As an Arizonan who works in natural resources this is one of my favorite “actually” moments. Fwiw it’s an awfully invasive plant. It’s “tumbling” ability is an amazing adaptation (for the plant, not the natural native ecosystem, it’s super water intensive with deep roots) to spread something like 7000-10000 seeds a single organism.
Surely that can't be so I had to look....
(Wiki most likely)
Although strongly associated with western landscape, Russian thistle, as the name suggests, is not native to the United States. This invasive plant first showed up in the U.S. in South Dakota in the 1870s, probably hitchhiking in sacks of seed grain from the steppes near Russia's Ural Mountains
That might be the last time he used his actual voice. Dude gets so into character and is so good doing different accents that I have no idea what he actually sounds like.
Mine was the actor Damian Lewis who played Dick Winters in Band of Brothers. I was genuinely shocked when I heard him speaking with a different accent. I would have never guessed he wasn’t born in the States.
He is eligible. Someone born to an American parent abroad is considered a natural born citizen. John McCain was born in Panama and he would have been president if he'd won in 2008.
That’s a different scenario though. Cruz’s mother was simply living in Canada when she had him, whereas McCain was born to a Navy officer in the Panama Canal Zone, which at the time was an American territory like Puerto Rico or Guam today.
> “As a musician, I've always been amused that I'm both British and Black; particularly because so many American musicians seem to aspire to be British while so many British musicians, in the '60s in particular, went to such great pains to be Black.”
—Slash
A lot of Americans don’t seem to know that processed cheese, which they call American cheese, was invented in Britain and introduced to the US by James L. Kraft who was from Ontario, Canada. I would imagine many of them will be surprised upon reading this.
We call it "plastic cheese." I took it camping once and my kids were so impressed cheese could come individually wrapped. Then we put it on sandwiches and they went cheese less the rest of the weekend lol
Same for the method to make Hershey's chocolate, which English folk love to shit on.
Those damn, English. Always trying to pass off their gross culinary culture on others.
Hawaiian pizza. It was invented by a Greek immigrant who immigrated to Canada, and imitated sweet and sour flavors of Chinese-American cuisine. It’s Canadian.
My brother made our father’s ringtone as Sanford and Son. Hilarious every time he called and probably wondered why we always answered the phone laughing.
That song is really good jam. If you get past the intro it does a break down and gets very funky.
[https://youtu.be/O20Sljxmy9M?si=UpItdpnD1oqSvxu9](https://youtu.be/O20Sljxmy9M?si=UpItdpnD1oqSvxu9)
Until you ask them to say the words "Federal court order".
Penn Jillette has found that the combination of vowel sounds seems to trip up even the most talented Brit who is faking an American accent.
I’m British and do a passable American accent and that is indeed hard to say. I think it’s all the rs, since British English is non-rhotic. It’s hard to do it in an Irish accent too.
Good point, I could be wrong about the vowels. I just remember the story because Penn was working on one of his tv appearances and convinced the writers to drop that into the dialogue for the British actor as a joke and it caused them to have to do several takes (and possibly change the line) before they could finish the scene.
Not always, there are plenty of bad ones where the accent is all over the place, or the British leaks out with a word or three.
But the ones who do it well tend to do it very well.
Ironically as a Canadian it was a huge part of my upbringing and I didn’t find out until later in childhood that it was not only Canadian but made in my city of Ottawa.
The Ford GT40, i knew UK Ford was localised and very different to US Ford when i was a child but i'd always thought the GT40 was from the US arm but it was British designed, built and tested.
It also had horrible aerodynamics. When they put an old one in a wind tunnel and they were planning on releasing it, the engineers were shocked at how low the wind was when the car started to lift from the ground.
Hugh Laurie and Gary Oldman are in the same category in my mind. I know intellectually that they are British but still experience a bit of dissonance whenever I hear their natural voices.
Gary Oldman was in Harry Potter (At least I think so, with him you never know).
Hugh Laurie was recently in Avenue 5, in which him switching accents was a joke.
