As someone once said, if you don't want to hear bad about yourself, don't eavesdrop.
The modern equivalent of this has to be googling yourself. Personally I don't even have a linkedin account, let alone facebook or twitter, therefore I can't get the vicarious thrill of seeing my name lit up in a small part of the www firmament, that will be forever me.
However, someone sent me a game, in which what the rest of the world think of your nation can be uncovered e.g
Now try the same for 'English person' ...... top result ....... Eeek! I have saved it because Google will no doubt act and remove this result, but its already been picked up by the media.
Personally, I think it makes one proud to be English.
But sadly its not actually a true reflection of what people think of us (outside of France and Argentina that is), but is in fact what's known as a "Google Bomb". These are created by many users back linking to the search result to give it a high ranking. So although this is a genuine result, it would have been maybe page 25 of the results, until it was manipulated by a campaign to force it to become the top result for the term 'English person'.
Actually, why are these perfectly clean 'Anglo-Saxon' words for female body parts 'swearing', while the Latin words e.g. Vagina, acceptable? Answer, because we were beaten by the norsemen aka 'Normans' in 1066, who brought us the Latin French of the lands they had conquered in France a couple of generations earlier. So the language of the conquerer became the accepted 'clean' medical versions, and the oppressed 'English' words were the vulgar dirty words. That's how history works, to the victor the spoils .... literally.
Anyway, this 'Google bomb' got a laugh in our office today, which shows that unlike most nations, who react like crazy to any slight to their pride e.g. Argentina, we just laughed and shrugged .... now that makes one proud to be English.
The modern equivalent of this has to be googling yourself. Personally I don't even have a linkedin account, let alone facebook or twitter, therefore I can't get the vicarious thrill of seeing my name lit up in a small part of the www firmament, that will be forever me.
However, someone sent me a game, in which what the rest of the world think of your nation can be uncovered e.g
- French Person - top result 'French People' - wikipedia, followed by images for French people.
- German person - top result 'Translation of person in German, followed by Images for German person.
Now try the same for 'English person' ...... top result ....... Eeek! I have saved it because Google will no doubt act and remove this result, but its already been picked up by the media.
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| Caution - rude word |
Personally, I think it makes one proud to be English.
But sadly its not actually a true reflection of what people think of us (outside of France and Argentina that is), but is in fact what's known as a "Google Bomb". These are created by many users back linking to the search result to give it a high ranking. So although this is a genuine result, it would have been maybe page 25 of the results, until it was manipulated by a campaign to force it to become the top result for the term 'English person'.
Actually, why are these perfectly clean 'Anglo-Saxon' words for female body parts 'swearing', while the Latin words e.g. Vagina, acceptable? Answer, because we were beaten by the norsemen aka 'Normans' in 1066, who brought us the Latin French of the lands they had conquered in France a couple of generations earlier. So the language of the conquerer became the accepted 'clean' medical versions, and the oppressed 'English' words were the vulgar dirty words. That's how history works, to the victor the spoils .... literally.
Anyway, this 'Google bomb' got a laugh in our office today, which shows that unlike most nations, who react like crazy to any slight to their pride e.g. Argentina, we just laughed and shrugged .... now that makes one proud to be English.
