"I Am Not American" Web Site Adds Designs, Languages, Merchandise

Turby wrote:

That's 17 nations. There are only 25 European nations that are larger,
and some not by much. So, what would you consider "a lot?"


Yes, but you named one county.

In article ,
mrtrav wrote:
Turby wrote:

That's 17 nations. There are only 25 European nations that are larger,
and some not by much. So, what would you consider "a lot?"


Yes, but you named one county.


Have a look for one of my personal favorite counties.

Nye County, Nevada. Third largest in US.

I forget which is 2nd. Inyo, Ca. (?)


Claude

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 22:35:30 GMT, mrtrav wrote:

Turby wrote:

That's 17 nations. There are only 25 European nations that are larger,
and some not by much. So, what would you consider "a lot?"


Yes, but you named one county.

Wow. you're even more pedantic than I am. OK. He did say "There are
counties" - plural. So, Inyo county is bigger than a quarter of the
European nations. Is that enough for you? Or will you define what "a
lot" is so we can determine exactly how many counties are bigger than
a lot of European nations?

From my home I can drive the equivalent distance of Scotland to Iraq
and never hear any language but English. I've studied 4 foreign
languages, but fluency disappears rapidly if the opportunity to use
the language isn't there.

Turby the Turbosurfer

Turby wrote in message
[snip]
From my home I can drive the equivalent distance of Scotland to Iraq
and never hear any language but English. I've studied 4 foreign
languages, but fluency disappears rapidly if the opportunity to use
the language isn't there.

It gets even worse than that. You can drive from Alaska to
Florida, get on a boat and head towards both the British and
American Virgin Islands, as well as take in Jamacia and conduct
your daily business in english. Business and commerce around
the world is quite often transacted in english. That's not the
doing of the US, although they've had their influence. It's
predominately the British Empires lasting legacy. The end result
is that the combination of virtually an entire continent speaking
one language, and that language being THE international language
of commerce, makes for a situation in which there is little
incentive, opportunity, or advantage to speaking any other
ONE language. A european can study english and it will take
them far, and they will find many opportunities to practice and
use it. What foreign language could an english speaker study which
would give them anywhere near the world wide usefulness? With
India being a major speaker of the english language, english is
THE dominate language of the worlds population. I'd hazard a
guess that english is the first language of more people than
any other SINGLE language. China would have one of the next
best chances, except that they have easily 5 languages in
that region in use. Variations of spanish would cover a
large portion of one hemisphere, but you could only barely
consider them a single language.

(Geoff Miller) wrote in message ...
Americans aren't "too lazy" to study foreign languages.
We simply have no practical need to do so. This is
because of the sheer size of our country and the cor-
responding lack of proximity to peoples nattering in
other tongues. Hell, we have mere *counties* that are
bigger than a lot of those cute little European nations.

Thank you for your textbook example of WHY the shirt was created in
the first place. Yours is typical of the stereotypical American's
outlook on internation relations and the reason why Americans are
believed to be so ignorant of the outside world.

Karen wrote in message . ..
If the seller truly wanted only to identify himself, why not use a
more positive message such as "I am a Canadian"?

Because "I am Canadian" has been done and is generally accepted
these days to be an advertisement for a brand of beer. Therefore,
it's trademarked.

I think it's
disingenuous to say that he means no offense when he sells t-shirts
that have an American flag with the international circle/slash symbol
for "no" across it.

' "No" America' is obviously the message there, even you seem to
have picked that up. I do find it interesting though, how you focused
on THAT one, rather than the Peace symbol, or the Canadian flag, or
the version on the website without any background image, or the
numerous designs that say it in only one message without the
background.

