Common Stereotypes of your State, City, Region, Etc

[english si]

Van Persie in particular seems to always try for flashy SportsCenter worthy goals (aiming for a corner or something) when a simple hard shot in the middle would do the job.

More stereotypes in at the end of this post, but, now the season's ended, I'll point out (having just heard these stats) that Van Persie's 18 goals in the Premiership was only bettered by 2 people on 20, 21 goals in 23 games (one of which would be the Neu Camp where he wasn't playing well and was sent off because his one shot was so poor that the ref misread it entirely and was a numpty) is really rather good and the goal in each of the last 8 away games he had before today was the record until he scored a 9th in 9 consecutive league away games. Arsenal, however, had no goals winning Match of the Day's Goal of the Month award this season. I do like how Arsenal's post-Wembley collapse wasn't as bad as Birmingham's - I don't think I've cheered a Spurs goal as much as the one that guaranteed that they were going down.

Brits/English:

• Gentlemen (in the classic sense of the word - to the point where it's used as a loan word across the world because no other culture has the concept of gentlemanly behaviour)
• Thugs (the Gentleman-Thug tension has been held) - linked heavily in with football violence and Spanish holidays (and latterly Eastern European stag dos)
• I've not yet mentioned our love of tea, tea time, cream teas, afternoon tea as a meal, etc
• our fashination with talking about the weather
• Stiff upper lip, repressed emotions
• are xenophobic nationalists (coming off our skepticism about the EU)
• are eccentric
• a great exporter of classic comedy - Americans go with Python, most of the rest of the world (sadly) goes with Mr Bean

Londoners:

• are all Cockney
• are all foreign
• eat jellied eels at pie and mash shops (OK, not really in anyone's mind anymore, but 50 years ago that was in the psyche)
• don't care what goes on in England outside the M25, other than maybe the football results
• use the tube and buses to travel and not cars

people from the 'Home Counties':

• All middle-class well-off people
• Would vote for a cabbage if you put a blue (ie Conservative) rosette on it
• Mostly work as stockbrokers in the City of London, commuting in from the countryside

the Welsh:

• can sing
• coal miners
• speak gobbledygook that's full of unpronounceable vowel-less 10-letter-long words
• have a fetish for woolly animals that go 'baa'

Wales (and Manchester) - always raining, or just about to rain

Germans:

• punctual
  
• sticklers for rules, lists, order, efficiency (the Germanic influences in US culture can be seen here, as a Brit, in road numbering and the different approaches to it from authorities and roadgeeks either side of the pond)
• get up at the crack of dawn, while on holiday, to put beach towels on sun loungers, thinking it reserves it for them, and even if you try and do the same, they'd have got up earlier
• have a collective memory block as to what their country was doing in the 1930s and 40s and just plain old can't remember the time between 1914 and 1918
• eat lots of sausages and drink lots of beer

[agentsteel53]

• our fashination with talking about the weather

despite the fact that you don't get anything very interesting.

ask Louisiana about interesting weather! 

[corco]

The easiest way to identify if someone is really from Wyoming is to tell them what Wyoming city you're from. If their response is "[city name]? You guys have an awesome Walmart" then they're from Wyoming. Unless you say you're from Rawlins in which case a native Wyomingite would respond "Bummer, why don't you guys have a Walmart yet?"

[realjd]

Re the Welsh and sheep - it's a trait shared with their sister lands of Kentucky and Newfoundland.

I'll throw in some more stereotypes (and more soccer discussion) tomorrow when I've had time to digest all of the results.

[mightyace]

The closest thing I've witnessed close to sports violence was at a couple of NASCAR races at Talladega.

In one, Jeff Gordon won back when he was one everyone loved to hate.  i.e. pre-Kyle Busch.  In the other, Brian Vickers won the fall 2006 race by wrecking Jimmie Johnson and the sainted Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on the final lap.

In both cases, many fans threw bear cans and other debris onto the track.

[Mr_Northside]

the Welsh:

• can sing

Yeah... pretty sure this one is an exaggeration.  (Though, Tom Jones could sing....)

• coal miners

In the past, I'd say this was a pretty true sterotype (My great-grandfather worked in a pit in Wales...). 
It's kind of the same thing with some people still thinking Pittsburgh is a dirty smokey city filled with steel mills.  Once true, but not anymore.

• speak gobbledygook that's full of unpronounceable vowel-less 10-letter-long words

The only time this is true is when they're speaking Welsh instead of English.  (My dad tried learning Welsh once as a hobby, Not sure how long he tried though...)

• have a fetish for woolly animals that go 'baa'

Not saying anything about the fetish part... but man, there ARE a lot of sheep over there.

Wales (and Manchester) - always raining, or just about to rain

Sometimes a stereotype becomes a stereotype because it's true.

[PAHighways]

It's kind of the same thing with some people still thinking Pittsburgh is a dirty smokey city filled with steel mills.  Once true, but not anymore.

One time I was talking to someone from France, and after explaining I lived nowhere near Philadelphia, I had to explain that there were no mills left within the city limits and hasn't been smoky since the 50s.  It amazed me that in the Internet age with Google Images and Google Earth that this was still prevalent.

