Or it was until Wikipedia came along! (the rest of the internet too, but that's generally not as useful). Now its just easier to know about things which happen in a countries where you can speak or read the language.

So i`m reading this thread and all that enters my head is the fact that the Super Furry Animals biggest selling album in the U.S. is their welsh language one Mnwg.

This argument began in good humour.
On close inspection, Big3's question about the Welsh language included a tongue in cheek reference to Elvin.
addidsss's response was also along the same vein.

However, it soon became obvious that a nerve had been touched.
If I was American, the constant references to 'our' ignorance would irritate me also.
As does the average American's knowledge of European and other cultures, irritates me.

And last time I looked, knowledge and intelligence were two different things.
Does it make a person ignorant and stupid, if they don't know that the Welsh language, is an actual working language and not some garbled dialect from a Tolkien novel?

If I was Welsh would that bother me? Probably.
Does it really matter? Not really.

Would it make me intelligent if I said that there are more Welsh speaking people living in Argentina, than there are in Wales?
Intelligent, no. Knowledgeable, yes.

Would it make the average Welsh person, stupid and ignorant for not knowing that fact, (which I guarantee they won't.)
Nope.

But should we care?
I think we should. It makes life far more interesting.

And Urban...is that band really made up of Welsh speaking furry animals?

Yeah, that's what I said didn't I?

Well of course I am, you would be too if your spelling was better than most of the native speakers of some language. American culture is an amalgamation of various european, african and asian cultures with thousands of years of history. It's not that you don't have a culture, it's just that it fails in comparison to all other, say , european ones....Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Great Britain, China, India, Greece....all have contributed far more to the world as a whole than America has. When americans wanna get cultured, they head for Europe.....:D
I'll tell you why, it's because I love to get a rise out of you people. And it's fascinating how efficient calling you "stupid americans" is. You don't see any europeans getting all hissy about being labeled stupid.

Plus, I think it's wonderful how you forgot that I'm even more fascinated with America than I am with the U.K. I speak with what can be construed as an american accent, I mostly listen to american music, I mostly watch american films and tv shows etc.

Too bad I'm fully aware of my real intelligence so no matter what anyone says, I won't care much aye?

Take that back!! I am not irrelevant!! I am somebody. I am a person goddamn you and I matter! :cries a little: :laughing:

Sure there is, it's called an IQ . What I think is all that matters.

Oh Lord, you do insist on this don't you. Yeah, the standard of living in every goddamn country differs from province to province, from county to county, how much more micro-oriented can we get?! But as a whole, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the standard of living in any state in the U.S. is better than say, in Mongolia ( yeah, that's a real country ). But you do understand that if one of your biggest problems is obesity, you've got it pretty good right?

I was thinking more of distance. And since you resent me for only picking points I want to argue and disregarding others, how about you proving to me that Boston is the educational capital of the world?

Wrong, yes.

Haha, David did you perhapse mean "welsh people living in Argentina"?

^That would also be wrong! He's just making it up as he goes along!!!

Actually, I would say here that I'm consistently surprised by how many Americans I've met* who (on a practial level) haven't been able to grasp how **** many other people in the world's living standards are and what kind of issues they have to deal with on a daily basis and how real and unavoidable those issues are. Maybe people from other rich countries tend to suffer the same reality shock when they realise what people meant by their high "standard of living" and just don't show it... but I don't think this is the case.

How many Welsh people living in Wales speak Welsh? What figures you got Tom?

An approximate 25,000 people in Argentina (United's Gabriel Heinze being one) speak Welsh in Patagonia (in the Chubut province of Argentina), they are descendants of colonists.

I'm going from these figures (the box on the right of the linked page)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_language

There was another page which explained how although there were many people who went from Wales to join the Welsh colony in the Chubut valley in patagonia*, such that there are tens of thousands of people in Argentina with Welsh ancestry some political leader during the mid 20th century banned Welsh from being used in many official/business settings throughout the country and this, similar anti-welsh language actions and the simple fact that the national language of Argentina is Spanish means that many of the people of Welsh heritage can't actually speak Welsh, many took up Spanish as their first language as its much more useful to them.

Can't find that page now though.

