Thread: The United States Of America

I was visiting my family in the US many years back and I told my brother,s girlfriend a joke that whent like this.

I asked her: what is long and hard on a black man?

she answered: what?

I answered: grade 3

She didnt laugh, instead she stared at me with this puzzled look on her face and said: you mean 3rd grade.
I said: no I meant what I said grade 3...then I was the one laughing.

I couldn,t understand why she didnt understand the joke just because of a simple difference in terms we use. In Canada it is called grade 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and so on. I noticed in the US it is called 5th grade, 6th grade, junior high, freshman, sophmore and so on.

I guess she also thought it was strange that I used the term grade 3. hmm.. well my brother has long since broken up with her so I jokingly told him to find a girl with sense of humor.

Originally Posted by fly

In Canada it is called grade 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and so on. I noticed in the US it is called 5th grade, 6th grade, junior high, freshman, sophmore and so on.[/b]

Whoa, that's so weird! We were just talking about this yesterday!

It's weird to me to call it 'Grade 3' rather than '3rd Grade', but I guess it's all what you're used to hearing.

Actually, we use both.

Well, I'm originally from Israel, but I live in the US, so I have a double perspective on this. In my opinion, most Americans are not fat, stupid, lazy, etc. These are blanket statements, and as most people know, the vast majority of blanket statements are false. However, it depends who you know, where you live, etc. Living in Dunwoody, a suburb near Atlanta, GA, most of the people I know are normal, rather smart, nice people. However, I have met people that are exactly the way you describe. As a person from Israel, I get INCREDIBLY pissed off when somebody asks, "In Israel, did you live in a sand dune?" (and yes, that has happened) or "Do you have hospitals? Electricity? Cars?". These people are what I call...uneducated...and ignorant...okay, I call them stupid. Because that is how they act. People should realize that America is not the only country with technology, and that many areas in the world actually have a better quality of life than the average American city/town/etc. Finally, the one thing I hate even more than the people I mentioned up there is the annoying presence of overly-fundamentalist religous people here in the south. If you would go up to many people in my school and say, "I don't believe in god," they would gasp, tell you you're going to hell, and permanently hate you. It's ridiculous. You can't argue with these people. They should learn to respect others' views. Even in biology, when we learn about evolution, people will say, "Why does this matter. This isn't real anyway. I don't want to learn this." Well, there are two choices in this world, science and faith. And since science is the one that is more practical, that is what we learn. People should learn to respect that too. And if I'm sounding hypocritical right now, I am not. I am in no way saying I disrespect religious people, it's just that I disrespect people who don't respect other people.

Sorry...I guess I got a little off topic there...

I know exactly what your saying, fajam00m00. I live in New York, and although we do hate how stupid many southerners can be, we still atleast respect what they believe in. So, it becomes really annoying when I see an article or book (right now I'm reading Inherit the Wind* by the way) about these extremely ignorant, disrespectful people. It makes me just want to march down to wherever events like this may occur, and smack someone in the face with a baseball bat.

*Inherit the Wind is a play based off the Scopes Trial of 1929, where a huge debate took place between the early Evolutionists and the Creationists.