Here’s another one: In the last 10 years the UK has made the largest change in time freight waits to enter the nation.
It almost became (I’m guessing) the first country to give up socialized medicine. So it could be worse.
America: hold my beer 🍺.
That’ll be $7.50.
Would you like to tip 40%, 70%, or 135%?Make sure that you are staring at me while I make up my mind please. 🥺
America? More like $15.5 plus 40% tip that the business steals anyway
Yes, that’s the joke.
Has almost become. But over my literal dead body, I will take to the streets of Central London and so would millions of others. Take the NHS away and there will be genuine riots from real people with nothing to lose.
I can almost see the Internet on top of Big Ben there (it’s where it gets the best reception).
It was demagnetized by the Hawk himself.
England is a great country to hate.
I don’t hate it, I’m sad about it because it could be so much more.
Same as anywhere really. It has really become a bit shit, mostly because I can’t afford to do anything nice.
The sun never set on the British empire! Until everyone decided they didn’t want to play along anymore …
The British 3 pin plug is superior to all other plugs. I miss it
Schuko is the only one anyone would ever need. Those gigantic tumors from the island are horrible. And don’t come with the fuse argument. A fuse belongs in the electrical cabinet and is the last failsafe. GFCIs are the ones protecting you l, the appliance and the house.
Switzerland and Brazil use this weird as shit one and I kind of like it.
And no, I don’t know why Switzerland and Brazil.
i mean Switzerland is famously neutral
I don’t think that’s how electricity works.
it is… and Brazil is famously grounded.
Have you tried licking it to find out?
No, let me try that right n
WAIT! Don’t lick it, jeez.
Use this fork instead.
Was*
It’s certainly the one most likely to shank you if you step on it. Beyond that I’d rank it as the least space efficient plug. I honestly think it’s the worst design I’ve seen.
“But it has built in fuses”, I hear all the Brits say. This isn’t the advantage you think it is. Why not put the fuses in the actual appliance with all the other components where it makes more sense to put them?
Britain has its faults, but look at how former British colonies are doing today as compared to former French colonies, and other European countries.
You mean the ones where they essentially wiped out and replaced the locals, like the US, Canada or Australia? Or the ones where the locals are majority, like India, Bangladeh, Pakistan…
Uh… “yes”.
I rest my case, your honour!
Not sure that the comparison is all that favorable with France. You check Algeria and Egypt, or Uganda and Niger, and it’s not exactly a massive spread. The most positive comparison would be with Italian and Belgian colonialism, which managed to be incompetent and (even by colonial standards) gruesome, respectively.
Man German colonialism failed so hard it doesn’t even make the list
Namibia and Tanzania turned out alright. They were something of money sinks, and despite the genocides performed by the Germans, they never really figured out how to turn a profit from their colonies. A bit late to the game, one suspects.
Adding my two cents, major curses to humanity today…
- Britain always followed the divide and rule on it’s colonies and it still curses them and beyond.
- Most of the border disputes today can be lead back to british decisions.
There are million more reasons, but it’s just not worth arguing with UK now.
I think you should read up on which countries are former British colonies, because there are definitely a lot of them not doing so well either.
It’s really sweet how they add unnecessary letters to feel all fancy about their little words.
“Colour”
“Humour”
Aww, so cute.
It gets worse- “foetus,” “aeroplane.”
They also think “er” is pronounced “re” like in the words “centre” and “theatre” and “s” is pronounced like “z” like in words like “apologise” and “realise.”
Get it together guys. We know you came up with the language, but that’s no excuse not to keep up.
Speaking of aviation, I have no idea why Americans use such a boring term as “airport”. I mean, the guys invented half of the aviation technology and then they just use the term “airport”. Such a waste of potential.
The international standard term is “aerodrome”. Say it like you mean it. It’s a term with gravitas.
Foetus is a weird one, I’ve never heard that before. I keep trying to pronounce it in my head but the closest I get is sounding like fajitas.
It comes from the german Fötus
oe is ö
and english is a germanic language
Is that right? So it’s not the same as the oe in phoenix? I know in old books they used to fuse the letters.
If it’s right I’d want a source, the oe spelling in British English is as far as I was aware a let’s latinize thing in Britain.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/oe https://www.etymonline.com/word/fetus
Would you like some chicken
fajitasfoetusBecause Fetus would be pronounced with a hard e not a ee sound.
oe is a variant of the french œ pronounced ee
This is the first I’m hearing about these And they bug me
Ok, I’m confused by the aeroplane reference. It’s not pronounced as per the American “airplane”.
The USA newspapers are credited with removing letters. It used to cost per letter, so people started removing whatever they could.
Noah Webster dropped the ‘u’ on words as well as otherwise changed the spelling of many words in ‘American’ English.