*Welsh Colony - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_s...t_of_Argentina

You know adidasss. You don't seem to be creating any points of your own, more so just refuting arguments I make and then doing so as if you're above everything thats ebing said here. Make some points for your country since I'm defending my state. Don't cower behind the EU and all of their economic power, as european as you try to make yourself, im fairly certain that Croatia isn't one of countries people think of. Hell, you're not even in the EU you poor ****, good luck with the application though.

People go to Europe for culture? Thats funny, people come to Boston to get educated...if you can make it here. Oh and going back on that melting pot thing, in '03, my graduating class spoke 70 languages fluently. How many did yours speak?

I do understand that obesity is a good thing. but its one side of the coin. I mean, while illness is a serious issue, large swaths of Mexico don't have garbage because no one can afford to waste things. I find that somewhat admirable, which is a symptom of the third world. The conveient life style of the west would never allow for such things.

Also its hard to say you spell better (I'll admit I'm a terrible speller as you and Merkaba so elequently pointed out) than people of a native language when theres multiple difrent spellings of many words in a language. I realize I'm engaging in semantics battles here, but if we're assaulting peoples use of language, namely mine, you don't seem to have mastered the parentheticals yet. Granted, you speak every other language better than I do, but then again I'm not condeming your French.

@ DRMO: I found these figures (about halfway down the page)

http://www.caerphilly.gov.uk/thecoun...lities/faq.htm

Plus elsewhere states 25,000 Welsh speakers in The Argentine.

I stand corrected.
Thankyou Mr. Wikipedia. ;)

On a completly side note, let me ask all of you, theres a lot of people that just bury their noses in books and know plenty about many things. I just wonder why the focus is on knowing the world?

I mean we never slammed Emily ****enson (Ma resident) for not getting out enough. I'll continue this fued, I just don't know why a lac of world knowledge is such a condemable thing.

To make the isolationists point, the euro's know whats aorund them, that happens to be ther world. I know what putine is, Im not a canadian expert.

Well, that figure of around 25,000 may be correct and the one from Wikipedia of 5,000 might be wrong... neither figure is anywhere near the number that speak Welsh in Wales though.

And for the record. I LOVE wikipedia.

Big3, why argue? He's just trying to get a rise out of you. Jusy bandy about some good humoured teasing and all will be fine. Come on, the neck-tie comment I made? Comedy gold in Croatia AND America.

Anyhow. I have been to Croatia (as you see, adidasss, my knowledge does transcend trivial about your particular homeland, but isn't trivial knowledge the most fun?) and many a country outside of the US, and I've been surprised again and again how well we Americans have it, and how we still have our own problems to take care of. My goal was to be world-conscience ever since I was a dibbun though, so I can't say all Americans like that... neither could anybody, from ANY country say that all of their citizens are either.

Maybe a lot of resentment towards America, is caused by us knowing more about you, than you do about us.
Our history and culture is ancient and you are (the U.S.) currently, the foremost nation on earth...and possibly that bothers us.


I don't know, maybe we expect you to take more notice of whats going on in the world more. Maybe it's the perception that average Americans don't seem to care.
I know that the Arab world feel that way towards you for sure.
Maybe we do to a lesser extent.

Disclaimer: the use of the words "us" and "you", are for hypothetical reasons only.

You ARE Wikipedia. :)

Maybe because it involves a lot of factual knowledge, so it seems a more direct way to gauge somebody's knowledge? I don't know, but maybe it has something to do with that.

Unless your lifestyle involves international travel and/or working with people from other places, it's not especially relevant to know a lot about the world. However, as an indicator of how knowledgable somebody is, that kind of knowledge has the potential to be impressive to people across a wider spectrum though because it's more factual and concrete than works of fiction, philosophy or economics. If somebody knows which languages are spoken in a certain country, what the capital city is etc. then those are accepted facts by which other people can gauge how much you know about the world and, as its hard for people to rote learn a whole lifetime of information without also understanding it to some extent, it also can indicate how much somebody actually understands about the world.

Perhaps a problem is that if you know a lot about economics, political theory or philosphy, then however knowledgable you are in that area people who hold very different views to you may still think you're an idiot.

Penis

Giny

yokel

Levity>Bullsh*t

Levity and bull**** aren't measured in the same units. You'll have to multiply one or t'other by another quantity to make an appropriate comparison.