I am curious though, what part of Canada do you come from?

wrote in message . ..
Itchy? Nah, it's okay with me if people want to be offensive. After
all, there are a couple of countries that I look upon with something
less than affection. And sometimes I'm not too happy with my own
country, either. I just get annoyed when people get all coy about it
like the t-shirt guy.
A recent news article showed Americans were getting upset at
how Canadians "dared" to sew the Canadian flag on their backpacks, etc
or were so proud of being Canadian when overseas, because the
Canadians were so obviously wanting to define themselves as not being
American. All this merely for pasting their national flag, as so many
citizens of other countries do as well. Yet go to any international
sporting event and who's the first to start chanting? Usually the
Americans with their "U-S-A! U-S-A!" chant. Americans are all for
'freedom of speech'...except when it's someone else doing the speech.

Well, context is everything. He's not saying I'm not an American as
a national identification.
How do you know this? You know him personally? You
interviewed him?

He's saying " I don't belong to that
(insert insulting adjective) country, so don't associate me with
them."

I'm sorry, but I translated the Arabic, French and German (with
my friends doing the same for Chinese, Japanese and Dutch) and none of
those use any form of insulting adjective. Looks like it merely says
"I am not American". Okay statement of fact for me. I'm not American
either. And I just ordered one of the shirts myself. The version
with the Arabic translation, but I requested it without the English.
Apparantly I'm going to get it in a few days.

Okay, fair enough, but don't write on and on about how it's
not meant to be anti-American. Of course it is.

It is no more anti-American than it would be anti-Canadian for you
to say "I'm not Canadian".

Mobutu wrote in message ...
Javaman wrote:

I can sort of understand a person wanting to wear one of these shirts if they
are in the Middle East or something, but I saw some git walking around here in
Australia in one of these shirts.

If a Canadian person doesn't have the patience to correct someone who thinks
they're American, they are clearly a ****** and not worth talking to anyway.

This shirt saves the time, and makes a great conversation starter.
"So, if you're not American, where ARE you from?"

On 12 Dec 2003 08:42:34 -0800, (Nathan Rebney)
wrote:

(Geoff Miller) wrote in message ...
Americans aren't "too lazy" to study foreign languages.
We simply have no practical need to do so. This is
because of the sheer size of our country and the cor-
responding lack of proximity to peoples nattering in
other tongues. Hell, we have mere *counties* that are
bigger than a lot of those cute little European nations.

Thank you for your textbook example of WHY the shirt was created in
the first place. Yours is typical of the stereotypical American's
outlook on internation relations and the reason why Americans are
believed to be so ignorant of the outside world.

Balderdash. Fluency in a second language has almost nothing to do with
any outlook on international relations. The ONLY relevance it has is
in understanding different ways of conceptualizing reality - for
example, the effects of giving every noun a gender, or the formal and
familiar "you." You don't need to speak a foreign language to have an
understanding of the culture, people, and history of a place.

Ethnocentrism is hardly confined to America. I've spent years
traveling the world, and the one constant is a paucity of world news
in other places. No 3rd world national newspaper publishes a fraction
of the international news seen in any urban American paper, and TV &
radio news is even worse. The rest of the western world hardly fares
better.

Turby the Turbosurfer

On 12 Dec 2003 08:47:12 -0800, (Nathan Rebney)
wrote:

Karen wrote in message . ..
If the seller truly wanted only to identify himself, why not use a
more positive message such as "I am a Canadian"?

Because "I am Canadian" has been done and is generally accepted
these days to be an advertisement for a brand of beer. Therefore,
it's trademarked.

Uh huh.

I think it's
disingenuous to say that he means no offense when he sells t-shirts
that have an American flag with the international circle/slash symbol
for "no" across it.

' "No" America' is obviously the message there, even you seem to
have picked that up. I do find it interesting though, how you focused
on THAT one, rather than the Peace symbol, or the Canadian flag, or
the version on the website without any background image, or the
numerous designs that say it in only one message without the
background.

I am curious though, what part of Canada do you come from?

I also didn't mention the one that says "Proud not to be an American".
No anti-Americanism there, either, huh?

I am curious though, what part of Canada do you come from?

I am an American. (Did you really think I'd fall for that?)