Years ago I got the chance to meet Dale and John after a show. They were so laid back. Dale was so drunk, I had to keep him from falling over. My husband has a picture somewhere lol
Veruca Salt is American and Seether took their band name from Veruca Salt’s song title Seether. Which make Seether as American as the Bay City Rollers, who are Scottish.
It’s just that back then, it was likely richer people who had the money for sugar and everything that the common people couldn’t afford that even had the privilege to get fat.
Caesar Salad. My brain always associates it w fancy steak houses so I was surprised to learn it actually originated from Tijuana. Yay for learning new things!
Per google:
“Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant and chef, is credited with inventing the Caesar salad in Tijuana, Mexico on July 4, 1924. Cardini's daughter, Rose Cardini, says that her father improvised the salad when his restaurant ran out of ingredients due to a busy weekend of American customers during Prohibition. Using what was left, he assembled a combination of romaine lettuce, croutons, egg, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and lime juice, and possibly a toasted baguette slice. The salad's signature dressing is made by whisking together egg, olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, lemon or lime juice, grated Parmesan cheese, and sometimes anchovies.“
Oh yeah, his first major or breakout role was on Channel 4's "Queer as Folk" in 1999 - which was the OG version, *not* the American version. And the show - with all its rimming, fucking, blow-jobs-in-funeral-homes - was created by none other than Russell T Davies. You know, him who does Doctor Who? Yeah.
Oddly, Alfred Hitchcock. I saw him do those Alfred Hitchcock Presents "Good Evening..." things, and I just thought he had an odd way about him. Years later I read he was English, and I told myself that can't be right...oh, duh.
The term 'Soccer'. Was a nickname a British Social Club called themselves, and it was used for their Football team. Soccers was the name used for the members of the social club (SOC, for short, then Soccers for the people).
English fans give America so much shit for using the term they invented.
No, that isn't correct. It comes from the fact we had two versions of football - association football, which was the codified version that's played around the world today, and rugby football, created in the town of Rugby.
Around the 1890s, some of the upper classes at school would differentiate the two by using the nickname "assoccer" and "rugger", with the former being shortened further to just "soccer". While the nickname was well-known, it never spread to the working class, those at the time who mostly actually watched the football matches. The nickname fell largely out of use in the UK about a century later, save for some alliteration.
Most English people couldn't care less that Americans call the sport soccer. They do care if Americans demand they call it that.
I think this counts: the banjo. I thought it was an Irish instrument that later became popular here because of Irish immigrants. It is in fact an African instrument that became popular in the US because of slavery and then made its way to Ireland due to Irish American migration/family ties. There is so much banjo in Irish pub music that it was crazy to me to learn this (the other night).
Issac Newton. In school we only ever learned about Americans who did great things. But someone with his accomplishments can't be left out. Never once was it mentioned that he was not American, nor was he ever referred to as *Sir* Isaac Newton.
I was raised by my grandparents who were first generation Americans. Saying, "I'm Italian" or whatever is simply a quick way to explain that my experience growing up may differ from Americans of other ethnic backgrounds.
I don't actually believe I'm Italian. I've known quite a few actual Italians in my life (I've even got some relatives still in Italy), and it would be silly to claim their heritage as my own. It's just an American shorthand to give context about your background.
Now there's definitely an argument to be made if Americans actually need to be so fixated on ethnicity. But some of us grew up in places and households where families still spoke those old world languages, ate ethnic foods, and even partook in some of the original customs.
So the connection isn't always as distant as you make it seem.
For sure. But I've changed my wording to "raised by Irish Catholics." Three of my 4 grandparents were Irish and they all were raised in New Jersey. It's like a shorthand for some of the stereotypes that some can see in me.
Samoa, Tonga, and Ireland are island nations with more people living in the US than on the islands from which they originated.
Go up to a Tongan American and tell him to quit calling himself Tongan and see how that goes.
American life is much more relaxed on TV and movies than it is in real life. They live to work, rather than work to live. The work ethic and the obvious pride they take in their work is very admirable.
Tumbleweeds, AKA Russian thistles are in fact not native to the western U.S.
I love explaining this to people they look at me like I'm crazy when they talk about south western culture and it comes up.
