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August 7, 2025
Sublime Rambling
English View of Americans
By Vicki L. George
The Bandera Prophet
I was asked, what do the British think of us Americans? Here is what I emailed to my American friend on Feb. 7, 1998:
At first I was a little disturbed by their attitude. I’m not used to hearing “American bashing.” But after a while I figured it out. The rest of the world has a love-hate relationship with America and Americans. We are in the news every single day in one way or another. They look up to us; we set an example for them. Unfortunately, the examples are both good and bad. They watch American shows on the telly and copy the way of talking, which isn’t good, all the bad language. They’ve copied our soap operas and talk shows and game shows. Since Europeans don’t have the inhibitions concerning sex that we have, some of these shows go pretty far out by our standards. They bad-mouth our government but then they praise our economy. They make their jokes about our president but they’re not as strong as some of ours. They have a hard time understanding how we can show such disrespect for our leader. They love their royal family and forgive all their sins so they kind of believe we must feel the same way about our first family and it seems to perplex them that we don’t.
They consider Tony Blair and Clinton an interesting twosome. The headlines this morning on The Times (London) is, “Blair Rides To The Rescue — Clinton wounded by secretary’s evidence.”
They are fascinated by us, try to emulate us, perhaps are just a little jealous of us, like to hear about us, love to “trash” us, while also copying us. From that aspect alone, it was good to come here and stay long enough to really get to know the people, talk to them, read what they write. Some have been to America and love it, are amazed by how big it is, and how friendly we are. Some have been to America and are almost frightened by the sheer size of it. Remember, all of England is only the size of California, with 55 million people. Those who haven’t gone to America want to go there.
They see us as informal, rebellious, disrespectful of authority and tradition. They talk that down but in a way that says they really admire those things about us. I think they see us as errant children over whom they’ve lost control, but whom they are also proud of and secretly admire.
I’m reminded of the six blind men and the elephant. For instance, we met a charming Englishman from London, here on business. He said he’s been to America and we don’t have American accents. We told him we have Texas accents. He then said he’d been to Texas and he didn’t think we had American accents. So we asked him where in Texas did he go. He answered, Houston. Hubby and I just looked at each other. There are more Yankees in Houston than there are Texans and we didn’t know how to explain that to him.
Another man we talked to had been to Florida. It scared him to death. We asked what frightened him so much. He said there were two things: the sheer size of it, the open spaces; and how easy it was to get lost. However, he loved the state and said he would like to return.
We’ve also been asked if we lived near, or had seen, Southfork; there are lots of “Dallas” fans here. We’ve been asked if there are still large ranches so I told about the YO Ranch, which is over 800,000 acres, with eight miles of driveway from the front gate to the main house. We also told about the King Ranch, which takes up almost a million acres and a big chunk of south Texas. And when we tell them we have five acres, they think that’s a lot of land, too. Most of these people live in what we call townhouses. The farms are small family affairs. They really cannot conceive of anyone owning thousands of acres.
We met a woman who told us she had gone to America, bought a motorhome, put 140,000 miles on it, and still didn’t see all of America. She wants to go back and give it another go. Her favorite area was the northern prairie. I think she was trying to get the feel of the pioneers heading west. She was really cute; older than I am and just as sassy.
And that’s all the news that’s fit to print! The end of a fascinating journey. Hubby and I agree we would go back in a heartbeat, spend more time, see more England, visit Scotland and Wales and Ireland; go through the tunnel to France. Between us, we have ancestors in all those places.
At first I was a little disturbed by their attitude. I’m not used to hearing “American bashing.” But after a while I figured it out. The rest of the world has a love-hate relationship with America and Americans. We are in the news every single day in one way or another. They look up to us; we set an example for them. Unfortunately, the examples are both good and bad. They watch American shows on the telly and copy the way of talking, which isn’t good, all the bad language. They’ve copied our soap operas and talk shows and game shows. Since Europeans don’t have the inhibitions concerning sex that we have, some of these shows go pretty far out by our standards. They bad-mouth our government but then they praise our economy. They make their jokes about our president but they’re not as strong as some of ours. They have a hard time understanding how we can show such disrespect for our leader. They love their royal family and forgive all their sins so they kind of believe we must feel the same way about our first family and it seems to perplex them that we don’t.
They consider Tony Blair and Clinton an interesting twosome. The headlines this morning on The Times (London) is, “Blair Rides To The Rescue — Clinton wounded by secretary’s evidence.”
They are fascinated by us, try to emulate us, perhaps are just a little jealous of us, like to hear about us, love to “trash” us, while also copying us. From that aspect alone, it was good to come here and stay long enough to really get to know the people, talk to them, read what they write. Some have been to America and love it, are amazed by how big it is, and how friendly we are. Some have been to America and are almost frightened by the sheer size of it. Remember, all of England is only the size of California, with 55 million people. Those who haven’t gone to America want to go there.
They see us as informal, rebellious, disrespectful of authority and tradition. They talk that down but in a way that says they really admire those things about us. I think they see us as errant children over whom they’ve lost control, but whom they are also proud of and secretly admire.
I’m reminded of the six blind men and the elephant. For instance, we met a charming Englishman from London, here on business. He said he’s been to America and we don’t have American accents. We told him we have Texas accents. He then said he’d been to Texas and he didn’t think we had American accents. So we asked him where in Texas did he go. He answered, Houston. Hubby and I just looked at each other. There are more Yankees in Houston than there are Texans and we didn’t know how to explain that to him.
Another man we talked to had been to Florida. It scared him to death. We asked what frightened him so much. He said there were two things: the sheer size of it, the open spaces; and how easy it was to get lost. However, he loved the state and said he would like to return.
We’ve also been asked if we lived near, or had seen, Southfork; there are lots of “Dallas” fans here. We’ve been asked if there are still large ranches so I told about the YO Ranch, which is over 800,000 acres, with eight miles of driveway from the front gate to the main house. We also told about the King Ranch, which takes up almost a million acres and a big chunk of south Texas. And when we tell them we have five acres, they think that’s a lot of land, too. Most of these people live in what we call townhouses. The farms are small family affairs. They really cannot conceive of anyone owning thousands of acres.
We met a woman who told us she had gone to America, bought a motorhome, put 140,000 miles on it, and still didn’t see all of America. She wants to go back and give it another go. Her favorite area was the northern prairie. I think she was trying to get the feel of the pioneers heading west. She was really cute; older than I am and just as sassy.
And that’s all the news that’s fit to print! The end of a fascinating journey. Hubby and I agree we would go back in a heartbeat, spend more time, see more England, visit Scotland and Wales and Ireland; go through the tunnel to France. Between us, we have ancestors in all those places.