[ftballfan]

Manistee County, MI: Gas prices are usually at least a few cents higher than surrounding counties (case in point, today gas in Manistee County ranged from 3.99 to 4.02 while gas in Grand Traverse County was either 3.88 or 3.89)

[Alps]

ftballfan: wrong topic? Gas prices aren't exactly a stereotype.

[ftballfan]

It isn't a stereotype, but it is true
Here's a stereotype of Manistee County: All the females are short.

[Alps]

It isn't a stereotype, but it is true
Here's a stereotype of Manistee County: All the females are short.

Do they have flat heads?

[english si]

the Welsh:

• can sing

Yeah... pretty sure this one is an exaggeration.  (Though, Tom Jones could sing....)

and Charlotte Church, Dame Shirley Bassey, Bonnie Tyler to name the really famous ones. Then you have the Male Voice Choir tradition in the valleys and stuff. It's an exaggeration to say they all can sing, but there's a massive singing tradition that has lead to the stereotype.

Wales (and Manchester) - always raining, or just about to rain

Sometimes a stereotype becomes a stereotype because it's true.

[/quote]I've spend weeks in Wales where you had one bit of rain, at night, on one of the days and you actually got a lot of sun during the days.

[ftballfan]

It isn't a stereotype, but it is true
Here's a stereotype of Manistee County: All the females are short.

Do they have flat heads?

No. By short, I mean 5'6" or shorter. In my high school graduating class, we only had about five girls (out of about sixty girls total) that were taller than 5'6".

[PAHighways]

50 State Stereotypes (in 2 minutes)

[hobsini2]

For my brother Josh in Brooklyn NY:
We are all part of the Italian Mafia.
We are all Italian, Jewish, or Black.
We all have no driving experience because we don't have cars.

For me, my Wisconsin roots first:
People from Illinois think we all drive slow just to piss them off. (partily true. )
State Motto: Eat Cheese or Die.
There is nothing to do and no where to go anywhere in Wisconsin.
Bear fans believe Packer fans are fat, toothless, redneck, gun wielding, hunting fools in bright orange. (None which applies to me).  All I have to say to Bear fans is, since your last SB win, we have got 2 more trophies. Suck it! hehehe

For Illinois/Chicago:
We all know Micheal Jordan.
Every fan of the Bears and Bulls is like the "Super Fans".
Chicagoland is Illinois.
The boonies of Chicago is beyond Harlem Ave. (More of a Chicago vs Illinois stereotype)
Everyone in Illinois talks like they are from Chicago.  (Ever been down south of I-70??? More like Kentucky accent),

Aurora IL:
Nothing but gangbangers and pimps.

Naperville IL:
Everyone lives in a mansion.

BTW, Aurora and Naperville have had a long rivalry politically like Minneapolis-St Paul.

[mightyace]

Everyone in Illinois talks like they are from Chicago.  (Ever been down south of I-70??? More like Kentucky accent),

Something similar in southern Indiana.  I've gone to Holiday World a few times and things on the north side of the Ohio River look a lot like they do in Kentucky.

[agentsteel53]

another regional stereotype is northern Florida.  A lot of people perceive Florida to all be similar to Miami, Orlando, and/or Key West (lots of beaches, etc) - but generally, north of Tampa or so, it's Deep South - Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia are accurate comparisons.

[english si]

• our fashination with talking about the weather

despite the fact that you don't get anything very interesting.

ask Louisiana about interesting weather! 

Louisiana gets extreme weather, but this isn't about willy waving over strongest winds, highest floods and so on. In Louisiana they talk about weather disasters, in England we talk about weather in all it's mundane glory.

1)English weather is rather unpredictable - the forecasters often can't get it right on the day, despite the largest weather supercomputer in the world. Due to rain at teatime according to the forecast at breakfast time? take your raincoat out if popping out to the shops for lunch - it might not rain then, or in the late afternoon either, but they said rain at teatime, so it's likely to rain at some point in the afternoon.*
2)English weather is weird - yesterday was rather hot (for living north of the 51st parallel and having a big ocean around us cooling us down in the summer) and humid - in sub-tropical Florida, in tropical Indonesia, and other times when we get days like that in England, you get a thunderstorm and lots of rain sometime in the evening - there were occasional, rare, drops. We got the full tropical downpour at half 6 this morning (about 3 hours after sunrise, and while it was still cooler from the night). Totally bizarre.

In short, there's lots more to talk about with the weather than just the newsworthy stuff and because we have massively changeable weather, and don't have really hot summers (whether wet or dry they are rather predictable) or really cold winters (again, predictable what's going on), there's lots to talk about, as what's happening/going to happen changes lots.

* the case par excellence of getting it wrong was Michael Fish, backed up with the Met Office's data, saying this: "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way; well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't, but having said that, actually, the weather will become very windy, but most of the strong winds, incidentally, will be down over Spain and across into France." A few hours later that night, cue southern and eastern England losing 15 million trees and 18 people to 3 hours of hurricane and near-hurricane force winds constantly gusting, the military being informed by the Met Office that they might be needed to assist sorting out the damage, the BBC's breakfast programme having to be broadcast from an emergency studio as if the bomb had fallen, and very little public transport running, stopping London for a day.