50 Things Americans Have Said That People In This Online Community Thought Were Weird

As a Brit, I had to bite my tongue when asked 'Do you celebrate Independence Day?'

“I love the African-American culture here!”

— said in Cape Town, South Africa

I live in NZ and worked in retail, so there's been a few.

Funniest was "You have to serve me!" after they made a racial remark (wasn't too bad, but still f****n rude), threw a tantrum in the store because they didn't look at the prices before they used one of our products, then started trashing the place.
When my manager told them no I certainly did not have to serve them (by law) and she was calling the cops for destruction of property the lady made an O face then took off without paying. Cops got her like an hour later. I just wish I was still at work when they brought her in to pay for all the stuff she broke/stole/used.

I’d say it’s a toss up between:

“Is England in London?”

“Do you still like, drive horses to get around in Europe?”

And a guy trying to smack talk on Xbox who after I told him nobody cares said “Who cares what you think?! You’re foreign!” I said “So are you?” And he laughed and said “No r****d, I’m American”

I met an American tourist who was adamant that my country [Iceland] was a home ruled territory under the US government.

He said this during our nations independence day.

He assumed we shared a similar status with Puerto Rico.

He was convinced of the error of his ways after confronting two other natives and a Google search.

"Are your parents Democrats or Republicans?"

eh, have different political parties here luv

The typical stuff. Do you have cars /trees/dogs/in Germany. Another favourite : Is Hitler still alive?

Asking how much I copay for insurance. I don't even know what copay means.

A middle aged American was surprised to find out Venice was so old (and an actual city for centuries), and not built in the 20th century for tourist purposes

Englishman, living in the US for 15 years now. I’ve been asked a lot of bizarre things but one of the best was someone who asked what language we speak in England, and how long it took me to learn English when I moved here.

Poking fun at me with France stereotypes. I'm not from France, my parents are not from France, and I've never been to France. My first language is French, that's enough for Americans to treat me like I'm from France.

"Ah, you're from Denmark. Where in Canada is that again?"

you can't be from country that doesn't speak English, you are white!!

"I can't believe you would live in a country where you're living under the dictatorship of the queen."

I am Canadian.

"You speak real good English for a foreigner" - I'm British and she knew that.

Edit, because a lot of people seem to think that no American could ever say this and mean it: it was a lovely, sweet, older woman who thought she was paying me a genuine compliment. We sat and chatted in her garden for about an hour as she plied me with her homemade lemonade and asked me about my life and what brought me to Washington State. I thanked her, because she was saying something lovely (albeit weird), and we continued chatting.

Had a taxi driver in New York ask how we got there (from Ireland). When we said by plane, he was like „you have airports?!“.

Also thought we were still getting round on horses.

I’m Australian and in 2015 I was doing a cruise around New Zealand with my family. Might add that I have an Autistic daughter who was 14 at the time and despite being Autistic is incredibly sociable, but has a tendency to strike up unusual conversations with strangers. We needed to get to one of the restaurants a few floors above us and decided to use the lift instead of the stairs. The lift arrived on our floor and we entered with an elderly couple already inside. My wife and I greeted them and they duly greeted us back and we soon ascertained they were American. Seconds later, my Autistic daughter stated the obvious that we were all travelling in a “lift”. A random throw-away comment, but that’s just who she is. The female literally barked at my daughter and told her the correct word was in fact an “elevator”. At this point I interjected and politely mentioned that where we are from it’s called a “lift”, but this couple were adamant that it was an “elevator”. Their attitude was we were wrong and they were right. Fortunately we never did get to see them the remainder of the cruise. We share a common language being English and there are going to be differences how we say things depending where we’ve been brought up - it’s about being open minded and accepting. Unfortunately it appeared that the world revolved around this couple.

“Wow you speak American very well for a foreigner”

Thanks lady, I’m Canadian and “American” is the only language I know

"why didn't they walk around the berlin wall?"

I once spoke to an American that was surprised that black Australian individuals had an Australian accent.

It's so weird but you can also see it coming somehow in how they often think about race: the same thing that one was surprised that black Dutch individuals of course had Dutch names.