Adidass x Big3 + "You're a stupid american" - "You're g@y" = Nobody gives a f*ck.

Well the reason Iran doesn't think we listen to them is because the western idea of development is a strongly secular one. And we continue to inpose our western views on the muslim community so there will never be democracy. But the great thing about Iran is that their not some backwater country with no voice. Ahmadinejad is intelligent and more than cognisent of how the world works. A cleric 3 weeks ago roughly said 'we won't stop the Nuclear program because its a sign of weakness and the U.S. does not respect weakness." Their right, if they did we'd go in and impose our own dictator. But the Iranians would welcome a U.S. invasion because anyone worth their salt in the post cold war era knows you mobalize the third world amsses with religeon and religeon only. Even the idea of human rights is not universal. And because of this, when we have rocket scientists like Karen Hughes go over there and say things like "I want Iranian women driving without veils" well, you're going to get resentment to democracy and the west ten fold. You can't have democracy synonamous with secular americanism.

Thats really why they won't listen...

Crowe - I am having fun, I just think that Adiadasss is non-stop with his anti-american swipes and its obnoxious...at least this will funciton as a lighting rod. I remain civil in other posts.

DRMO - Fair enough, I see your point.

Whoa I never used *** as a pejoritive term. Good equation though, but as I tell you ALL the time oojay, if you don't like the opsting, go somewhere else.

Lighten up. The opsting is just fine with me.

What is the opposite of lighten up? Is it dampen down? Look regardless, ask Ethan, I am sucha fun hating bastard.

I wouldnt have it any other way:beer:

Are you really a fun hater, or are you a fun stealer? Do you not steal everybody else's fun, having fun in the process? To keep the fun equilibrium the fun has to go somewhere.

That might be right, Im like a fun vampire.

Meaning all of four people bought it right? the Super Furry Animals aren't exactly all over MTV.

I didn't know Welsh was a language till moley tried to get me pronounce a word, for the record he said I pronounced it very well but messed up because I asked in the middle if it said Robin Williams or something along those lines. =D

I don't really think you are. You make me LOL quite a bit on AIM, that troll comment awhile ago was great. Though I don't remember exactly how it went..<.<

Well, don't you try to drain my fun. Its hard to find the stuff in Birmingham.

What if there was a fun, black hole?

Edit: Answer - Birmingham.

^I think there's one in my supervisors office.


EDIT: Birmingham is fun, even if most of the fun comes from laughing at their accents.

perhaps the double negitive will counteract itself.

I didn't know Welsh was a language either, I thought it was just an accent lol.

Thats it, I've said too much.

The epic tale of sheer nonsense continues...
 

Sure I am, I've said that you're an ignorant american and everything you've said since has been an attempt to refute that. Way to go prove you're not an ignorant american. For your information, Croatia has applied a long time ago and the negotiations are well under way ( negotiations= the final step to being accepted ). As far as defending my country, I have no need to, it has it's problems, but the average croatian is still 10 times more knowledgable than your average american. Plus, I think I'm doing a fine job proving that just by having this discussion and being on par with a native english speaker .

Sure do, that's why we get a lot of american tourists visiting european museums, or showing their lack of manners in some holiday resort. That's funny, people go to Europe to get educated too! And you still haven't proved Boston was the educational capital of the world. Do you just like throwing bullshit statements like that arround without ever intenting to back them up? How many did you speak?
No, obesity is not a good thing, it's just an indicator that you have far lesser problems to think about than most other countries. Fat people can get thin just by not eating, hungry people don't have that choice. I have no idea what you tried to say with this, but first of all, Mexico is not a part of the third world, it's a part of the much elusive term "transitional countries". And I don't know where you get this "large swaths of Mexico don't produce garbage " shit, even if I was to believe you, which I don't because even the most backward societies produce garbage, are you trying to imply being an agricultural society is actually better than being the richest country in the world because you don't produce garbage?? I'm sure the native americans on Yucatan would gladly trade places with you.

No, there's only one correct way to spell in the English language. Actually, I wasn't going after you specifically there, I'm sure you'll agree there is an insane amount of native english speakers here that can't spell worth a damn, most of which we've gotten rid of by incessantly attacking their style of expression. Bad spelling makes you look retarded and for the life of me I can't figure out how you've managed to go through some 20 years of education without learning how to spell correctly. I'm not the world's best speller, but I do tend to check my spelling before posting for some obvious mistakes. You should really learn to use a spellchecker if you don't want us to continually bring that issue up.

