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

I once had business dealings with a massive (and well-known) French company. Most people who worked there spoke fluent English, but they had a policy of only dealing with people in French, therefore if you dared speak to them or write to them in English, they would not take your calls or reply. However, after some time, this was pointed out to us and when I started to correspond in French, they immediately placed an enormous order. Whatever reasons they had for their obstinancy, it is no way to run a business!!

"All generalizations are wrong, including this one."

Didn't mean anything by my earlier comment, Lear, I just needed to vent. I come across so many forums around here about "these people are this" and "why are these other people like that?" If I come across one more forum about ignorant stereotyping, I'm going to start throwing chairs. Any people who find it necessary to nitpick on the behavior of others need to turn that piercing gaze to the mirror...

Your right generalisations are wrong unfortunately there isn't anything that can prevent it.
Ca ne me dit rien pas!
ce la vie!

I understand Sellers, I feel the same way myself.

Better to throw virtual chairs than real ones, I guess. Safer, anyway...

You're right, but I think you shouldn't be too hard on people.
If someone says "The French are blabla", he could indeed be doing some ignorant stereotyping, but he could also just be tired of saying: "A significantly higher percentage of the French population - compared to, say, the British one - seems to be blablabla".
Maybe one just shouldn't take these things too seriously

The French are OK most of the time and if you take the time to get to know them and try to speak the lingo they will warm to you.I just get so fed up with the way they strike at the drop of a hat and drag us into it.I think the reason they hate us is an historic one more to do with history and being close neighbours.I have neighbours who I really hate at times too and who get me annoyed over their noisy dog,scabby cat and cutting the lawn at 8am on a Sunday but I still have to live next door to them so I just mutter about it.This is the same relationship we have with the french but in an emergency(fire) my neighbours would rally to help as would the french.Two world wars proved that.

Being (stereotypically Britishly?) bad at other languages, I've found mime can be a very effective means of communication. I know a little French, but effectively nothing of other non-English tongues. At least with mime, as long as someone isn't in a hurry, it can be mutually amusing even when it doesn't work at first, and there's a definite element of trying to meet someone on common ground.

International hatred (or maybe more accurately, dislike) can vary a great deal depending on regional scale. In the particular small area of southern France I've frequented, there's a definite element of pro-Britishness, and anti-German feeling dating back to certain unpleasant events from WWII.
Rather surprisingly to me, from what I've heard recently from a couple of Welsh friends, there can be an amount of North-vs-South Wales antipathy that may exceed Welsh-English rivalry.
Worldwide, people from one town (or one district of a town, or even one street) often define themselves in terms of who they're *not*.
As long as people don't take things too seriously, it doesn't actually matter if people have multiple inconsistent rivalries.
The real key is whether someone just uses their negative feelings positively to make themselves feel better, or whether they express them at the wrong time to make someone else feel worse.

There is so much of that everywhere, and it doesn't necessarily have to cross national borders. The US is full of this nonsense. The Oregonians and Washingtonians hate Californians. Californians hate Texans. Texans hate New Yorkers. And New Yorkers hate everyone. I'm an equal opportunity kind of guy, so let me just say that I hate everyone, and when I build that cabin in the Sierras, don't come knocking, because the door is booby-trapped.

England, with its class system, displays the worst form of biggotry within a country you can find. You only have to open your mouth and someone has analysed and pigeon-holed you - then they treat you well or badly depending on their personal prejudices. And if you try to be polite in the face of their hostility, they hate you even more for they feel you are mocking/patronising them in some way.

Racism appears to exist in all countries. In Ireland, until recently, the only ones we all hated were the English, because we were very familiar with them. We didn't mind the French, the Germans, the Argentinians, because we'd never met them. Now that the economy in Ireland is booming, there has been a huge influx of bloody foreigners and we're learning to hate them too.

