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    #76
    Originally posted by WOM View Post

    If I'm not misreading your anecdote, he heard something in your speech that told you him came from elsewhere, and he was trying to establish where that 'elsewhere' might be? Is that correct?
    Yes, because I spent most of my childhood in England and moved here when I was 18 so I don't sound like someone who was born and bred in the area of town I live in (unless I put on the accent). I don't know if he had an anti-English bias or not (that is sometimes an issue) or what his motivations were. I can only go on how it made me feel, which was to put a firm divide in of 'you don't speak like us, therefore you aren't really from here'. He may well have never intended that - but that's part of the point of this discussion.

    That's just one of example of many incidences so if I get asked now I just say the Welsh name for the town I grew up in and as no-one knows where that is but it sounds Welsh they tend not to ask follow up questions. (When that happens is makes me think that the question was a test.)

    This all may be very different in a Canadian context, but I'm guessing if you met someone in Costco and they asked where you were from, they wouldn't ask a follow up question about whether you really were from there or not.

    I mean, maybe this is on me for identifying with the place I've lived for all my adult life rather than one of the places I lived as a child, and hence being sensitive when queried.

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      #77
      I'm totally fine with question and love answering it when resident in another continent. The simple truth is, saying you are from England when people expect you to be American is nice. I had a wonderful chat with a guy last week whilst my daughter was playing with his grand daughter at the playground which I think only occurred because he was an Anglophile. I guess if I were from a less high profile nation, the question would be uncomfortable, like saying I support Millwall. But I accept the breaks I get in life with open arms.

      The only time I get annoyed is when people start correcting you on your own knowledge of your own country. It doesn't happen often, and it's always men who do this, but it's infuriating but I usually just shut down the conversation immediately by saying "thanks for letting me know that" and move on.

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        #78
        Originally posted by Sporting View Post
        How do people here generally start conversations with strangers, new students etc?
        My first reaction is "why on earth would I want to start a conversation with a stranger?" but even if the definition includes e.g. new starters at work, asking them where they are from still wouldn't be high on the list.

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          #79
          There's also some deeper stuff about "being Welsh" and what counts as being Welsh. (Being born there, having Welsh parents, learning Welsh as a child, speaking Welsh as an adult, being in a school singing competition in an Eisteddfod, supporting Wales in sport and so on) There can a Welshier-than-thou emphasis on the 'true Wales'. It's not healthy and those people tend to be idiots, but that's the context in which being asked 'where are you from?' has meaning.

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            #80
            Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post

            The standard in New York professional circles is "What do you do?" which comes with its own set of complications and is considered by many non-New Yorkers to be quite rude.
            I read a whole piece from a woman on why she no longer answered 'what do you do?' because she saw it as a way of determining whether your opinion was worthy of value or not, based on your profession. But again, do you strike that question from your conversations because a few people don't like it? Or do you hope you're an adept enough conversationalist to know when or whether to ask it?

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              #81
              I tend not to ask it any longer, though it is also the case that our present circumstances mean that I am really chatting with people I don't know.

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                #82
                Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post
                My first reaction is "why on earth would I want to start a conversation with a stranger?"
                In a pub? Happens here all the time.

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                  #83
                  Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                  Yes, because I spent most of my childhood in England and moved here when I was 18 so I don't sound like someone who was born and bred in the area of town I live in (unless I put on the accent). I don't know if he had an anti-English bias or not (that is sometimes an issue) or what his motivations were. I can only go on how it made me feel, which was to put a firm divide in of 'you don't speak like us, therefore you aren't really from here'. He may well have never intended that - but that's part of the point of this discussion.
                  Okay. That's sort of what I figured.

                  To which I would say, if I'm being honest, then why not just answer the question you knew he was asking? Wouldn't it have been far more productive to just says 'I've lived on X Street for 25 years but I spent my first 18 years in Manchester' or wherever?

                  I understand you've said you don't know what his motivations were, but are they typically such that you need to be wary? I'm sure your response was informed by your experience in some way, but why presume it comes from a place of negativity?

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                    #84
                    Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                    This all may be very different in a Canadian context, but I'm guessing if you met someone in Costco and they asked where you were from, they wouldn't ask a follow up question about whether you really were from there or not.
                    Yes, you're right. I do get asked where 'my people' are from occasionally, but it's obvious that they're trying to establish where in the UK this Smith is from.

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                      #85
                      Glad I don't really talk to people - all these personal questions, nosy bastards.

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                        #86
                        Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post

                        The standard in New York professional circles is "What do you do?" which comes with its own set of complications and is considered by many non-New Yorkers to be quite rude.
                        I got asked that a few weeks ago, by what Germans often refer to as "a typical English gentleman". When I told him, he said, "So you didn't attend university, then?" At which point I told him to fuck off.

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                          #87
                          Originally posted by steveeeeeeeee View Post
                          The only time I get annoyed is when people start correcting you on your own knowledge of your own country. It doesn't happen often, and it's always men who do this, but it's infuriating but I usually just shut down the conversation immediately by saying "thanks for letting me know that" and move on.
                          Hahaha! Yes. It's maddening. I remember having Brexit mansplained to me a few years ago by someone who'd spent a few weeks in the Netherlands in the 90s and therefore assumed he knew it all.

