h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Anglophilia - A53920505
Author: echomikeromeo - Might come back if I ever have some free time. - U929375

It's been quite a while since I was last in PR, so my apologies if I've missed something very obvious in preparing it.

Knew it was you as soon as I saw the title in my conversations list. Good to see you back here.

It's got a very confessional tone, especially the footnotes. I love how the whole piece seems to come together once you've gotten to footnote four. I might even move up that revelation.
The only problem I see is whether you want to separate your own experience from that of others. Right now, it's somewhere in between an essay on One Researcher's Experience with Anglophilia and a fairly standard guide entry on this phenomenon. It's an exciting mix, especially to those of us who know you personally and can identify so many of the sentiments with yourself (we were just speaking about the iPlayer IP address issue not long ago).

I really appreciate the personal experience imbued in the entry, but when you're pivoting to the factual, I wonder if the personal doesn't occasionally leak through too much? For instance, "Anglophiles are usually not English themselves, and in fact tend to be American" might be the case, but I wonder if you can support that? After a quick skim-through after reading it, that was the only example I came up with, but it was an impression that was firmly in my mind after reading the piece.

It made me laugh in places, but I'm sure I also missed out on a few jokes, not being quite the Anglophile that you are. You might mention the monarchy too many times, also. I'm not sure.

Thanks for the read, EMR, and I hope to see more out of you if you're able.

Jordan

I don't agree with this entry at all. Anglophilia is not an irrational love of England and the English. The problem is the word "irrational". Any sort of a liking of England makes one Anglophilic, it doesn't have to be irrational.

Here's what the OED says:

Anglophilia - friendliness to England (or Britain)
Anglophile - (A person who is) friendly to England (or Britain)

There is however a word in the dictionary which seems to refer to what you've described:

Anglomania - Excessive admiration for what is English.

G

Neat Entry, and good to see you back.
Everybody's going to pick different nits on this topic.

My personal nits:
- Radio 4 left wing? Why wasn't I told?
- Oxford, Cambridge or another top British university...so where would that be then? (I suggest you delete 'Cambridge'. Then it would read rather well).

You mention your northern neighbours, but maybe they deserve specific credit? After all, the better-trained American, after long residence in Britain, may occasionally be taken for a Canadian.

Hi all! It's good to be back and get feedback from three of my favorite reviewers! Let me respond to your points in order:

Jordan, I was concerned about whether the more anecdotal parts of the entry (okay, so *all* of the entry) came too much from my own experience to be applicable to a wider audience, and I sense that you've picked up on that too. Would it be an entertaining entry to someone who doesn't know me?

I'm wondering if it would help to change the title and some of the wording to be more American-centric? In talking specifically about American Anglophiles, I can draw upon many more characters than just me, and I think my problem is in assuming that these stereotypes hold true outside the US, when I've never lived elsewhere for an extended period of time.

I'm open to the idea of moving up footnote 4, but I'm not quite sure where it would best fit in earlier on. Do you have any suggestions?

Also, I cut down on the monarchy references (there were just two, so now there's one). I know Anglophiles who are big fans, but one should only use a joke once.

Gnomon, thanks for the dictionary quote--I think I was probably thinking of "phobia," which is often expressed as an irrational fear, and deciding that because "philia" is sort of like the opposite of "phobia," it must be irrational too. I've removed the references to irrationality--does that cause the entry to make more sense to you?

Pinniped, I meant that the left-wing intelligentsia is into Radio 4, but not that it's left-wing in its politics. In America, I find that most intellectual programming is considered left-wing, and I've added a footnote to that effect. (One of my favorite things about Guide style is that you get to use frivolous footnotes!)

I feel bad leaving out Cambridge, as I have a family member who went there. I added "or another top British university" because I didn't want to insult anyone's university by saying that only Oxford and Cambridge are at the top--do you think there's a way I can make it work and leave both Oxford and Cambridge in?

Finally, I added another reference to Canada--good idea!

Thanks again, folks.

I thought I saw three monarchy mentions, but who knows?

Changing the title to narrow the scope is an easy way out. Sometimes it's the best decision. I've done it, but I never feel quite good about it afterwards.

"I'm open to the idea of moving up footnote 4, but I'm not quite sure where it would best fit in earlier on. Do you have any suggestions?"

Not really, no. It's up to you. It could go anywhere, really, or it could stay right where it is.

This looks good, though you'll have to be sure about the personal experience versus fact thing. Also, you should put spaces around your dashes (bla bla bla - bla bla bla).

Hi EMR. nice to see you back .



The Dutch as a nation, tend to be very strongly Anglophile - dating back to WWII, I understand.



I don't understand this. Are the Labour Party generally considered to be anti-English?



> Many American academics receive degrees at top British universities such as Oxford, Cambridge or London. .

<'... an American-seeming person who uses those spellings may, in fact, be a Canadian.>

This reminded me of a rather animated conversation I overheard between an English person and a Canadian in my works canteen (a research institute) some years back:

Man 1: 'blah, blah, the trouble with you ing Americans in...'

