Come With?/Ethnocentricity

[Morrigan //Vicki//]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: triner2001 [mailto:triner918 at aol.com]
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Tabouli" <tabouli at u...> wrote:
> >>When I was there, my South African friends used all sorts of
> Germanic constructions which I'd never heard in English before,
> like "I'm going to the library.  Are you coming with?" (="kommst du
> mit" structure, presumably... ending with a preposition, no object
> required).<<
>
> They do this in Chicago, too, presumably for the same reasons.  Being
> a down-stater from Central Illinois, this *really* bugged me when I
> first heard it from Chicago-raised friends in college. Soon, however,
> I picked it up myself, much to the dismay of my mom.  I've now
> dropped the habit since I now live in South Carolina, but every once
> in a while, I catch myself using the form.

THANK YOU!!!  When I first started reading this thread, I really thought I
was losing my mind.  I blinked at the screen and thought: "But *I* say
'coming with' all the time, and I've never left North America..."  You have
given me the answer!  It must be some Chicago thing!  I was born in and
spent the first 27 years in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs (and may be
returning there shortly, dratted lack of job opportunities).

I would like to gently point out that yes, Americans tend to be ethnocentric
in general.  As someone else mentioned, I believe it does have a great deal
to do with the media in this country.  It's very difficult to find
television or films that were made in other countries here.  For example, if
you have digital cable or satellite TV, you can get "BBC America."  *blinks*
Isn't that...contradictory?  The media seems to think that everything
outside our borders must be processed and Americanized like that horrible
yellow fake!cheese we have here before it can be served to the public.  I
find this annoying, as some others have expressed.  I have a great deal of
curiosity about other countries and their peoples.  I have a special love
for all things British, being that I've been an Anglophile since I was quite
young.  Even though there are not significant differences between the US and
UK HP books, I still wanted the UK versions as well for the sheer joy of
reading the English phrases.

As a small aside, I also wanted to point out that there are certainly things
that people in other countries assume about Americans, and I wanted to share
a couple that I find amusing that I hear over and over.  When I speak to
people online who are from outside of North America and they find out that
I'm from Chicago, I get 2 reactions:
1) Oooh, is the mob still so bad?  Do you know any of Al Capone's relatives?
or
2) Is it really as windy there as they say?
The answers are:
1) I don't know anyone in the mob, and Al Capone happened a loooong time
ago.  I don't think my parents were even born yet.  There may well be
mobsters in Chicago still, but I don't know anything about them.
2) Chicago being known as "The Windy City" has nothing to do with the
weather.  It refers to the political situation in the early 20th century,
where politicians were always spouting off and were referred to as
"windbags."  There were a lot of them in Chicago, hence, "The Windy City."

Of course, I now live in San Diego, California, and to confirm the rumors
for this city: Yes, we do have lots of palm tress, and yes, it is always
sunny.  You may now commence hating me. ;)

Vicki, amazingly long-winded for once
~~~
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