Is this list of "10 Things that Americans don't Realize are Offensive to Brits" accurate?

Most of it rang pretty true to me from my experience with English people.

Flicking the Vee’s, talking in the cinema & over politeness are things which grind my gears.
The rest of that list is pretty much hit & miss, not something that bothers me unduly, i’d consider anyone offended by such stuff as a fuddy duddy.

It seems too generalizing to be accurate.

It’s too general. The talking in the movie thing maybe, and the rush to take the plates away in a pub or restaurant. What@ucme said. Not Brit, Australian.

I’m a pom and while I think ‘offend’ is too strong a word, many of those things either could offend or are very likely to grate.

The two finger thing means fuck off.

Taking away plates while someone is still eating is rude. As is talking in the cinema.

Not making introductions is also rude. It excludes at least one party.

Therapy and money talk and complaining are over sharing or may come across as gauche. Over-politeness can come across as being insincere.

The ‘quite’ thing is spot on. I’m still trying to educate my Australian husband and it’s been 15 years. He doesn’t get when I put on a new dress and he says ‘It’s quite nice” why I instantly frown and go and change. To me, quite means it’s good, but not great.

That’s actually a pretty good list.

I’ll go and read the How Brits piss off Americans list now.

I’m American and I have a problem with waiters clearing the plates too early while others are still eating.

Edit: When I read the list the over politeness made me think of the southern US. I just read the list what Americans dislike and saw the mention of calling us Yanks. An American from the southern US definitely would not take kindly to being called that. The swearing also would be more of a southern thing. I, as an American, moving to the south was stunned at how offended southerners get when someone swears.

Bah! First of all the ‘peace’ sign in the other way around. I don’t find Brits well mannered at all and a lot of things on that list applies to them. I have this idea that Americans think most British are toffs and speak with hot potatoes in their mouths and have dashing manners, a bit like the Queen. In real life a lot of them are rotten drunk, female included, have punch ups outside of bars, females included and even shout odd things at you in the street. I think in general the world has lost the plot in terms of manners, or perhaps it is time for a new book on etiquette. I stood the other day with someone for half an hour while he chatted away to someone and they all acted as though I were invisible.

I just thought of something. The whole introduction thing. If someone doesn’t introduce me I am happy to introduce myself, because maybe the other person doesn’t remember their name! It’s a way of gracefully helping out your friend or relative who might recognize the person but not remember their name.

All Aussies say “quite” and I don’t think they could stop. It’s just a word. But I’m saying “really” now in its place. Trying to.

Every member of the group is supposed to buy a round?!?!? WTH?!?!? I’ll bet that rule was set up by the pub owners.
Look, I will have a drink, or two. Imn not a prude. But if I go with a group of 6 guys I refuse to have – or buy – 6 drinks just because 6 of us are sitting at a table. I want to remain sitting at the table, not on the floor pissing myself. I’m driving. We are all big boys and our mommies gave us our own wallets and credit cards. We can buy our own drinks and food thank you very much.

@LuckyGuy I have never bought a round. I have bought myself a drink maybe 6 times in my life. I don’t drink, and I’m not paying for everyone else’s drinks either. I do if I am treating a friend, but that usually involves having a meal too. My husband and I do as a couple sometimes for another couple if we are having dinner together. Otherwise, the lushes are on their own.

Buying a round or paying for your ‘shout’ used to be a major part of Australian drinking culture too. These days, with greater concerns about drink driving and stricter enforcement of alcohol limits by police, it seems much less common. We have to drive to the pub here, but there are still local, community pubs in walking distance in the UK. Because of this difference, I’m not sure if the ‘round’ culture is still a part of the drinking culture there. It’s expensive! I couldn’t afford to go out and buy rounds these days and I don’t think I’d want to. Especially since I barely drink.

Buying rounds is out of fashion in the UK, because drinks are getting too expensive and so many people are only buying soft drinks. The days of being in a pub and having the choice of maybe two or three beers all the same price and everyone drinking more or less the same thing is long gone. When you’re in a group of friends and one’s drinking real ale, another has a large glass of wine, another has some fizzy yellow lager and the designated driver is on cokes, buying in rounds makes no sense.

Talking about therapy or money – not offensive, it’s just something we Brits dont consider to be good conversation topics. Nobody ever talks about how much they earn. In some cases people don’t even tell their spouse how much they earn. And you DEFINITELY don’t tell your colleagues.