Words are changed when their commonly changed… webster took note. Lol
Nah, Webster really did drop the ‘u’ and changed a lot of spelling. He also learned a lot of languages since back then there were many, many different languages/dialects in America at the time and he wanted to make it easier as he changed spellings, such as swapping ‘re’ to ‘er’ for phonetics. There was also a lot of anti-British sentiment at the time of course which certainly would have motivated acceptance.
Webster is definitely also credited for this in histories and not newspapers outside of anecdotes.
“it is often assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Noah Webster. He was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in the United States, but he did not originate them. Rather […] he chose already existing options such as center, color and check for the simplicity, analogy or etymology” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences
Either way he didn’t change the spellings he popularized them…
“Webster did attempt to introduce some reformed spellings, as did the Simplified Spelling Board in the early 20th century, but most were not adopted.”
Edit, I messed up markdown
If we’re doing Wikipedia as the sole citation then:
In 1806, Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. By 1807, he began work on a more extensive dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, which took twenty-six years to complete. To evaluate the etymology of words, Webster learned twenty-eight languages, including Old English, Gothic, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, Welsh, Russian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit. His goal was to standardize American English, which varied widely across the country. They also spelled, pronounced, and used English words differently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Webster#Blue-backed_speller
As time went on, Webster changed the spellings in the book to more phonetic ones. Most of them already existed as alternative spellings.[34] He chose spellings such as defense, color, and traveler, and changed the re to er in words such as center. He also changed tongue to the older spelling tung, but this did not catch on.
Furthermore your quote doesn’t actually have a relevant citation:
He was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in the United States, but he did not originate them. Rather […] he chose already existing options such as center, color and check for the simplicity, analogy or etymology”
Though in context of the previous paragraph seems to imply that this was an opinion that the wikipedia article came to simply because there was a previous work that argued specifically for ‘or’ in place of ‘our’ but again, it appears to simply be their opinion based on an assumption.
I’d also heard it suggested that the date was written the “British” way, and post civil war was when they started writing them incorrectly.
“Aluminium” anyone?
Are you buying?
I’ve been really wanting to make a small forge to melt down some cans
That would be pretty cool, honestly. Probably better than sticking it in the blue bin.
But they’re almost all ‘iums’, changing just one is like finding a fly in a bowl of cereal
Molybdenum, lanthanum, tantalum, platinum, it’s not unique and not all got latinized.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/aluminum
And aluminum was what it was originally spelled as well, at this point it’s not going to change in American English. Even the IUPAC acknowledges it as accepted, it’s been there from the start can we move on past this after 200+ years?
Now let’s hear yanks say “mobile mirror”. You’re too lazy to even pronounce the letters you do have.
Actually can we collectively agree to blame the French for this? It was they who introduced it.
Thats certainly one possible explanation for why Americans chose to simplify the spelling of the words they use.
Totally normal if you ask me.
Created the best popcorn flick, like for example Brexit, Death of Queen Elizabeth, Installation of Palpatine, Lettuce Leaf, and the ongoing season of Riot.
I don’t know, man, The Apprentice has gotten super meta and wild over here.
It has one of the best gender neutral bathrooms on the planet.
The view is great, the seat is a little cold.
I went to the tate modern and their bathrooms were progressive as fuck. I’d never been in a mixed toilet just surrounded by women, but it was an experience I’d quite like to repeat again. I got some strange looks after, but hey that’s London for you
They lose points for not fully adopting mixer tap technology.
Brought law and order to the world. Education. Infrastructure. Destroyed the slave trade. Brought stability and prevented genocides. Created governments. The industrial revolution. Science. Large parts of economics and free trade.
You forgot to mention, looted hundreds of countries.
But isn’t it nice of them to let the Greeks go to see the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum whenever they want for free?
Is there no admission fee for the British Museum? I’ve never been outside the US, but I would have expected a basic £5 fee.
No, it’s free except for special exhibitions. That’s one of the few compliments I’ll give it. That and the curators themselves really know their stuff. There’s a YouTube series where they talk about their areas of expertise. But they don’t get to decide what the museum has acquired and what it is willing to give up.
I’m pretty sure India had law and order and infrastructure long before the British invaded and colonized it. And Britain benefited from the slave trade for a long time before working to abolish it.
As far as prevented genocides, I’d ask an indigenous Australian how they feel about Britain preventing genocide.
Honestly, I’m willing to give Britain the slave trade bit. Slavery is ancient, and choosing not just to break free of it, but to actively work for its suppression across the world, deserves some credit, at least.
The rest, though? Y I K E S
Really? We still don’t have law and order and infrastructure in India. Also we weren’t a country called India before the British came.
Weird, because I’ve seen pictures of India and it looks to me like there are things like roads and rails.
Also, I never said there was a country called India before the British came. Would you have preferred it if I had done a big list of all the kingdoms they conquered? I felt “India” was faster.