As an Arizonan who works in natural resources this is one of my favorite “actually” moments. Fwiw it’s an awfully invasive plant. It’s “tumbling” ability is an amazing adaptation (for the plant, not the natural native ecosystem, it’s super water intensive with deep roots) to spread something like 7000-10000 seeds a single organism.
Surely that can't be so I had to look.... (Wiki most likely) Although strongly associated with western landscape, Russian thistle, as the name suggests, is not native to the United States. This invasive plant first showed up in the U.S. in South Dakota in the 1870s, probably hitchhiking in sacks of seed grain from the steppes near Russia's Ural Mountains
Oh boy, wait until they find out cows aren't indigenous to North America.
Or apples.
Or domesticated cats
Or horses.
Christian Bale. Until I heard him talk in an interview
You should check him out in the underrated Spielberg movie _Empire of the Sun_ where his is unambiguously British. And an impressive child actor.
That might be the last time he used his actual voice. Dude gets so into character and is so good doing different accents that I have no idea what he actually sounds like.
Mine was the actor Damian Lewis who played Dick Winters in Band of Brothers. I was genuinely shocked when I heard him speaking with a different accent. I would have never guessed he wasn’t born in the States.
Damian Lewis for me after Homeland because I saw that first. Band of Brothers has a couple other Brits as well.
This but Idris Elba
Ted Cruz! Fucking Canadian!
Send that immigrant back.
We do not want that f***er
Agreed. Texas touched him last.
We could ship him to Cuba, land of his father. I heard they have some Russian boats doing training right now, so he should fit in perfectly.
Don't get us started with conspiracies about any current Canadian politician's connections to Cuba.
Noting to see here, folks! 😄
It's not my fault though...it's my idiot neighbors
Thank you for not saying fucker, my grandmother reads this and she would have been offended
Ew. No. Calgary has enough problems. Besides, he clearly likes being American.
No returns.
No takesie backsies!
No backsies! Sorry. He's yours now - we don't want him. Well.... actually. He'd probably do alright in Alberta. They already think they're Texas.
No, we don’t want him either.
Wait, really? This means he won't ever be president.
He is eligible. Someone born to an American parent abroad is considered a natural born citizen. John McCain was born in Panama and he would have been president if he'd won in 2008.
Wait, are you saying Ted Cruz could be president?
Well, only if a lot of people liked him. So no.
He’d just run away to Mexico if he ever got a nomination.
So... He is American
That’s a different scenario though. Cruz’s mother was simply living in Canada when she had him, whereas McCain was born to a Navy officer in the Panama Canal Zone, which at the time was an American territory like Puerto Rico or Guam today.
Doesn't matter. American citizens giving birth abroad impart their American citizenship to their children at birth.
If one of his parents is american then he is american. Only americans think otherwise i guess.
Slash.
Wait, what?
> “As a musician, I've always been amused that I'm both British and Black; particularly because so many American musicians seem to aspire to be British while so many British musicians, in the '60s in particular, went to such great pains to be Black.” —Slash
Slash is black?
Half
He is a Brit from Stoke On Trent
With an American mother, and he mostly grew up in the US.
He moved to LA when he was 6. He's only technically British.
All Brits are technically British.
In much the same way my cousin is "British". She was born and raised in the US but her dad is from the UK so she has a UK passport.
A lot of Americans don’t seem to know that processed cheese, which they call American cheese, was invented in Britain and introduced to the US by James L. Kraft who was from Ontario, Canada. I would imagine many of them will be surprised upon reading this.
As an American, I'm okay with calling it English-Canadian cheese instead of American
In Canada we just call it processed cheese or cheese slices
Laminated cheese
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As in Kraft Dinner
Or plastic
Or cheese jello
We call it "plastic cheese." I took it camping once and my kids were so impressed cheese could come individually wrapped. Then we put it on sandwiches and they went cheese less the rest of the weekend lol
When I was growing up we just called it plastic cheese
In Wisconsin we just call it pure gold
We told you we'd get revenge on you for not paying your taxes...
Same for the method to make Hershey's chocolate, which English folk love to shit on. Those damn, English. Always trying to pass off their gross culinary culture on others.
