From puzzling price tags to adding chemicals to water, these are several things Americans
do that confuse the rest of the world:
10.
Tipping
One of the most considerably confusing things that Americans do is tip, generally a lot
more than people in other countries.
Plus, figuring out who you’re supposed to tip in the United States can be puzzling.
The most common place to leave gratuity is at a restaurant.
The majority of servers in the US make a significantly lower minimum wage than everybody else because
tips are expected.
So, instead of making the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage, they make the $2.13 per hour
federal tipped minimum wage.
So, people who work as waiters, waitresses, bartenders, or in various other service positions
often rely on their tips to make ends meet.
If you’re wondering who else you should tip in America, then think about whether or
not the person is providing a special service.
For instance, you probably wouldn’t tip your cashier at the grocery store, but you
might want to give a gratuity to somebody who brings your groceries to your car for
you.
Another example is if you’re picking a pizza up from somewhere, you most likely won’t
give extra money to the cook; however, if you order a pizza for delivery, then you would
probably tip the person who brings it to your house.
9.
Water Fluoridation
It’s safe to say that there are probably many United States citizens that don’t know
about this one.
But, there are millions of people in America that drink artificially fluoridated water.
For those who don’t know, fluoride is a chemical that was discovered to help prevent
tooth decay.
In the 20th century, the United States was the first country to begin fluoridating water
on a considerable scale.
However, we aren’t the only country that does this; other nations include Australia,
Brazil, Ireland, Serbia, and Spain.
But, we do have more public water fluoridation than other places; there are more people in
the US drinking fluoridated water than the rest of the world combined.
As of 2012, 64% of our citizens consume this altered water.
There is controversy over this practice for a good reason; many believe it is wrong from
political, moral, economic, and safety standpoints.
Since ingesting too much fluoride can cause adverse health effects, many people disagree
with adding it to public water systems, especially since it’s more difficult to control your
daily intake that way.
Plus, fluoride isn’t something we need to survive; even what they’re trying to prevent,
tooth decay, isn’t a side effect of insufficient fluoride consumption.
In addition to that, 40 to 50% of the fluoride we ingest accumulates in our bodies.
So, you can see why many places would find this confusing… many of us Americans do
too.
8.
Ice In Drinks
Anybody who has traveled outside of the United States knows that in many places getting a
significant amount of ice in your drinks is considered odd.
For instance, an article by Alina Simone on The New York Times website talks about her
Ukrainian roots.
She writes, “...I was raised on room-temperature beverages and always associated ice with a
raft of great American stuff...My own grandmother would cringe from a glass of ice water…”.
She further discusses that most older Russian people don’t put ice in their drinks either
for various reasons, including diluting drinks, sensitive teeth, and tradition.
But, we serve a lot of ice in nearly everything that isn’t hot tea, coffee, or chocolate.
In fact, most of the time, you have to specifically ask for them to leave the ice out if you don’t
want it.
But, there’s a good reason that US citizens opt for ice almost every time they order a
drink.
Americans used to harvest ice during the winter and store it through the summer months in
a covered well; it was a challenging task performed with saws and axes.
A ton could cost hundreds of dollars.
In the 1800s, Frederic Tudor of Boston, Massachusetts began an ice-harvesting business.
Tudor was off to a rocky start at first, but he soon discovered new insulation techniques
that kept the ice frozen for longer periods of time.
He was able to ship it to the Caribbean, where people used it to preserve their medicine
and food.
The demand for ice in America grew as well.
Tudor even began suggesting that people use it to cool their drinks… that’s one smart
guy.
Soon enough, US citizens grew accustomed to chilled beverages, and ice became an essential
part of everyday life.
Frederic earned the nickname “Ice King,” and his legacy lives on…
In the US, anyway.
7.
Month Day Year
Another thing people do in the United States that confuses the rest of the world is writing
our dates in a “month/day/year” format instead of writing them in order from the
smallest to largest units.
Most people don’t even have a legitimate answer for this besides, “it’s what we’ve
always done.”
However, if you think about it, it makes sense to some degree.
A simple explanation is that we write the date how we say it.
For example, we would say “September 25th, 2018” instead of “the 25th of September,
2018.”
Except for the case of Independence Day, which we also call the Fourth of July… another
confusing thing to add to the list.
However, another argument is that we write and say the month before the day to go from
general to specific, and since the year is often assumed, it is stated last if at all.
In many cases, the month is the most important piece of information because it allows for
an approximation.
For example, if somebody asked when Madden 19 came out, and you said “August” right
before a loud horn blocked out the rest of what you were saying… they would still know
an approximate date.
However, if you started the sentence with “10th” before the horn sounded… well,
they still wouldn’t have a clue when it was released.
Look, we might be grasping at straws here, but we’re still trying to make sense of
these things ourselves.
6.
Sales Tax
This is one thing that frustrates many people when they visit the United States.
They go to a store, grab an item, bring it up to the register, and they’re told it’s
a higher price!
But, don’t worry guys, this also makes Americans mad because it varies incredibly from state
to state.
No, businesses generally aren't trying to fool you by placing a lower price tag, the
issue stems from our sale tax.
Since each state’s sales tax rates and laws are different, it makes it difficult to put
the total price on every item in a store.
It’s even more difficult for large retail companies, like Walmart and Target, because
they sometimes advertise nationwide prices on their commercials or promotional emails;
therefore, they can’t include a sales tax when it changes in every state.