Being a typically ignorant english racist pig i seem to have misunderstood the question "why do the french hate the english so much" are we not supposed to say?
The reason the french and the english hate each other ( im sorry a completly one sided national front inspired hatred of anything foreign held by a small minority of brain dead morons ie:
anyone who currently isnt in college and/or holding down a 20k+ a year job) is because, if you take the time to read and study your history while at college instead of smoking pot or main lining heroin, is because we have been killing each other for hundreds of years. the only reason the french have anything to do with us at the minute is because of our massive contributions to the E.U which they take and give to their farmers.
P.S I like everybody (so long as they are not french)

When *was* the last time we actually went to war with each other? Apart from the Royal Navy sinking some French ships at the start of WWII, any military hostility is rather a long time ago.

It doesn't seem to matter how long ago it was with some people.

Why was there a documentary about the Battle of Hastings on TV the other night? That was nearly 1000 years ago.

Ask yourself how long ago the Battle of the Boyne was, then ask yourself why people still feel the need to march through the town crowing about it to the other side.

The War of American Independence was over 200 years ago, but the colonials still like to remember it.

I have heard some (probably apochrypal) tales about English people in Frnace being told how the English are still not popular because of what the English troops did during the war. It turns out that the war being referred to was the Battle of Agincourt.

There is a point to this posting but it has temporarily escaped me.

I think the last time we went to war with France was Waterloo. However, 1000 years of punch-ups tends to linger in the memory. Listen to football fans talking about their teams to one another. It's the same thing.

Granted, the sinking of the French ships doesn't seem too nice given that we have to live next door to them, but I think the British line on it at the time was that those ships were in the possession of the Nazis and would almost certainly have been used against the Allies had they not been sunk, and more fool them for keeping their whole fleet in the same place.

A documentary about the Battle Of Hastings? Using authentic archive footage, no doubt...

How about this for a question - *do* the French actually hate the English? I normally find I get on all right with them, to be honest, and I'm not particularly pro-French or anything. I can't even speak the language very well. In fact, maybe that's what they like - the fact that I couldn't really care less about them. After all, that seems to be their general attitude towards life. Perhaps we all need a little bit of that Gallic insouciance, then...

"The War of American Independence was over 200 years ago, but the colonials still like to remember it." - And we had best remember it, too, since this is where the ideals that we are founded on all originated. And if we fail to remember, we find ourselves headed for the same sort of despotism that the founders fought against. But I'm sure you'll find that there is no animosity remaining from those days... indeed, the US has been the best international friend the UK has had, dating back at least to WWI. Memories run short in the US. Virginia and Maryland found themselves on opposite sides of the American Civil War, but you won't notice a difference in hospitality in either. There was a huge flare-up of anti-Japanese sentiment in the 80's, but that had almost nothing to do with Pearl Harbor, and everything to do with the fact that they were kicking our butts economically - and since the Americans learned how to make good cars again, and our markets proved to be proof against the Asian market collapse, that sentiment has died off. We fought the Spaniards, and we have no lingering feelings about them. We fought the Mexicans, and you'll find anti-Mexican sentiments all over the Southwest, but that has nothing to do with Santana, and everything to do with hordes of illegals pouring over the border. We even invaded Canada, and yet Canada and the US enjoy something of a symbiotic relationship.

So if you continentals want to engage in hatred over centuries old disputes, that's fine... but don't think the rest of the world does the same.

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I suppose what I'm saying is that past disputes are ignored until another one comes along, when every disagreement is then remembered so that it stokes the fires. Just like with families. It doesn't take too long for adult siblings in an argument to start dragging things up that happened in childhood.

And since we've lived alongside the French for a very long time now, there's been a very long time for us to upset each other.

So we are back to the point that not everyone likes their neighbours all the time but we put up with them and hope nobody worse moves in and takes over because they aren't really all that bad.There could be worse neighbours and better the devil you know who has a rather decent cuisine to offer.

A very succinct summary, incognitas. That's pretty much it.

I don't think everyone likes there neighbouring countries all the time but if you think of the past there has always been riverlrys between people and although they have sorted them out! But there are always going to be hates within those contries!
It's a shame really!

"Did that make sense?"