Man 2: 'I'm not ing American, I'm ing Canadian. The trouble with you ing Europeans is that...'

Man 1: 'I'm not bleep>ing European, I'm ing British!'


with this.

A

Great to have you back in PR!

"The vast majority of Anglophiles have a more favourable view of the monarchy than the vast majority of its subjects; some even maintain a positive impression of the Labour Party."

I'm a little concerned that this will date. At the moment, Labour aren't doing very well, as you obviously know, but in five years time their poll numbers might be back to the levels of the early Blair days.

Ironic, given that you talked about using British spellings over American ones: "their honorary homeland" -> honourary

I'm not sure about the American focus. I know that's where your experience is (and I think the degree of personal experience included in the entry is fine) but I wonder about making it more general. Much of it must apply more widely.

honourary>

Sorry Elentari, but EMR is right, it is spelled honorary

I'd also like to say welcome back EMR

Hi,

I'd suggest you go for the US focus.... I think it would be too much to try and cover too many countries.

Great entry - perceptive, witty and very enjoyable to read. Well done!

I can't let it go without saying a couple of things, though!



I don't think these examples are particularly good. We'll all have forgotten about MPs expenses soon, and we certainly don't have a police state! I'm not the best to say what the UK's worst faults are, but I guess it's unflinching support of phoney wars might be up there, or maybe hooliganism?



Oh, come on! We love the Queen!

Well there's Mr Brown and...erm...hmm, that's about it really

This is very funny, although I personally find Northeastern US Anglophiles terribly annoying.

You missed a quality of said Anglophile: They enthusiastically support the Public Broadcasting System, a mostly audience-supported television channel, or series of affiliates, that begs money by guilt-tripping the audience on a regular basis.

Their programming is said to be 'educational'. The 'educational' aspect rests largely on the high amount of content from 'high-brow' British programmes (note spelling), viz:

Are You Being Served? (anti-German jokes and all)
The Last of the Summer Wine (at least, now we've heard of Huddersfield.)
As Time Goes By (where would we be without Judy Dench's domestic crises?)

And, the piece de resistance...

Keeping Up Appearances. (The intellectual quality of this offering goes without saying.)

Of course, we do get 'Wallander' - not in North Carolina, it was too expensive, but it's available online - and 'Masterpiece Theatre' - which, by the way, is why I knew what Pinniped was talking about when he compared something I wrote to Alastair Cooke.

As a bolshie sort of Hibernophile, I wish we got more RTE. But hey, in Philadelphia we got to see 'Ros na Run', which is a truly great Gaelic soap opera. Can't have everything.

I was raised on 'British' spelling. It used to be called 'Southern spelling'. We may have lost the War, but some of us do not give up, and are saving our Confederate money.

>>Many American academics receive degrees at top British universities such as Oxford, Cambridge or London<<

Get real, shall we? We're talking about international reputation here. Oxford and Cambridge are in a different league to the rest, and to suggest otherwise is delusional.

So, what about Imperial College - not an international reputation?

Oxbridge is just snob value . Several of the red-brick universities are just as good, if not better, depending on the subject.

ICL has an international reputation among academics, sure. Among the general public? Doubt it.

And among its own peers, where does ICL stand?
I guess you'll acknowledge RAE2008 research tables as the most broadly accepted criterion of assessment?

And indeed ICL comes a creditable 4th, with UCL 5th too.
Except that's behind Cambridge 1st and Oxford 2nd.

There's no point bitching about Oxbridge's snob value. Taken on an all-round basis, they're England's finest universities, attracting the best undergraduates, postgraduates, postdocs etc etc at any level of the academic hierarchy you care to name.

Same's true all-round for the point I actually made, about international reputation, only there's even less to argue about. Next time you're in a city outside the UK, try asking people in the street to name English universities. I bet you'd run up a hundred mentions of both Oxford and Cambridge for every one of Imperial. And I bet you know you would, even if for some reason you resent it.

I thought the subject of this entry was 'anglophilia' - i.e., the opinion a certain kind of American - to my mind, an insufferable and pitiable snob - has of the UK.

All of those fine thoughts about the relative quality of higher education in the UK - and I am not qualified to judge, having only studied in the US, Germany, and Romania - are probably ancillary to the question of perception by aforesaid uninformed snob.

Uninformed Americans would agree that 'England' only has three institutions of higher learning - Oxford (where they row boats, or something), Cambridge (which appears to full of very clever, eccentric people, and lots of picturesque buildings), and the London School of Economics (which sounds very impressive, though nobody is quite sure what they do there).

Some of us are lucky enough to know about other places, like Aberystwyth, where people write interesting papers, and which is more fun to spell.

It's like the US - how many Europeans are aware of non-Ivy-League universities here? (A great deal of our useful research is done in out-of-the-way places, but does SUNY mean anything to anyone outside the US? I think not.)

Remember, both Harvard and Yale have to live with having given George W Bush degrees.

Well, right. LSE was third in the RAE ratings, so I guess the pitiable American snobs are actually correct.

What criteria are the ratings based on? Success of graduates, amount of research done, number of Nobel laureates?