Oh... that's tough. Harvard does think highly of itself, doesn't it? My comments about imperialism and colonialism were directed at Cecil Rhodes, specifically. Ohh... I think it's an inferiority complex because the big US universities *want* to be the big UK universities but aren't, and can't because they only have a few hundred years of history behind them and you can't buy history. Someone wrote a really interesting article for the Horn Book magazine about the US and royalty envy in the context of The Princess Diaries (well, comparing various YA chicklit series) that made a lot of sense and might apply in this context.
We only have one university that the US respects and I think it's pretty funny because it isn't even our best one.
I always sort of wondered what an American accent would sound like to a British ear. I like to think about the way one would describe a particular accent... a Quebecois accent is sort of a drawl, for example, with long vowels, and I think it's interesting to contemplate what another accent would sound like from a point of view that I can't even fathom. So, describe?
I say "traffic light" rather than "stop light," come to think of it, or just "the lights." "Turn right at the lights," or "I'll meet you at the lights." "Pavement" is the hard stuff that you drive or walk on. But now that I know that it isn't the same for you, I'm thinking about so many songs differently. It's like the revelation I had two weeks ago when I finally discovered that "my camp" refers to the actual building that I would refer to as "my cottage" rather than the piece of land on which it is constructed, in the local dialect.
She did! But I'm really not sure if it happened in the book or just in the film. In the one, she sinks. In the other, the boat tips and someone falls out. I think. Oh god... just look it up, self, just look it up. ;)
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2006-06-03 05:57 pm (UTC)We only have one university that the US respects and I think it's pretty funny because it isn't even our best one.
I always sort of wondered what an American accent would sound like to a British ear. I like to think about the way one would describe a particular accent... a Quebecois accent is sort of a drawl, for example, with long vowels, and I think it's interesting to contemplate what another accent would sound like from a point of view that I can't even fathom. So, describe?
I say "traffic light" rather than "stop light," come to think of it, or just "the lights." "Turn right at the lights," or "I'll meet you at the lights." "Pavement" is the hard stuff that you drive or walk on. But now that I know that it isn't the same for you, I'm thinking about so many songs differently. It's like the revelation I had two weeks ago when I finally discovered that "my camp" refers to the actual building that I would refer to as "my cottage" rather than the piece of land on which it is constructed, in the local dialect.
She did! But I'm really not sure if it happened in the book or just in the film. In the one, she sinks. In the other, the boat tips and someone falls out. I think. Oh god... just look it up, self, just look it up. ;)