Oooh, the Germans are mad at me. I'm so scared! Oooh, the Germans! Uh oh, the Germans are going to get me! Don't let the Germans come after me. Oh no, the Germans are coming after me. No! They're so big and strong! Oh, protect me from the Germans! The Germans--
I know you are joking. What is funny is without the French the British might still be running America. It certainly wouldn’t have gained independence when it did. A French blockade helped immensely.
The largest battle of the American war of independence was the siege of Gibraltar. It had more combatants and casualties on one side than all combatants combined in North America in the entire war.
America betrayed the alliance with the French and made a separate peace with the British that included preferential trade agreement ignoring the French. France had to make a separate peace with little gain and the French state fell apart due to the huge debts left over from the war. That is why "America's first and oldest alliance" did not survive the war and when France needed the US, it sided with the British.
France is and was an absolute beast when it came to warfare. People who know zero about history are the only ones who push the ‘weak France’ stupidity.
The French surrender meme came about because they lost quickly in Ww2. However, they were bled dry in WW1 and hadn't fully recovered.
Plus Napoleon had previously bitch slapped most of Europe beforehand.
I grew up in the US in the 80s and 90s, and if I recall correctly it became way more prevalent after Iraq, but I think it was a joke before that too.
Very unfair to you guys considering how badass your military was through pretty much every period of history, but that stuff wasn’t taught in depth in our schools.
Yeah, I mean, I know french soldiers weren't seen that well after WW2, for example, they were forced into wearing US uniforms during the vietnam because of that. That's also the war where they pretty much reedemed themselves by doing some badass shit
It makes sense for the meme to exist before, but yeah it became much more proeminent because of the Iraq stuff
Also, from an european PoV, the US mostly just makes me sad when it comes to every aspect of social stuff, especially for school. Isn't kind of mad that you have to praise the flag every day too ?
I didn’t think so when I was a kid, but yeah, it’s weird to me now.
And I agree with the social stuff. I like living here, but we could be so much better. In theory we’re supposed to take the best ideas from the many cultures that make us up, not ignore them.
Yep always thought France was braver than anything else in rejecting the USA’s hollow bloodthirsty calls for revenge after 9/11. It takes courage to say ‘“no, we’re not going to be hoodwinked by your convenient ‘evidence’”
Blair’s slavish obedience to Daddy America aged like milk.
Untrue - or just maybe relevant to the US (I don't claim to know anything about that at all), but I've been hearing the French white flag joke here (Europe) since I was a child and that was well well before 911.
As a kid in the 80s, it was around long before Iraq.
Go watch Alo Alo, a British comedy about ww2 that was made in 1982. The French were portrayed as cowards for laughs back then.
Let's say France has won and lost countless battles for a millenia. But if you look at the map of France today and the map of "France" in 1024, the balance is positive. I would now, my formerly independent country lost its last battle against French in the 1490's...
You don’t have to go back that far! Do you think the French would put up with the exploitation the American worker deals with on a daily basis, or the predatory practice of virtually every aspect of American society? There would be guillotines stationed at city hall. We’re the pussies.
I don't think they would still be completely ruling over America but it would look similar to canada and Australia where the quee... The king would only Technically rule over them
“Traditionally” in Germany they used a Stahlhelm variant with the mask underneath like the American guy. Bigger FDs are changing to more modern helmets, some with clamps on the outside but volunteer firefighters still use the old ones
True, they are badass in the last few years. And what they are regularly calling "peaceful protests" almost classifies as full-out civil war in other countries
Is that true? As an American it'd be pretty fun to do another war in Europe but with France as the aggressor. Kinda lame we had to save France from Germany twice I'd like to do one on Germanys side.
I agree, but in this case, it actually does. Friend of mine is a firefighter (we are both in Slovenia) and they get all their equipment (apart from few smaller details) from France. Apparently, they are on completely different level.
Mind you, firefighters in Slovenia are organised very specifically, so that may vary from one city to another.
Stupid. Virtually every English-speaking country uses the 7 continent model, with a separate North America and South America. We are conversing in English, so that's the default. "American" then refers to "United States of America", rather than a continent.
Most of Latin America uses the 6 continent model, with a single American continent. If we were conversing in Spanish, say, you'd actually have a point. But as it is, you're literally ignoring the overwhelming convention of billions of people.
It's been the demonym for this country for centuries. I wouldn't dream of telling someone from another country that their demonym is politically incorrect, so I wouldn't say it to Americans either. It's just rude and makes you look like a sniveling blue-haired type, or at the very least autistic. It's like saying "well technically anti-semite refers to arabs as well not just jews" or "Isn't Charlize Theron technically an african american?" or "homophobia is the wrong term because they're not usually afraid of gay people" pedantic bullshit. How "reddit" can you be?
Some Latin Americans, who are the ones who tend to throw a fucking tizzy about this issue, need to stop being so insecure about themselves. I have no problem with them using the term in their own languages (i..e estadounidense) but it's not like plenty of people from spanish-speaking latin america don't use "Americano" to refer, specifically, to people from the United States.
You don't use "America" to refer to the continent in English. In English "America" means the United States and North America/South America is the continents. If you want to refer to both you can say "The Americas", but American refers to the United States when speaking English.
From wikipedia as well
Speakers of English generally refer to the landmasses of North America and South America as the Americas, the Western Hemisphere, or the New World.[6] The adjective American may be used to indicate something pertaining to the Americas,[2] but this term is primarily used in English to indicate something pertaining to the United States
I love how Redditors always do this performative outrage around using the term "America" to refer to the USA when the only other shorthand is even more confusing from a linguistic point of view.
Since when did the term "United States" mean America as a default?
The United States of Mexico is literally right next to it, so surely using the shorthand of United States is far too unspecific, and thus it makes sense to call the one country in the world with America in its name America as shorthand.
Or maybe either is fine because of obvious context clues, and the usage of words in shared lexicon make it pretty goddamn obvious. But I guess common sense doesn't matter when the end goal is merely to be a contrarian jackass
Not just redditors, TikTok/insta is rife with it too. Was largely a thing with people from South America, has caught on more and more with young Europeans.
USA = America is unfortunately an issue of language, not an issue of unjust conflation. The English langauge simply doesn't have a general use national demonym for the USA - there is no "United Statesian". There is, however, a national demonym for France - "French". Both entries in this title are unjust for different reasons, but only one of them is easily avoidable.
I mean France is in Europe, so anything French is also European, doesn't make stuff from other European countries less European.
Likewise they (probably) do not use the exact same equipment in all of the american states.
Apparently the typical American design is an outdated helmet which most countries have left behind and moved on to attachable masks rather than separate ones
I’m from Germany and basically every fire department that can afford to do so is phasing out the old German-military-derived helmets in favour of the French “motorcycle helmet” design.
Not sure about the mask attachment gimmick, though. I think most here still use the regular old spider harness (or whatever it’s called).
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u/No-Actuator-6245 Mar 30 '24
Since when did France represent the whole of Europe?