@Ehay2k aw! Thank you, I do try 🤭

Being Buddhist and from a largely pagan, folk-centric Irish family, I get more amused with every passing year with the traditions of humanity.

“Oh, you brought a tree… into the house… and decorated it?”

And look, I could talk for days about weird animist or pagan traditions, but this one always makes me laugh.

Our family still did it! I did stop when I moved out, but it always puts a smile on my face.

@tanepiper Northern England. Hard agree

All those countries based in London…

@paco I found the idea that the US class system being inverse to other countries to be really thought provoking.

I’m actually glad I took the time to reply, as I originally drafted a knee jerk reply to you, then got got distracted and it gave me time to think on it.

I think the sheer scale of the US as a singular entity is also cause for some very unique properties. But not due to scale alone, I think it’s that scale mixed with the *rapid* expansion of frontiers in a very short space of time. Europe is *technically* geographically larger, as is the population… but settlements are typically smaller and more distributed, with well established routes between—and thus, transport. US networks being built with very different objectives in mind, especially with the oil and gold rush eras.

I hear about people getting jobs in the US and they’re totally ok with driving 3 hours to work and it blows my mind. And I saw this as someone who elects to drive thousands of miles a month for work.

But it’s a lottery, right? You’re born where you’re born.

@paco I get what you’re saying, it has a ‘class’ system built on wealth, but it’s far too young to have a class system comparable to Europe and Asia.

Oligarchy more than aristocracy. Some places have both.

Even generational wealth in the US is what we’d call ‘new money’.

New money does make it more likely to marry into aristocracy over generations, of course. You don’t need to be extraordinarily wealthy to live the most privileged life or wield the most power. The sort of power that doesn’t disappear when someone shorts the market.

It’s the difference between bought power and the real soft and hard power in a country. There’s a good chance this will change in time, but we’re yet to see it.

Edit: I should say, that both those class systems very much hinge on the same racism and oppression.

@paco I get what you’re saying, it has a ‘class’ system built on wealth, but it’s far too young to have a class system comparable to Europe and Asia.

Oligarchy more than aristocracy. Some places have both.

Even generational wealth in the US is what we’d call ‘new money’.

New money does make it more likely to marry into aristocracy over generations, of course. You don’t need to be extraordinarily wealthy to live the most privileged life or wield the most power. The sort of power that doesn’t disappear when someone shorts the market.

It’s the difference between bought power and the real soft and hard power in a country. There’s a good chance this will change in time, but we’re yet to see it.

@mikej @wayword thanks for this!

@kajer @jerry this is an Irish and Scottish thing haha. I’m very sorry we exported it. The Gaels, Celts, and Danes are to blame haha.

Same in north east uk in the working class.

@ehurtley yeah this is one of those weird things where the UK does have a class system, but also has an adjacent ‘class’ system more similar to the US, based on wealth rather than social standing or lineage.

Been doing a lot of reading on this. Will try to follow up when I’m done!

@feld @jerry I think this is the exact same phenomena. Will post an update once I surface from Wikipedia.

@jerry I am deep down the dialect rabbit hole now. I know that diphthongs are a thing and it’s rather interesting.

Especially as some of this is actually genetic, and linked to muscle shapes in the mouth, which is emphasised in some languages (or variations, like US/British English) more than others.

Found a few more that seem to happen over there, path becoming oalth, even the word ‘no’ with no ending letters becoming nowl.

Super interesting subject though. When I was a child I couldn’t pronounce the word security, as the c and u together just didn’t work in my head, ironically.

Mastodon friends (US ones probably!).

Doing a but of sleuthing with some limited evidence and hitting a wall.

So some of you say certain words containing a long O after a short sound, like both, moment etc. but add in an L, sometimes obviously, sometimes subtly.

So bolth, molment, and so on.

Is this regional? Generational? Education? The US doesn’t have a class system like large parts of Europe or Asia do, so I can’t speak for that.

If your entire business is built on showing people things they don’t want to see and the only thing between them seeing them and not is that they don’t have the tool or resource to not see it… it’s not exactly sustainable.

I really don’t care if your revenue stream goes down the toilet. Your business model was garbage to begin with.

We had ‘Boom and Bust’ I think the new way is ‘Abuse and Bust’.