Sometimes, tax changes from city to city as well.
Plus, not every item is taxable.
For example, there are several states that tax the food you order in a restaurant but
won’t tax the food you buy to eat somewhere else.
This is the leading theory for why sales tax isn’t included in the original price.
Of course, if businesses spent a significant amount of time determining the final price,
it could technically be done.
But, since it’s so complicated, it’s often easier for companies to add it on at the end
of a sale.
5.
America
Something else Americans do that baffles the rest of the world is just that: we refer to
ourselves as Americans.
However, it isn’t only United States citizens that use the general term; people in numerous
other countries accept the classification as well.
The controversy stems mostly from citizens of other nations located within the American
continents.
Since they are from the Americas too, they think it’s wrong for us to claim the term
“American” exclusively for the United States.
But, the reason it is commonly accepted comes from the 1776 United States Declaration of
Independence, which refers to our country as “the thirteen united [sic] States of
America.”
Saying “American” was a simple way to refer to our citizens by shortening the name.
Plus, the term was used in various official documents.
It is written in the Federalist Papers from the late 1780s, and George Washington said,
“[t]he name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity,” during his
farewell address in 1796.
It was used widely throughout the 18th century as well; so, other terms didn’t seem to
stick, including Usonian, United-Statesian, and US-American.
4.
Don’t Use Metric
Another significant thing the rest of the world questions about the United States is
why we still use the customary system, which is often incorrectly referred to as the Imperial
system; the two have common roots, but they are different.
Well, Americans initially adopted this system because we needed standardized measurements,
and metric was considered atheistic at the time.
Plus, France didn’t invite US leaders to Paris for the metric system unveiling because
they were upset about our connections with England.
But, the more important question is why haven’t we converted yet?
One reason was that nobody wanted to spend the time or the money to do so.
For example, NASA says that changing the metric system “would be over $370 million.”
However, they pointed out that not converting has had repercussions as well; they lost $125
million when their Mars Climate Orbiter was destroyed after a mix-up with US Customary
and metric units.
Another reason is that the United States Metric Board, which was established to promote metrication,
was abolished in 1982 under Ronald Reagan; it wasn’t considered to have much impact
regarding furthering metric system use in the United States, and American citizens notedly
ignored the Metric Board’s efforts.
Lastly, despite these setbacks, the International System of Units, or modern metric system,
has been adopted in several ways by the United States.
For instance, on all of our rulers, centimeters and millimeters are included alongside inches
and feet.
So, although we haven’t converted entirely to metric, the units are widely used.
3.
Single Color Bills
Many countries have currencies that come in all different colors and sizes.
However, here in the United States, all of our bills are the same size and pretty much
the same color.
Well, let’s talk about the history of our paper currency for a second.
When the federal government needed to supply money for the Civil War in 1861, they began
making paper money.
They were originally called “greenbacks” because… you guessed it!
They were green on the back.
The reasoning for the color was to prevent counterfeiting; photographs wouldn’t be
possible since they only came in black and white at the time.
Although our paper money has remained green overall, some other hues have been added to
increase counterfeit prevention… just not as much as other nations.
The reason our money is small is that the government was trying to save some cash, and
they shrunk it down…
Yes, the pun was intended.
As far as why the bills have stayed about the same size and nearly the same color over
the years is somewhat of a mystery.
Maybe it would cost a lot to change it.
Perhaps it’s because it seems to work as-is.
2.
Drinking Age
This is something that confuses Americans as much as the rest of the world… probably
because many of us need to brush up on our history.
But, anyway, why is our legal drinking age 21 instead of 18 like it is in many other
countries?
Well, the age was chosen in 1984 when the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed.
Before this was officially established, the minimum age in some states varied from 18
to 20 years old.
However, 21 became the legal age once Prohibition ended in 1933.
This age was the standard until the 26th Amendment was passed in 1971, which lowered the voting
age to 18 years old.
When this happened, people started questioning why the drinking age shouldn’t be reduced
as well.
Then, in the early to mid-1970s, several states changed it back to 18, 19, and 20 years old.
Many people believed that if somebody was old enough to vote and be drafted for war,
then they should also be able to drink legally.
However, when younger people began consuming alcohol, traffic accidents increased.
So, the 1984 act said that if states didn’t raise the age to 21, then the federal government
would withhold highway funds; thus, all states reinstated 21-year age minimum by 1988.
1.
Soccer VS Football
One of the most confusing things Americans do is call football “soccer.”
However, the word “soccer” didn’t even come from the United States… surprise, surprise!
It came from England.
According to Professor Stefan Szymanski, the term was originally used to differentiate
between the types of football because there wasn’t only one set of rules.
Back in the 1800s, rugby and football were variations of each other.
By 1871, however, they were called Rugby Football and Association Football respectively.
Around the same time in America, a third version of the sport was developing… what we now
call “American Football.”
Then, in England, the terms “soccer” and “rugger” were created to tell Association
and Rugby Football apart.
Szymanski cites a 1905 letter to The New York Times, which stated, “It was a fad at Oxford
and Cambridge to use “er” at the end of many words, such as foot-er, sport-er, and
as Association did not take an “er” easily, it was, and is, sometimes spoken of as Soccer.”
However, people in Britain began to dislike the word “soccer” and began saying “football”
again.
But, the National Football League is a big deal in the United States, so we stuck to
calling it “soccer.”
Things are less confusing for us this way.