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2 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Sometimes it seems that verbally, the English are playing chess and everyone else is playing draughts.  My theory is that it's because there's no part of England where we have to make allowances for English not being a first language, so everyone can play with the nuances and ambiguities that native speakers have, and it all gets very complicated.

That’s certainly a possibility.  I grew up amongst 100% native US English speakers, but many of them were only second- or third-generation residents so it’s likely their own families had a different experience.

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Just now, Telecaster68 said:

Like, say, England.

Yes.  I’m not saying it doesn’t apply to you and your friends, just that this probably helps explain why we react a bit oddly to some of the interactions you describe (and vice versa).

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Yes, outside one’s friend group (and sometimes within it) irony and sarcasm are considered negative traits here and are associated with immaturity and an inflated sense of self-worth.

 

I’m not saying I personally see them that way but I’ve been chastised enough to get that others do.

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4 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

I think most people assume if you understand 'no it's fine you forgot my birthday again' doesn't actually mean the speaker's happy, you'll understand that 'your lack of desire isn't a problem' comes from the same place. 

To go back to this, it’s probably a lot more true in England than it is in the part of the US where I live.

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Just now, Telecaster68 said:

The only time irony and sarcasm are negative here is if you're not very good at them.

Yeah, that’s pretty much the opposite where I live...  here it’s “you know, *you* may think you’re funny but you’re actually an a**hole.”

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(...and I feel like that’s actually changed quite a bit over the course of my lifetime, but when I mention that people fall back on “of course it went over better when you were a kid; immaturity, remember?”)

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1 minute ago, Telecaster68 said:

That the two things will necessarily correlate? Aren't they both just about looking past the surface meaning of a phrase and considering wider knowledge of the person and the world when considering what meaning they intend?

The context is different, though.  When the emphasis is on expressing what you mean and on taking people at face value, searching for a deeper meaning is considered meddling and not being truthful is considered deserving what you get.

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What it also sets up here is the sense that *not* taking someone at face value is insulting them.  So, if someone says they don’t care that you forgot their birthday and you keep pushing on it they’re likely to flare up and snap at you.

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1 minute ago, Telecaster68 said:

Searching for a deeper meaning would be considered, well, considerate over here. It's saying 'I accept that you're trying to not embarrass or inconvenience me, but really, it's fine, and I care enough to actually engage my brain and think about you more deeply'.

Yeah, here it says “I don’t trust you to tell me what’s going on, I think you don’t trust me enough to be honest, and/or I know you better than you know yourself and am therefore going to insist on thinking and speaking for you.”

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...whereas here *not* taking them at their word is considered presumptive and rude (i.e., inconsiderate)... and being someone who consistently doesn’t say what they mean is considered manipulative, petty, and childish.

 

Suddenly this is looking a lot more like where we get stuck than the whole words/actions thing is...

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Just now, Telecaster68 said:

But most people aren't honest, most of the time, in normal social interactions. 'How are you?' 'I'm fine'; 'Have a nice day!'; 'I'm so glad you came!'.

This varies from region to region in the US and causes some problems here as well.  In the region where I live you see the “fine” (versus “OMG horrible you won’t believe what just happened!!”) but beyond that it’s frowned upon to be “fake nice” and better to say nothing.  In some other regions what we consider “fake nice” (“you’re welcome any time!” when you’re actually not at all) is considered polite and mandatory.

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2 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

I think Brits use words to lubricate social situations, rather than actually express anything very much.

There’s some degree of that here but the assumption is that it’s for strangers, customers, and the like and that you won’t do it to/with friends (especially, but often family as well).

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1 minute ago, Telecaster68 said:

Direct vs implied meanings is also a big AS vs NT difference too. Not that I'm saying you're AS, it's just another parallel.

Agreed but it also sounds like it’s just differently accepted from a cultural perspective.

 

I’m not AS and am actually very quick at implied meanings but it’s a skill that’s broadly derided here.

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8 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

The only time fake nice isn't mandatory in the UK is if you can leverage the negativity into making yourself the butt of humour about it.

Whereas in this area there’s a ton of emphasis on 1) polite means “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” and 2) any remaining “fake nice” is a façade you drop for your friends - the people you’re real to.

 

There are other parts of the country where it’s very different, and that causes some interesting issues.  If someone from here says “this was so much fun!  Any time you’re in town, you’re welcome to stay with me,” they won’t be surprised if you want to stay with them next time (and may even be a bit peeved if you book a hotel).  A few states south it’s the mandatory social nicety one says after any visit (which leads to people from here being surprised when the next visit seems to come as a shock/not be entirely genuinely received).

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I think I'll disagree a little, and noting that my partner is English and I am American. In the US, when giving feedback, one selects from a scale ranging from "OK" (worst, meeting some bare minimum to be acceptable without all-out rejection) to "awesome" (it's actually good). That is, in practice the most *negative* end of the scale is "OK".

(Expand it to say "It's OK, I guess" if you really want to express disappointment! Might not even be "OK"!)

I think the US has one form of fake politeness, in the form of adjectival inflation. My spouse got a haircut once, many years ago. His English father said, "not bad", and I said "it looks amazing!" -- his father then laughed at the UK/US contrast. :)

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3 minutes ago, anisotropic said:

I think the US has one form of fake politeness, in the form of adjectival inflation.

Agreed, there’s some of that where I live as well (although polite displeasure is more likely to be “it was all right,” delivered with a shrug; “okay” here usually means it was actually okay).