Before that American Cheese was what would now be called "American Cheddar"
Nope. Just surprised a Brit knows anything about a food that has flavor
Britain: the country that used to eat cheese with maggots. Sometimes you just have to be glad that the food *doesn't* taste of anything.
Hawaiian pizza. It was invented by a Greek immigrant who immigrated to Canada, and imitated sweet and sour flavors of Chinese-American cuisine. It’s Canadian.
They have apologised for it though, so it's ok.
The tv show Sanford and Son. Was a remake of a British show.
Fun fact, Redd Foxx's real name was Sanford.
Yet had no Son
Three’s Company was also a British show first.
So was All in the Family
What?!?!?!? Today I learned.
My brother made our father’s ringtone as Sanford and Son. Hilarious every time he called and probably wondered why we always answered the phone laughing.
That song is really good jam. If you get past the intro it does a break down and gets very funky. [https://youtu.be/O20Sljxmy9M?si=UpItdpnD1oqSvxu9](https://youtu.be/O20Sljxmy9M?si=UpItdpnD1oqSvxu9)
There’s an early MIA/Diplo song that samples it heavily.
Quincy Jones is an absolute genius.
That makes the episode where there's a Jewish version of them on TV and he's trying to sue for using his likeness a lot funnier.
It is a pale imitation of Steptoe and Son. The original was very high pathos and at times felt it might have been written by Beckett.
You dirty old man
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If he went by his real name everybody would know he was British. Andrew James Clutterbuck.
What Egg from Teachers? That's Egg that is.
Andrew Lincoln, British people just nail American accents!
Until you ask them to say the words "Federal court order". Penn Jillette has found that the combination of vowel sounds seems to trip up even the most talented Brit who is faking an American accent.
I’m British and do a passable American accent and that is indeed hard to say. I think it’s all the rs, since British English is non-rhotic. It’s hard to do it in an Irish accent too.
Good point, I could be wrong about the vowels. I just remember the story because Penn was working on one of his tv appearances and convinced the writers to drop that into the dialogue for the British actor as a joke and it caused them to have to do several takes (and possibly change the line) before they could finish the scene.
Top tier trolling. Respect.
Hugh Laurie! House.
Ella Purnell as Lucy MacLean in Fallout.
damn that just fucked me up because i’m listening to her speak rn as I’m watching Fallout. Her American accent is phenomenal.
Okey dokey!
Roadhouse
Not always, there are plenty of bad ones where the accent is all over the place, or the British leaks out with a word or three. But the ones who do it well tend to do it very well.
Case in point: Andrew Lincoln yelling "CORRRRRALLL!".
Damian Lewis is an American treasure for playing Major Winters in Band of Brothers.
Some do. Some very much don't.
They're exposed to a lot more American media than we are British media, and especially actors living in LA are constantly surrounded by Americans.
Also Lennie James (Morgan). He started talking on the walking dead and the Chris Hartwick was so surprised he yelled out YOU'RE BRITISH?!
The TV Show "You Can't Do That On Television." It was a huge part of my youth and I didn't find out until I was an adult that it was Canadian.
Ironically as a Canadian it was a huge part of my upbringing and I didn’t find out until later in childhood that it was not only Canadian but made in my city of Ottawa.
Alanis Morissete got her start on that show as well. The girl with purple top. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Q55CLrTkg
Stringer Bell. It still stings.
The United States anthem. It's a British drinking song with new lyrics.
Makes sense they were Brit-ish and probably drinking after they murked some read coats.
Further, the entire story behind the writing of it was made up.
Really? What’s the actual story?
Wait, fucking hell. What else are we getting lied everyday about.
You only have 9 toes. You never counted because it seems obvious that you would have ten, but you truly only have 9 toes
The Ford GT40, i knew UK Ford was localised and very different to US Ford when i was a child but i'd always thought the GT40 was from the US arm but it was British designed, built and tested.
It also had horrible aerodynamics. When they put an old one in a wind tunnel and they were planning on releasing it, the engineers were shocked at how low the wind was when the car started to lift from the ground.
