[OT] 9-11 / WTC / Y2K ... Dates ...etc...

[Eternalknight]

Nah, not as easy as our 999.

We have a joke that goes like this:

Q: What do you dial to phone a policeman in Australia?
A: 666

(666...999 upside down... geddit?)

 

[Tom Cashel]

Americans love catchy slogans and simple iconography. Nothing is so complex that Americans won't reduce it to a simple phrase (e.g. global geopolitics = "free nations" vs. "axis of evil").

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Drat, Morrus got in first the 999 thing.

But mostly, countries us ddmmyy or mmddyy because that's what you're told to do as you grow up. I wonder what the orginal reasons were...

My favourite shortening thing was TLA - Three Letter Acronym. Isn't that just the most pointless thing ever? Coming up with a name for it, and then shortening it to an acronym.

 

[jaerdaph]

Americans love catchy slogans and simple iconography. Nothing is so complex that Americans won't reduce it to a simple phrase (e.g. global geopolitics = "free nations" vs. "axis of evil").

Almost as bad as non-Americans attributing Conservative Republican terminology to all Americans...

Maybe we're all not as different as we like to think.

 

[jaerdaph]

Re: Re: [OT] 9-11 / WTC / Y2K ... Dates ...etc...

Abreviations are very popular here in America. Out of the abbreviations you have listed almost everything but WTC is used in day to day speech.

Here in New York, prior to 9/11/01, we used to refer to the World Trade Center as "the Trade Center" or "the Twin Towers", in everyday conversation.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Americans love catchy slogans and simple iconography. Nothing is so complex that Americans won't reduce it to a simple phrase (e.g. global geopolitics = "free nations" vs. "axis of evil").

So true!

 

[Morrus]

Almost as bad as non-Americans attributing Conservative Republican terminology to all Americans...

Although I have no idea what that sentence means, it sounds like it's political. So let's not do that, eh?

 

[0-hr]

Here in Australia, we use day mnoth year. And our emergency number is 000. Isn't that the easiest?

So when Austrailians call for help in America, they just end up with an angry operator?

 

[Default Name Player]

Re: Re: Re: [OT] 9-11 / WTC / Y2K ... Dates ...etc...

Here in New York, prior to 9/11/01, we used to refer to the World Trade Center as "the Trade Center" or "the Twin Towers", in everyday conversation.

I had to think about it, but yeah, I have to agree . My friends and I use to catch the PATH over to the New Jersey mall to watch movies, and on the phone we'd say "Let's meet at the Trade Center".

I think I only used the full "World Trade Center" when talking to non-New Yorkers.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Almost as bad as non-Americans attributing Conservative Republican terminology to all Americans...

Maybe we're all not as different as we like to think.

Hey! I'm American!

Just an example, really; I don't think I attributed it to all Americans.

Various news outlets, in preparation for their "Attack on America" (coming tomorrow in video form to a TV near you), have adopted a 9-11 icon/symbol where the 11 resembles the twin towers of the World Trade Center. There's another example for you.

Many Americans like to see things in black and white, and they tend to construct systems of icons and symbols to reinforce their views.

Just as the phrase "Conservative Republican" means one thing to you (maybe bad, maybe good, maybe something else), it means something else to everyone who reads it. Labels, like tidy icons and symbols, help us to make assumptions about things or ideas, but hinder us in seeing real similarities and differences.

We're all far more alike than we care to admit (as humans, that is). You, for example, assumed from my post that I'm not an American...