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                            #88
                            I like the direct approach of my gruff-but-loveable Russian neighbours. "How much you pay for this?" "What you do for job?" Makes things so much easier.

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                              #89
                              Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
                              I remember having Brexit mansplained to me a few years ago by someone who'd spent a few weeks in the Netherlands in the 90s and therefore assumed he knew it all.
                              I work with a guy who asked me if I'd ever heard of an [admittedly obscure] social club for artists and academics in Toronto, and I replied that yes, and that my mother had worked there for the last 17 years of her working life. He then told me all about the place.

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                                #90
                                Originally posted by Fussbudget View Post
                                Loving all the white Irish people under that tweet saying that the foreign bloke is being oversensitive and needs to get over himself because they're not bothered if someone asks them that question. FFS
                                Well the thing is that it's going to be in the first five questions when two irish people meet each other. The political and sporting unit in this country is the parish, so you want to know where the person is from, but also if you already know someone from there, and vice versa. For instance at assorted otf thons I slightly freaked out what's the rumpus by asking if his family was from cappawhite, and asking Leo if his grandfather was from nearer cahir or Mitchelstown. (The answers were "how the fuck did you know that", "and how the fuck did you know that, outside mitchelstown)

                                What you're seeing in that thread is people who can't put themselves in the position of someone who isn't used to this rather unusual and extreme behaviour, and getting defensive.

                                The thing is that once you get used to it, it is very easy to tell if this is a friendly, or unfriendly question.

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                                  #91
                                  A few other things: one of the things I don't much like about the east coast, and liked about the west, is that on the west coast nobody asked "what do you do?" You can know someone for years before finding out how they make money. Here it seems to be the second thing you learn after their name, and the third thing you learn is where they went to university. I find it to be a pretty stultifying narrowing down of what is interesting about a person, an assumption that these are the big things that define them (it doesn't help that I don't have a pat, three word answer to the question, either).

                                  On the "where are you from?" question, two more things: first, as Hobbes notes, the intent of the questioner is irrelevant. Once a questioner knows that people hear the question myriad times and it creates an impression of otherness, the questioner should learn to stop asking it. The second, related, thing is that there are perfectly good alternatives. I did used to ask people "Did you grow up in San Diego?" which is a valid question as something like 60% of the population had moved from elsewhere, whether it was somewhere in the North like LA, or the East Coast, or a completely different country - Ironically in San Diego, white people felt more likely to be incomers and the non-white population more likely to have been born in the area. I was generally more interested in the answers of the people who could remember when it was all fields than the answers of the people who'd moved from Dallas.

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                                    #92
                                    Originally posted by treibeis View Post
                                    I got asked that a few weeks ago, by what Germans often refer to as "a typical English gentleman". When I told him, he said, "So you didn't attend university, then?" At which point I told him to fuck off.
                                    I think that 'attend' is the best bit of that.

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                                      #93
                                      Getting sent on courses or conferences at the other end of the country and we'd all be in some room together making hideous small talk until the course started or the break was over. It was always the follow up question that was fraught with danger

                                      "So, whereabouts do you live?"

                                      "Bristol"

                                      "Oh, are you City or Rovers?"

                                      Either answer was great and a chance to chat about footy. The worst possible responses were always

                                      "I dont like football" and almost as bad
                                      ​"Manchester United"

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                                        #94
                                        You've got to stop equating suburban San Diego with "the West Coast".

                                        And while you are at it, stop equating affluent suburban New England with "the East Coast".

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                                          #95
                                          Originally posted by Sporting View Post
                                          How do people here generally start conversations with strangers, new students etc?
                                          Luckily for me and everyone around me, I am a dreadful gobshite and tend to just go with the first thing that pops into my head.

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                                            #96
                                            Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
                                            The second, related, thing is that there are perfectly good alternatives. I did used to ask people "Did you grow up in San Diego?" which is a valid question as something like 60% of the population had moved from elsewhere,
                                            Alternative / workaround. What's the difference? You're still getting to the same information but you've told yourself you're not offending anyone.

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                                              #97
                                              Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                              You've got to stop equating suburban San Diego with "the West Coast".
                                              I don't recall getting the "what do you do?" question in LA or Seattle or Portland. At least, not in the first few minutes of talking to them.

                                              Your point about equating the wealthy North-East with the East Coast is well made.

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                                                #98
                                                Originally posted by Foot of Astaire's View Post

                                                "Bristol"

                                                "Oh, are you City or Rovers?"

                                                Either answer was great
                                                It most definitely wasn't.

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                                                  #99
                                                  Originally posted by Sporting View Post
                                                  How do people here generally start conversations with strangers, new students etc?
                                                  At work? Talk about work. Elsewhere? I don't, really. Maybe the weather, if forced to. Or whatever they insist on bothering me with, if I can't avoid them.

                                                  Comment


                                                    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                                    You've got to stop equating suburban San Diego with "the West Coast".

                                                    And while you are at it, stop equating affluent suburban New England with "the East Coast".
                                                    Quite right. Both places are in "the Midwest".

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