As far as mastering parentheticals, I have no idea what you're reffering to, but an example would be nice, I'm here to learn and if I can improve my use of English I will, but I expect everyone to point out my mistakes otherwise I'll keep repeating them.

I think it's your duty to know things about the world, especially as someone who plans a career in politics ( if I'm not mistaken ). America has it's finger in most issues in the world, knowing a lot about it would help sensitize you about the problems a bit more. Other than that, Right track explains it well.
The problem being that he has no idea what you're talking about, well most people probably don't.

Oh wow, that's nice, I'd quiz you about where you've been and how you liked it but that would be a digression. Trivial facts definitely are the most fun ...;) Of course not, but I do expect intelligent, educated croatians to know that Welsh is a spoken language, and I expect the same of that specific category of people form all other countries.

I don't think that's true of the U.S. ,not entirely anyway, otherwise gay marriages would be allowed in all states. There is no other reason for not allowing an essential right of a certain goup of citizens apart form religion meddling in politics. I think they won't listen because by this point, they hate your asses and anything you do or say is the work of the devil. But as far as them refusing to stop their nuclear program, I fully support that crazy jew hating motherfucker; Israel has nuclear weapons and yet noone is asking them to reliquish the program.

That being said, I have a very bad opinion on the muslim world and culture, I think it's backward and we ( westerners ) shouldn't waste our time or money trying to bring them closer to western standards. Well we probably wouldn't if they didn't have so much goddamn oil. :D

Well ,then you're a stupid new zealander.....*pauses*....nah, it just doesn't feel the same....:( ;)

Why is it a digression!? I thoroughly enjoyed Croatia.

Went to the old town of Dubrovnik and Zagreb. Dubrovnik was awesome - at night we went to Old Town on the Placa, if I remember correctly, and drank at some bars (i am not a huge fan of Croat beer, sorry lol) met a hot little Slovenian chick and took her back to the hostel with me. She passed out when we arrived!!! Imagine my anger. In the morning, she made up for the lame night. (w00t) Old Town in the day time is equally as beautiful... then we took a bus to ... Lapad? saw the Adriatic Sea -- very sweet.

In Zagreb, I attached myself to a Pub Crawl because my friend works as a nightlife guide - basically got pretty trashed - found another girl there, don't remember much about the first night...

MIGHT I say to the Americans who have yet to visit Europe, if you like sex with very good looking people who might normally be out of your league... go now... they are very relaxed about sex over there. End Note.

As far as the city... again... beautiful. Hit up a couple of the Museums, the awe-inspiring botanical gardens. Chilled out on the street... err, Illika? Is that how it is spelled? That is the phoenetic pronunciation, anyway. American can equate it to the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, or Times Square in New York, in terms of shopping and the like. Beautiful cathedrals, one with a name that is very similar to Marijuana, I thought that was funny. I wouldn't make Croatia your first stop, but certainly stop there... I can't say that much for Luxembourg :bringit:

Don't try this is Germany though, you'll end up with a 6 foot woman called Helga who can lift you over her head while singing Wagner in a rich baritone.

Of course, that might be your thing.

Because I get all nice when talking to people who have visited Croatia and that takes the edge off as far as arguing with americans....*winks*

I've never actually been to Dubrovnik but it definitely is the most beautiful and most preserved old town in Croatia ( and the most famous ). Possibly too crowded with tourists, but I think it's beauty evens it out. The south of the croatian coastline is by far the most beautiful part of the country. For a full experience, you should have visited the islands, that's what I would have done if I was a tourist. Although that would take a few weeks...*deeply in love with his own country*

I don't much like Zagreb, but I suppose the centre of it is a nice representation of a middle-european city.

:laughing: That might just be because you're an american, I don't think the girls here are that promiscuous. There are quite a lot of beautiful women here though...not so much men though....:(

It's spelled Ilica and pronounced Ilitza. Shopping in Europe is very much dispersed, not just Croatia, so most city centres are packed with shops.
Glad you enjoyed yourself, hope you didn't pick up any STD's ;):beer: