mr_nool wrote:Wonderwall wrote:freshie wrote:
What was it? I missed it
It was along the lines of being a striker can sometimes be like trying to get ketchup out of a bottle. You keep banging away and nothing happens for ages and then all of a sudden bang you get loads.... No idea why he thought of that?
That analogy is used commonly in Sweden as well. We even call it "the Ketchup Effect". It refers to the Heinz glass bottles.
Wouldn't surprise me that it originally is an American analogy.
It's an Italian-American analogy. It must be since my mother used it, and she was Italian.
Look, the point about Americans pining to be Eurotrash is very true. We know we're a country founded by immigrants, or rather, colonized by immigrants, as all colonies are i suppose. Ahem, anyway....
Do i consider myself Italian or Dutch? of course not...but i know that my family has those roots and it's fun to learn about. Only the Italian traditions were kept alive and only through my mothers generation...with all of us kids it's dissipated. We did however grow up in a household with an extended Italian family, most of whom were born in Italy or were first-generation Americans. Italians, like most Europeans and unlike the current immigrants of today i find, assimilated as job numero uno, and that of course leads to both a bastardization of the culture, and a longing in some parts to keep even the smallest of traditions alive. I grew up with a lot of really influential famlial Italian things that i know my grandmother and grandfather learned in Italy or from their Italian, truly Italian, parents after they arrived in America in the early 1920s...sadly i don't continue any of those traditions...many centered around the Church as well, and i'm not exactly the organized religious type.
The Dutch, and likely German, side of my father were in American for a lot longer...and they were prim, proper farmers...if i consider jam-making and farming culture, which i suppose i do, then there is a lot of that still left, but it is in no way nationalistic.
Americans that say "my wife is half-Italian and i'm full Italian" is just telling you where their families originated many decades or even centuries ago. I can assure you that we are all...Americans. We're just trying to have a conversation...don't hate us. Some of us are dumb, some of us are brilliant. Just like you. ;)
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