the joke?

more than one way to skynard that bird

Has "Freebird" reasserted itself after it was seemingly replaced with "More Cowbell"?

I think there's a bit of difficulty disentangling the Pogues from all the horseshit Irish pride mook shit like Dropkick Murphys

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, April 17, 2021 9:36 AM (forty-nine minutes ago)

I'm an American thing posting from downtown Sydney, quarantine day 12 of 14 and it looks like there was a miscalculation and I'm actually released a day early, wednesday not thursday, so... which hopeful people are in Sydney? Where do I drink?

This place belongs in this thread, and is in Sydney

https://shadypinessaloon.com/

Just like every Outback restaurant is true-to-life with its framed stock photography of kangaroos, I think your Shady Pines hits the US on the head here with its authentic reproduction of

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

albums by the band America on prominent display. Can't hardly walk into a Denny's without seeing one of those things.

SHADY PINES, MA!

Where is the lanai in that photo?

Grackles

otm

Pronouncing Leslie as Lesslie and Les as Less... at least they did so in the episode of King of Queens I saw this morning.

I. . . don’t know how else it would be pronounced?

/American

Les pronounced lez, as in lesbian.

I had no idea!

I've never thought about it, but I pronounce it lez-LEE.

But Les is Less.

So then, are we to conclude that the 'Lez' said, the better?

https://networkonair.com/3939-large_default/sez-les-volume-4.jpg

I assume that Les in the US is more commonly short for Lester, in which case pronouncing it Less would make sense?

Actually I've just watched a YouTube of Howard Stern talking about Lez-lie West.

In Acadia, they pronounce Leslie, "Lay-Lay".

Or not.

Sir Lay Patterson

i pronounce it lezlie. for les i'm kind of halfway between s and z tbh

lez for everything

except for
wkrp’s les nessman ie buckeye newshawk
and leslie knope
the only “less”es that i recognize

Knope is a lezlie in my headcanon tbh. Like I think I have autoreplaced it on hearing, in the moment, on the fly

lol

High-fructose corn syrup

https://www.ohio-put-in-bay.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Barbershop-Quartet.jpg

Wait, so you're saying that in other nations you get your hair cut without corny-ass a capella singing in four-part harmony?

Like what, you just get your hair cut in SILENCE?

Like SAVAGES?

I've seen and heard barbershop quartets in all sorts of places in the U.S. - and sang in one myself for a few months - but have never heard of one in an actual barber shop.

Like what, you just get your hair cut in SILENCE?

Man, I wish!

One of Enoch Powell's most famous quips was prompted by an encounter with the resident House of Commons barber: a notoriously chatty character, who enjoyed treating captive clients to his views on politics and the state of the world. When Powell went in for a trim, the barber asked the standard question: "How should I cut your hair, Sir?" "In silence," was Powell's instant riposte.

Even Powell's political enemies have usually admitted, a bit grudgingly, that this was a rather good joke. But what they haven't realised is that it has a history going back more than 2,000 years. Almost exactly the same gag features in a surviving Roman joke book: the Philogelos (or Laughter Lover), a collection of wisecracks probably compiled in the fourth or fifth century AD. As with most such collections, some of the jokes included were already decidedly old by the time they were anthologised. In fact, we can trace the "chatty barber" gag back to Archelaus, a fifth-century BC king of Macedon. The "how should I cut your hair?" question was standard even then. And Archelaus is supposed to have replied to his own garrulous barber, "In silence."

Row Houses. (Which are terrace houses?)

Yes, they are terraced houses.

But why are they called "rowhouses" when they're in cities but "townhouses" when the same type of structure is in a suburb?

That is answered at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townhouse

Yeah rowhouses are a specific thing and are (subtly) distinct from townhouses. It's not just about where they are - I have lived in places where both exist in close proximity.

I have spent time in both and can feel the difference, but there is a bit of "I know it when I see it."

The thing is, some urban rowhouses, like these in Washington DC, don't meet the Wikipedia definition of what constitutes a rowhouse rather than a townhouse, even though they look like rowhouses and would likely be called that. I have no idea whether they share a foundation or have double walls between addresses, but they certainly have townhouse-style separate roofs and facades that don't look like your neighbor's. It does seem to me that old/pre-automotive era = rowhouse, newer/larger = townhouse. And usually that correlates with city vs. suburbs.

Now that I think of it, what makes it feel "townhouse" to me is a parking lot out front, and the homes usually being in a development often with a name for each one. Rowhouses don't have parking lots out front (and usually not to the side or rear either), just a one or two lane street with parallel parking (if there's parking at all). But that has nothing to do with the buildings themselves, and again it correlates with city vs. suburbs.

near-random seeming combinations of foods that usually involve melted cheese, bbq sauce, and too many other fat and salt sources combined in one place but are also supposed to sound vaguely creative or sophisticated

"Try our roasted-red-pepper-pesto-ranch bbq chicken and jack cheese flatbread pizza!"

Aka Guy Fieri cuisine

ZEE

there's a moving van I drive past at least once a week in Cambridge called "EEZEE Movers" and it just makes me sad, did they use to be called "EZ Movers" but then had too many people saying "why are you called EE ZED? hur hur"?

dj EZ to thread ("dj ee-zed")

QRS!
TUV!
W, X, Y AND
......
zed

will note that I have seen verified English people referring to their birthday as a "b-day" recently, which spins my brain around something rotten, maybe they just haven't heard of bidets? no other explanation comes to mind.

in China the alphabet song goes

A B C D E F G
H I J K L M N
O P Q R S T U V
W X Y and Z

which is wrong

b-day rhymes with DJ, not g'day.

UK vs US pronounciation of bidet