Still angry about that War of Northern Aggression, I’d bet.
In real life, I’m an amateur military historian. My particular interest is the Great War but the broader interest was originally sparked by your war. I’ve visited the States on several occasions where the main focus of the trip has been to visit battlefield sites.
I remember one trip where we stopped at a roadside rest area (toilets, vending machines, tourist info) just into Mississippi. Spotted a plaque on the wall which noted the number of fatalities from the state in conflicts - WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam and the War of Northern Aggression. My friend and fellow military enthusiast, Chris, comes from West Virginia and generally uses that phrase. We had a very interesting conversation about its use. Personally, I don’t use the phrase although I fully accept the reasoning for it, preferring the “War Between the States”, as being a less controversial term for a foreigner to use.
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I was born in North Carolina, left when I was 18, and returned only for occasional visits. I consider the War of Northern Aggression to be racist language. So do many other Americans. Then again, North Carolina historically is quite different than Mississippi and other parts of the deep south; it was the last state to join the Confederacy and because of a large Quaker population, there was considerable opposition to both slavery and war. I don’t recall anyone in North Carolina using that term, but I am sure there were plenty of people who did use it and even more who wanted to.
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Let me try to avoid thin ice but still state that I don’t think that “War of Northern Aggression” is a labeling that should be in any way accepted by anyone in the U.S., let alone someone who is a “military enthusiast”. Although history, by its very nature, lends itself to interpretation, there are some that just decide that “alternate facts” are acceptable & choose to propagate them.
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Indeed so. And to have a proper discussion on this subject, I would very much need to refer to modern political issues in a number of countries, by way of parallel . Something, quite rightly, against this forum’s rules. So, I’ll make no further comment to the thread unless we can get back to discussing whether tipping culture has reached a tipping point.
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Fair enough.
Interesting that your West Virginian friend would use the term, since WV was part of the Union during the war - at least nominally. Had he been from South Carolina, for instance, or Georgia, I would understand. Wouldn’t change my opinion of him, though, which I shall keep to myself for now.
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Have you seen the movie Gangs of New York? How boring my history classes were in school, seeing a movie like this taught me so much.
Newly arrived immigrants from Ireland were allowed to stay if they signed up to fight on the Union side. Also, men from wealthy families could pay $10,000 to keep from being drafted!?! (What would that be in today’s money?)
$350,000, per online conversion calculators.
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Peanuts.
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@ElsieDee ; I really appreciated reading the linked article! A Seinfeld reference is always a bonus. Thanks!
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Always intriguing.
I am reminding myself
…Seek first to understand, then to be understood. …
and am trying my best to just keep reading!
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Perhaps Nikki Haley will weigh in on this thread.
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“Yankee” has different meanings depending on where you are.
It just occurred to me that "yank " is what my Jamaican in laws called me, at least at first. 
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Yes… and unfortunately some people are going to lose their jobs.
"LOS ANGELES – Thousands of pizza delivery drivers in California are facing layoffs as two major Pizza Hut franchisees are eliminating their delivery service.
The layoffs will affect 1,200 workers of restaurants in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. They’ll also impact more than 800 workers at Pizza Hut locations in Sacramento, Central California, Southern Oregon, and the Reno-Tahoe area, according to reports.
Operators are blaming a new state law that starts in April that boosts the fast-food minimum wage by $4 to $20 per hour."
Source: minimum wage increase
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Comment deleted because well litigated above.
Speaking from Scotland, I will emphasise that “Brit” is far superior to “English” or England which for some reason, many Americans continue to use as catchall for UK (with some of the English also thinking along those lines).
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I’ve been thinking about this. As someone who lived in the US for many years (before scarpering back to Europe) I felt acutely the difference in regions. BUT I think there are some shared traits, namely, the tendency to project the assumption that the US perspective is the default.
Obviously, this is a broad generalisation, but it is the thing that emerges in most conversations, even when discussing foreign policy, history, etc. To be fair, this is enforced by the US’s standing as a world power but it can be exhausting. That’s not to say other nations don’t also have their narrowness, but it’s a lot harder to maintain in small countries with porous borders where language communities can sometimes become points of affinity over national ones. It’s easier to travel and to encounter difference that is supported through cultural and political structures.
There’s also a romance around elections as democracy-- not that Europeans don’t value free elections but there is something different here I’d articulate, in part to do with the American Revolution and the way a nation state was conceived.
Finally, I think there is far more embrace of philanthropy over development of robust systems of social welfare. This accounts in part for the affection of tipping as communication. Don’t worry, I know this is #NotAllAmericans but I think that a form of thinking about the role of the state shapes these personal interactions.
All that said, these are also features of neoliberalism, which the US transformed into the dominant model that many nations are also picking up as a means to compete in a global economy. It’s just that Europeans (and I’d say this again as a generalisation) are more apt to take to the streets about austerity movements. When the Uni fees went to £9k (not for Scottish students in Scotland, where HE is seen as part of the social wage) students went out for mass protests. Not that it worked, but it is a point of resentment over a number that the US unis far exceeded long ago.
Nations on this side of the Atlantic are by no means perfect and our rightward shift is terrifying, but these are the points of difference where American commonalities surpass its otherwise diverse populations.
Oh, I just thought of another: Despite issues (everywhere), the U.S. has a much better grasp on multiculturalism than most if not all European nations. (Indeed, back in the day, the French viewed “multiculturalism” as “Americanisation”. )
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I think that this is an excellent insight. Thanks.
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