 

Here in this area we usually go the “find something truthful (but trivial)” route, though:  if you like the new haircut, it’s “OMG your hair looks fantastic”; if you don’t, it’s “you got your hair cut!” or “I love the look of balayage!”

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This has been a lovely little interlude of semantics.  (That is meant sincerely, not snarkily.)  

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We say the ears lowered thing here too but normally as a joke to guys who got their hair cut much shorter than it was before.  I used to hear it lot more often... it’s mostly the old folks who say it now.

 

We always get warned that people outside the US do not agree with - and have no patience with hearing - the idea that there are significant cultural differences from region to region across the country but when it comes to this sort of thing there decidedly are...

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From international business etiquette training to tumblr and lots of places in between.  :D

 

I live in an area where - because people move and speak quickly, get right to the point “to not waste people’s time,” and tend to be fairly direct - everyone has the general reputation for being rude and abrasive.  I worked a long time for a global company (based here) and we were forever getting reminded that we had to carefully monitor ourselves.

 

Things like “you may think you have a lot in common culturally with the people of Toronto and southern Ontario because the area is nearby, but they don’t see it that way.  They are much more like the Ohio valley, and view us the same way they view Montreal,” followed by a long list of ways to be more appropriately polite when dealing with our Toronto-area collegues.

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Well, that was the point... the Canadians were nicer than we come across so we were getting anti-rudeness training.

 

Toronto is so close and yet so far, they wanted to be sure we knew.

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My wife is from England, but if I say nothing is wrong she takes me at my word. And if it turns out something really is wrong, she gets hurt I lied. There is no "polite" brushing off. She can't read my mind and she expects me to tell her what I really feel/think. I can't read hers so I expect her to tell me what she feels/thinks. *shrug* So if I said to her I don't mind you forgot my birthday, she'd accept that. If I really was upset and brushed it off, she'd say I lied and she has trouble trusting me. 

 

Of course, we have known kind of inside joke responses like "How are you feeling?" "Fine" - we both know fine means not OK, cause it's a joke that women always say fine (so playing into the gender stereotype) when something is wrong. So, we try to avoid fine when we actually are fine. And if the other won't talk, we just leave it alone til the person with the issue decides to come out with it. 

 

I dunno. We prefer actually communicating our feelings and wants/needs than playing some weird game where you pretend everything is OK. But, she's overly blunt and overly open so tends to work out better to be honest than whatever social games you'd play with a stranger (those sorts of social games with a partner would become tiring). 

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I often feel like I should have been born in New York City, because I'm so blunt in saying what I feel/think.  In the West Coast of America, you just don't do that.  (Except a little bit in LA.)  And the diversity of cultures in America is really a thing; there are regions, and states, and areas within states, and then there's all the family cultures and cultures of immigrants.  It's amazing anyone can talk to anyone else.  

 

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On 2/19/2019 at 5:57 PM, Serran said:

Of course, we have known kind of inside joke responses like "How are you feeling?" "Fine" - we both know fine means not OK, cause it's a joke that women always say fine (so playing into the gender stereotype) when something is wrong. So, we try to avoid fine when we actually are fine.

This sort of shit has always pissed me the hell off, when people wouldn't believe that I really was feeling fine and were seemingly insistent on creating a problem where none existed.  Okay then, I'm not fine anymore, because you're getting on my fucking nerves with asking me a question and not accepting the answer I give...

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1 minute ago, Telecaster68 said:

Maybe there was something in your body language or other context that seemed to be contradicting your words. 

Sometimes, too, people have a hard time believing someone is truly fine with something *they* personally would not and could not be fine with.

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5 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Maybe there was something in your body language or other context that seemed to be contradicting your words. 

I think spoken word should be trusted over potentially vague elements like body language.

 

Just one more reason for me to favor online communication, I guess.

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29 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Don't you think it's easier to lie with your words than your body? 

I think that depends on both the speaker/actor and the listener/audience.

 

Some people are very good at reading for tells.  Others either miss them entirely or pick up on things that aren’t there/don’t apply.

 

Likewise, some people are good at hiding their obvious tells.  Others may not be, but exist in a baseline - they’re anxious about many things, frustrated about many things, excited about many things - that makes it hard to distinguish lying-related body language/actions/etc. from all the background noise.

 

I always consider lying similar to theft... a dedicated professional is going to succeed.  Any measures you take to protect yourself only address the amateurs.  Doesn’t make such measures not worthwhile, but you still have to recognize they’re limited.

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54 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Don't you think it's easier to lie with your words than your body? 

I don't see what the point of someone asking me a question is if they're not going to trust the verbal response.  Why not just assume the answer and avoid wasting both of our time with needless chatter?

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1 hour ago, Philip027 said:

I don't see what the point of someone asking me a question is if they're not going to trust the verbal response.  Why not just assume the answer and avoid wasting both of our time with needless chatter?

Well, there are two answers there depending on the situation.  If the person asking considers you untrustworthy (and/or doesn’t really care what you think) then asking anyway pretty much is needless chatter.

 

However, if that’s not the case, the person asking might expect to trust your answer... until they see you give it.  Then something in the way you give the answer might call your honesty (or your self-perception; you might not be lying on purpose) into question.

 

It gets complicated if your delivery is often a bit “off,” and/or if you are distracted or anxious about something that has nothing to do with the question...

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1 hour ago, Telecaster68 said:

Because mostly communication uses more than the bare words.

Still say that if you're already going to decide for the other person what they really meant to say and base it on their hand motions or whatever, I don't see the point of posing the question in the first place.  This isn't "communication", it's assumption.  You've clearly already decided what their answer "should" be.

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