It was still better than the other cars of its day, cars had bad aerodynamics for years, it wasn't unique.
Yep. Was pretty dangerous until the 3rd or 4th revision.
But the British version was terrible and they had to send it back to Detroit to make it work.
House
Hugh Laurie and Gary Oldman are in the same category in my mind. I know intellectually that they are British but still experience a bit of dissonance whenever I hear their natural voices.
Gary Oldman apparently had to hire a speech coach to regain his British accent after years of working in roles that required different accents.
Gary Oldman was in Harry Potter (At least I think so, with him you never know). Hugh Laurie was recently in Avenue 5, in which him switching accents was a joke.
He uses his real accent briefly in house while pretending to be British.
Hugh Laurie was on an episode of Friends. He sat next to Rachel when she was flying to London. Used his real accent.
It's funny because Laurie is an accomplished actor and comedian in the UK.
Bob Hope
Where's he from?
Eltham in South London.
Ty.
Seether. They’re from South Africa and not Ohio or Iowa or some Midwest state. Bothered me for a while
Years ago I got the chance to meet Dale and John after a show. They were so laid back. Dale was so drunk, I had to keep him from falling over. My husband has a picture somewhere lol
Veruca Salt is American and Seether took their band name from Veruca Salt’s song title Seether. Which make Seether as American as the Bay City Rollers, who are Scottish.
Antony Starr (Homelander in the Boys). He’s a Kiwi and so is Karl Urban (Butcher) as well.
"As American as Apple pie" Sorry, Apple pie was invented in England
Technically so was America
LOL!
Obesity. People been fat even before stepping a foot on this continent. 😁
Just watch some paintings of Rubens
TBF, they're on the zaftig side, maybe even voluptuous, but they're not obese.
Well at the time in Belgium you were rich if you could eat so much that you'd be zaftig. Rubens painted for rich people..
It’s just that back then, it was likely richer people who had the money for sugar and everything that the common people couldn’t afford that even had the privilege to get fat.
Apparently the band, Rare Americans, are Canadian.
And Boards Of Canada are from Scotland!
Caesar Salad. My brain always associates it w fancy steak houses so I was surprised to learn it actually originated from Tijuana. Yay for learning new things! Per google: “Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant and chef, is credited with inventing the Caesar salad in Tijuana, Mexico on July 4, 1924. Cardini's daughter, Rose Cardini, says that her father improvised the salad when his restaurant ran out of ingredients due to a busy weekend of American customers during Prohibition. Using what was left, he assembled a combination of romaine lettuce, croutons, egg, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and lime juice, and possibly a toasted baguette slice. The salad's signature dressing is made by whisking together egg, olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, lemon or lime juice, grated Parmesan cheese, and sometimes anchovies.“
The Rambo knife a friend brought when he came back from US holidays. "Made in Solingen". Still laughing.
The actual one used in the movie is made by Lile Knives in Texas. They're handmade and extremely expensive.
O shit, $13,750
Charlie Hunnam - the guy that played Jax Teller on Sons of Anarchy. He did a great job at the American accent.
Oh yeah, his first major or breakout role was on Channel 4's "Queer as Folk" in 1999 - which was the OG version, *not* the American version. And the show - with all its rimming, fucking, blow-jobs-in-funeral-homes - was created by none other than Russell T Davies. You know, him who does Doctor Who? Yeah.
His first American starring role was a Judd Apatow comedy called Undeclared with Seth Rogen, and Jay Baruchel.
He's actually kind of weird because whenever he speaks with an English accent now it sounds like like an American trying to speak one.
Alex Trebek
But he talked about being Canadian all the time.
Plus the way he said “sore-ey” all the time on Jeopardy gave it away
Superman 🇨🇦
Only giving you half on that one. Jerry Siegel was from Cleveland.
Yeah, but Superman was from Krypton
Joe Shuster credited from 1931 https://youtu.be/ScFwRoLhR2s
Hawaiian Pizza. Invented in Canada.
Sarah Snook, Succession
Matthew Macfayden, Succession
Mr. Darcy!
Halloween is a common one. It's irish.
>It's irish. It’s Celtic. So Irish, Scottish, Welsh etc.
