That cross-cultural terminology meme

[inulro]

I haven't done that one. Partly because I don't do memes, but also because I've lived here for so long I just get confused when I try to think about terminology. Nowadays most people I speak with seem to be able to extrapolate from context if I use the "wrong" word. (As opposed to 10 years ago when I got a deliberate nasty "what?" every time I used a wrong word - not that people couldn't work out what I meant, but that they thought it was OK to "correct" me. Thus why I have ZERO sense of humour about that).

Added to that, although I can now just about admit that I grew up in Saskatchewan in a public forum, I am not about to admit to knowing the terminology. Because that *is* just plan embarrassing.

Comments

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall the we used to talk about it, but I hope that I didn't have a habit of correcting you. I'm all for cultural and language diversity, though I am against the way that US slang seems to take over everything.

I could say that I think it's rather marvellous that you turned out so well given that you grew up in Saskatchewan, stick my tongue out and run away, but I don't actually know anything about the place. Why should it matter where any of us grew up anyway? I suspect that I should be far more embarrassed that I moved to Coventry and stayed here!

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I always judge people by how they've turned out, not where they come from, but far too many people do the opposite.

[rjshook.livejournal.com]

First off I think I have come to figure out what the term "meme" means but I would love to know how the term came to be.

What's the cross-cultural meme? Is that the one that tries to get you to say sub/hogie, chesterfield/couch, runners/sneakers/tennies, soda/pop/soda-pop etc? Why would anyone dream of correcting you for using one of the alternate words for these cases?

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the one.

When I first moved over here, a lot of English people felt the need to correct me whenever I pronounced something "wrong" or used the "incorrect" word. (Note: Like other things I've had English people be smug about, it was mostly the illiterate, uneducated never-left-their-home-town people who feel the need to be culturally superior).

There's a large subset of the British who think that because I grew up in a "colony" I have obviously had no education or culture and that their way of doing everything is Right (as in god says so and god is an englishman sort of thing).