The main offensive thing is getting someone’s country wrong. Referring to a Scot or a Welshman as English is the height of insult. The “two-finger salute” is also an insult and will most likely earn you a punch in the face.

Describing something as “quite good” usually means it’s a bit less good than just “good”. To be even more confusing, describing something as “not bad” is usually better than “quite good”. But when your wife or girlfriend asks you if you like what she’s wearing the only correct response is “That’s absolutely beautiful, darling”.

On the whole it’s much harder to offend a Brit than it is to offend an American. You can call a Brit a “stupid cunt” and he’ll take it as a light-hearted joke.

I have some Brits in my family and two phrases I hear a lot are “Indeed!” and “bit of bad luck.”

They come with a case of great wines when they visit. They like to drink vino!

@downtide interesting about the country wrong thing. If someone gets my country wrong, or the country my family is from wrong, or for me my religion wrong, because often Jews are identified as being Jews more than the country their families are from, I don’t get offended. Do you care if a stranger guesses wrong? Or, it only bothers a Brit if someone who should know better gets it wrong?

It happens to me in the airport sometimes. Just happened the last time I flew; TSA was so obvious it was laughable. They asked about our last name. To some people it sounds middle eastern, it is, but it’s Jewish. We are the opposite of who the TSA should be profiling or worried about.

Among acquaintances they guess my background wrong all the time.

@JLeslie personally I don’t care that much, but some people do, regardless of who is doing the guessing.

Brits are often astounded at the lack of geographical knowledge that some Americans have.

@downtide I’ve found that to be true too. My English relatives were amazed that I had no idea where Madagascar was. We don’t usually study geography beyond about fifth grade so our knowledge of world geography is often very sketchy. I recently read a quote attributed to Mark Twain, “Americans fight wars so they can learn about world geography.”

In general, most of us Brits don’t get offended & certainly nowhere near as easily as Americans do over religion/patriotism etc.
We’re basically just a chilled out island of decent folks who get on with stuff.

@downtide While I would agree a lot of Americans lack geographical knowledge, I really doubt people in other countries can name most of the capitals of our states and where most states are within our borders. Knowing countries, capitals, bodies of water, and mountain ranges in Europe is akin to knowing the geography of America, because our country is huge.

Again, I do agree Americans could do much better, but just learning our own country is a big task. I do think schools here should spend a little more time on world geography.

People tend to know the country they live in, the places they have vacationed, and the places the news talks about over and over again. I would assume that is true around the world.

I went to a restaurant with my grandmother. The waiter gave us the V sign (sod off) to indicate that he wanted to know if it was just the two of us dining. I sometimes wonder if it was an innocent mistake or if he thought he’d tell us to fuck off without anyone knowing.

Re which country someone is from – you can tell where someone is from by how they speak so if you have spoken to them and still get it wrong they are maybe going to be offended. The non-English people will feel marginalised that you haven’t heard of their country, only England. English people will just think you are bizarre if you think they are Welsh.

re buying a round. it is perfectly acceptable to say you are in a round with someone else. If you are a non-drinker then people are happy if you team up with another non/slow drinker. Or people will tell you it’s not your round because you are having soft drinks – you only have to buy one round or roughly equivalent to how much you would have spent on yourself. But it is polite when joining a party of people to offer to buy everyone a drink. Most will refuse but you have to offer.

Re quite good. I’m aware that as a scot living in England, I use the word fine differently to English people. here it means adequate, in scotland it means good.

@stinley Be offended if an American guesses wrong?

I find many people who are not American find it rude to even be asked where they are from. They fear being stereotyped, or that it simply isn’t done in their country as a matter of etiquette so they don’t understand why Americans ask such questions.

Someone guessing an accent wrong is either because they are unfamiliar or ignorant to the intricacies of the accent. The only reason to be offended by that is if you look down on the countrymen you were just accused of being associated with. At least, that’s all I can think of as a reason.

My husband loves the British, Irish, and Scottish accents and he usually can’t tell them apart.

@JLeslie Re- accents – I didn’t say it was rational!

The whole article is all a bit stereotyping though anyway, but that’s why it was a little bit funny

@Stinley LOL.

Sounds like Brits are just as uptight and easily offended as Americans.

I think the term “offended” is a bit of an exaggeration here.

^ I totally agree.