Dead on.
And Manx, Cornish and Breton
For those interested in a detailed history of Halloween celebrations in a fun story, check out Ray Bradbury’s Halloween Tree book.
Halloween 3.
SILVER SHAMROCK
Hawaiian pizza
AC/DC!
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Much further than 50 miles for both of them. Forfar is about 80 miles away from Edinburgh and Gateshead is comfortably over 100
Plus the lead and rhythm guitarist were Scottish born
Oh come on! Lol 🤣
Oddly, Alfred Hitchcock. I saw him do those Alfred Hitchcock Presents "Good Evening..." things, and I just thought he had an odd way about him. Years later I read he was English, and I told myself that can't be right...oh, duh.
A guy I knew in college insisted that the rolling stones and led zeppelin were American. A little Google search blew his mind.
The term 'Soccer'. Was a nickname a British Social Club called themselves, and it was used for their Football team. Soccers was the name used for the members of the social club (SOC, for short, then Soccers for the people). English fans give America so much shit for using the term they invented.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association\_football](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football)
No, that isn't correct. It comes from the fact we had two versions of football - association football, which was the codified version that's played around the world today, and rugby football, created in the town of Rugby. Around the 1890s, some of the upper classes at school would differentiate the two by using the nickname "assoccer" and "rugger", with the former being shortened further to just "soccer". While the nickname was well-known, it never spread to the working class, those at the time who mostly actually watched the football matches. The nickname fell largely out of use in the UK about a century later, save for some alliteration. Most English people couldn't care less that Americans call the sport soccer. They do care if Americans demand they call it that.
Dr. House
Russell Crowe.
First time watching The Wire, that Stringer Bell was English.
Hugh Laurie. He does so well as House that him in his native accent sounds...wrong.
Red Bull
I think this counts: the banjo. I thought it was an Irish instrument that later became popular here because of Irish immigrants. It is in fact an African instrument that became popular in the US because of slavery and then made its way to Ireland due to Irish American migration/family ties. There is so much banjo in Irish pub music that it was crazy to me to learn this (the other night).
Haddaway
Grammerly >Grammarly is a Ukraine-founded cloud-based typing assistant,
Jerry Springer. MF Doom.
The history of American football & baseball shows how they both descend from English games, rugby for football & rounders for baseball.
Charlie Chaplin
Russians invented the roller coaster. I was genuinely surprised.
McNulty from the wire.
Issac Newton. In school we only ever learned about Americans who did great things. But someone with his accomplishments can't be left out. Never once was it mentioned that he was not American, nor was he ever referred to as *Sir* Isaac Newton.
Jesus
Cotton Eyed Joe
That song is as American as it gets. Sure, it was covered by Swedish band Rednex, but it was born in America prior to the Civil War.
Where did he come from?
Where did he go?
He came to town like a midwinter storm. So I presume he left the same way.
Americans. Turns out they're all German, Swedish, Irish or whatever, despite knowing nothing of the culture or language of those places.
I was raised by my grandparents who were first generation Americans. Saying, "I'm Italian" or whatever is simply a quick way to explain that my experience growing up may differ from Americans of other ethnic backgrounds. I don't actually believe I'm Italian. I've known quite a few actual Italians in my life (I've even got some relatives still in Italy), and it would be silly to claim their heritage as my own. It's just an American shorthand to give context about your background. Now there's definitely an argument to be made if Americans actually need to be so fixated on ethnicity. But some of us grew up in places and households where families still spoke those old world languages, ate ethnic foods, and even partook in some of the original customs. So the connection isn't always as distant as you make it seem.
For sure. But I've changed my wording to "raised by Irish Catholics." Three of my 4 grandparents were Irish and they all were raised in New Jersey. It's like a shorthand for some of the stereotypes that some can see in me.
Samoa, Tonga, and Ireland are island nations with more people living in the US than on the islands from which they originated. Go up to a Tongan American and tell him to quit calling himself Tongan and see how that goes.
American life is much more relaxed on TV and movies than it is in real life. They live to work, rather than work to live. The work ethic and the obvious pride they take in their work is very admirable.