Comments on: Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, 1942

By: AlexG55

AlexG55 — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 11:34:00 +0000

A lot of socks?

By: Brad Bell

Brad Bell — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 20:06:00 +0000

Canadians strode ahead in the switch to metric, and then stopped half way! As a result generations have grown up without any common understanding of weights and measures. Don’t know what an inch is. Don’t know what a centimetre is. England is not much different. We buy our petrol in litres and drive in miles.

By: Nash Rambler

Nash Rambler — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:16:00 +0000

It’s right next to Carjackistan and Sandstan. Duh.

By: acerplatanoides

acerplatanoides — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 08:20:00 +0000

Otherwise Stalin would win?

By: cdh1971

cdh1971 — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 04:49:00 +0000

Are those near Texastan?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 02:32:00 +0000

There are still plenty of Americans who think that Afghanistan is somewhere between The Eye Rack and Eh-Raybeeyah.

By: bobcorrigan

bobcorrigan — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 02:13:00 +0000

I’m reminded of the old joke: God invented war to teach Americans geography. A joke that’s no longer quite as funny as it used to be, now that I wish I could forget where Afghanistan is.

By: GawainLavers

GawainLavers — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:54:00 +0000

Picked up a copy of the manual they printed for troops on the ground in France at Shakespeare & Co. Equal number of gems: whoever wrote that was writing for their audience, and not some general or political hack.

By: kringlebertfistyebuns

kringlebertfistyebuns — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:12:00 +0000

Similar events happened after WW1, in fact. Black soldiers went abroad to Europe and found that they weren’t treated like complete shit everywhere they went. They came home and faced some pretty horrific stuff.

http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africanaage/essay-world-war-i.html

By: Buddy Bradley

Buddy Bradley — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 22:28:00 +0000

And now I really need to know what the girl who knitted more socks than anyone else in Ipswitch actually did get for her efforts.

By: Mister44

Mister44 — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 22:02:00 +0000

Or in some of the most classic Twilight Zone episodes.

By: DevinC

DevinC — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 21:37:00 +0000

That was one of my favourite quotes; the author(s) knew wxactly how to communicate succinctly and colourfully:

“The beer is now below peacetime strength, but can still make a man’s tongue wag at both ends.”

By: Wartin Mardley

Wartin Mardley — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 20:37:00 +0000

It seems that our treatment of black people was not all that it could have been.

I’ve read several stories of the US army demanding segregationist treatment, which this paper http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/5.1/gough.html seems to back up.

By all accounts it set our own attitudes back decades.

By: Zach S

Zach S — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 20:30:00 +0000

So what? The other shoe sizing systems are just as inscrutable – and a rational one based on, say, the length of the foot in cm, would not actually work any better.

By: angusm

angusm — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 19:12:00 +0000

“We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” — James Nicoll

By: taras

taras — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 19:06:00 +0000

Here’s some films.

WW2 – “KNOW YOUR ALLY: BRITAIN” http://archive.org/details/gov.ntis.ava06858vnb1

1964 – “YOU IN GREAT BRITAIN” http://archive.org/details/gov.dod.dimoc.26438 (“And yet they live – and always have – on an island barely the size of Minnesota”)

…and these were still being made up to the end of the Cold War (at least):
“WELCOME TO RAF LAKENHEATH, UK” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjnzfkTfkoM

By: rdi

rdi — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 19:03:00 +0000

Yes, CJ.

By: tsol

tsol — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 18:00:00 +0000

I read quotes to that effect- they had the same experience in Ireland.

By: wreckrob8

wreckrob8 — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:39:00 +0000

We forgot it because returning servicemen needed jobs and women had to return to the home.

By: traalfaz

traalfaz — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:39:00 +0000

It’s funny to learn that Americans tried to convince the British that a decimal system was better than an arbitrary unit system back in the 40s. A shame they didn’t take their own advice back then where it comes to the metric system. It’s one of the most irritating things about having grown up in the US that despite my wishes, my brain does and probably always will think in terms of inches and ounces and a shoe-sizing system based on the lengths of barley corns (really).

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:27:00 +0000

Please. We appropriated.

By: Thad

Thad — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:27:00 +0000

“A British woman officer or non-commissioned officer can and often does give orders to a man private. The men obey smartly and know it is no shame. For British women have proven themselves in this war. They have died at the gun posts … When you see a girl in khaki or air-force blue with a bit of ribbon on her tunic–remember she didn’t get it for knitting more socks than anyone else in Ipswich.”

Wow. Just …wow.

What a shame us Brits forgot all that after the war.

By: fergus1948

fergus1948 — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:15:00 +0000

I believe that many black GIs were genuinely astonished by how warmly welcomed and well-treated they were by the British. (So much so that quite a few stayed on and married here.)
It has been claimed that impetus for the civil rights movement was partly born out of the experience of black GIs questioning why they could be well treated abroad but not at home.

By: wreckrob8

wreckrob8 — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:55:00 +0000

What better reason to bring back pounds, shillings and pence. People forget the advantages for division of a base twelve and base twenty system. Why would we want a decimal sytem just ‘cos everybody else has one?

By: NickPheas

NickPheas — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:49:00 +0000

Could well be Burgess Meredith, who went on to find geek fame as the Penguin.

By: Bonobo

Bonobo — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:45:00 +0000

This is also available for free on Audible as an audio book.

By: tw1515tw

tw1515tw — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:42:00 +0000

There’s a film for GIs about living in the UK too. In it, a British woman invites both a white and black GI round together for dinner. The American commentator (Edit – it was Burgess Meredith) advises the white GIs not to be shocked by this, and implies the British don’t know any better.

Edit – It was called “A Welcome to Britain” http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/17625?view=synopsis

By: jbond

jbond — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:36:00 +0000

I didn’t get where I am today by being a panty-waist.

By: Adrian Jones

Adrian Jones — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:33:00 +0000

Admittedly, we did steal a lot of their words in the process…

By: Nash Rambler

Nash Rambler — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:26:00 +0000

“The English language didn’t spread across the oceans and over the mountains and jungles and swamps of the world because these people were panty-waists.” I can almost see some John Cleese-esque lieutenant screaming at the troops in some god-forsaken African fort in the mid-19th century. ”Right you lot! These heathen savages need t’ know how to conjugate a verb, an’ the fastest way for them to learn is by shooting them! Now prepare to stand and defend literacy with every drop of blood in your body!”