Man, I didn’t mean to rub you in the wrong way. Just saying our infrastructure basically sucks, it’s all great in the first year and then crumbles. Almost all of our railroads are from the British times still sustaining, and roads have just recently started to be good but even then after a bit they’re not in good shape. Look at what happens to any of our cities when it rains for a couple of hours.
On the history front, you’re right to have thought of referring it as India before it was India, though it still feels that as states we are so disconnected at most times that we should reflect on whether are we even a country or just some kind of loose alliance held together by the corruption of politics.
In any case, I didn’t mean any offense to your comment, just added on some of my own sarcastic comments.
Edit - forgot to mention, in terms of law and order, our law is pretty good, but it’s not enforced at all. People could blame corruption, but it’s probably the system and also the population vs resources. For example, cops are paid a pittance and they need to pay bribes to get good posts and they then recover those bribes by taking bribes…
I hope you forgot to put an /s at the end of your comment
Yes, all those things would have been accomplished sooner if the British had stayed on their own little island. I agree.
Probably not, to be honest. It’s like a chaotic attractor, isn’t it. I’m not a moral relativist, so I can’t discount the suffering it created. But we tend to do that when looking at ancient history. It’s pretty clear a specific version of “industrial civilisation” was spread globally, and the epicentre was Europe, and disproportionately the UK. It’s just too recent to view objectively or with a historical lens for most people. That’s fair enough. Now its bastard offspring the USA is the major cultural hegemon and the economic consequences of that are staring us directly in the face, with most people choosing to ignore it. And who knows what will happen next?
That’s like saying communism brought up living standards for eastern Europe (It didn’t)
And don’t go down voting thinking I am some Englishman or American I live in eastern europe
(it did though)
Ask any person who lived at the time and why did Lithuania break of the USSR if it was so good
Ask a serf from
tsaristimperial (for the pedants) Russia?You do know there’s a period of independence between Tsarist Russia and Soviet domination, right?
Calling them emperors for a little while but not changing anything else isn’t anything like independence
I think I have a nice thing to say: It’s not gonna last much longer.
The UK is not anywhere close to collapse?
Scottish independence?
That was a passing fancy, a dream of good government.
Reality has hit hard and they’ve moved on
Many Scottish people were convinced to stay in the UK so they would have access to Europe (an independent Scotland wouldn’t automatically get that).
Now that argument has vanished there is much less holding Scotland in the UK.
The UK is not just England and Scotland.
Not going to happen for a long time
Ireland reunification first, then Scottish independence.
Can’t see the Welsh going it alone.
Maybe a few villages in Cornwall will try something.
I don’t think Wales has the economy to survive as an independent nation as much as some of the Welsh love the idea.
I give it 50 years
Instance checks out
???
*independence.
Best dictionaries in the world.
The clock is fancy.
I wonder if there’s a travel itinerary for a year long journey to as many independence days as possible. How many are there? How many could a person attend within a year?
Edit: Found a list on wiki and could sort by calendar day. By my count you could attend a maximum of 119 independence days; that is to say somewhere in the world there is an independence day on 119 different days. Many days of course have two or more countries celebrating so you’d have to pick one. Maybe I’ll print the list and think about the geography a bit and see how many a person could reasonably attend; 119 is the maximum if you own a private plane and could land and takeout from the correct countries in order.
Conceivably, one person couldn’t possibly line up the entry visas to get anywhere close to 119. They’d need a small team of immigration lawyers working for months ahead of and during each leg; some chronological legs might be impossible due to entry restrictions on country of entry or country of origin. Visa requirements would get more complicated as time went on and less likely to be granted, although to the extent border controls are discretionary, with the right letters and proof, the durations of stay will be so short, how many border guard supervisors are going to turn you down for a one or two day entry visa when you have photos of you partying it up on Independence days around the world, celebrating the prideful achievements of the cultures of the world, and asking “won’t you let a kind traveler share your day of national pride with you, so that I may share it with others?”
And this is all flying privately with your own jet and unlimited money to keep it going on demand. Many legs would be interrupted by flight delays and travel bullshit. Flying commercially, even with unlimited plane fair money and very good luck in finding/planning accomodations (not living out of your private jet). This assumes the flight durations and time zones line up that you could make it in time from one to the next.
I would find it an amazing achievement if a regular person managed to get to like 25 of the these things in a year, and a lifetime achievement award to do anyone that hit 50. Maybe a very seriously dedicated individual could hit ~75. That last stretch from 100 to 119 I think would be insurmountable. With all the resources in the world I bet a few would still fall through for one reason or another.
If anyone finds some travel nerd somewhere that has really thought this out please share.
Thanks to them I can confidently say things about historical events even without actually knowing anything about it
“Yeah British did that”
Created Lord of the Rings, and metal. And made very important contributions to psychedelic rock and blues rock.
