Discussion»Questions»Language» The United States is unique in some respects. One is that a traveler /visitor of what other country is referred to as UGLY?
Ugly Australians certainly exist, but they're referred to as bogans. You know the kind - the guys wear red flannelette shirts over black wife beaters, cement stained drill shorts or cargos and steel capped boots without socks. The women wear mismatched track suits and ugg boots and are accompanied by three or more kids, no two of whom have the same biological father.
As someone who has traveled quite a bit, I have seen this attitude directed at Germans and Japanese, and most others. But never Canadians for some reason.
Since you and I are practically bosom buddies these days and we answer each other's posts as a matter of course... I thought I would tell you a little story.. my son, my younger one.. was sent to an orthodontist.. he was supposed to have braces..and he did try that for a while.. but hated it... We thought and thought about it.. and the more I thought about it.. the more I wondered.. unless one has a really hideous disfigurement of the teeth then does one *really* feel that they need to have perfect teeth? My thinking was.. God/nature/whatever force that makes us unique made his teeth a certain way.. .why do we feel the need to all have perfect teeth that all look the same? SO in the end my son opted to have a tooth out.. that way his teeth were no longer overcrowded... and so maybe his teeth aren't all regimentally the same size and perfect.. but they work, they are clean, they are well kept... so to me that's all that matters... I have uneven teeth too.. back in my day they never even offered treatment...I have overcrowded teeth.. so not the celebrity pearly white perfectly even teeth here either... Funny enough though... my daughter has perfectly straight, perfectly even regimental teeth.. So ya there's very probably some truth in this stereotypical myth.. and of course we really do all go round eating cucumber standwiches and saying tally ho old chap, while tipping our bowler and striding out with our umbrella.
Interestingly... I could find no reference to an ACTUAL book by the title and of the nature you claim.. A title by that name DOES appear in one of the episodes of the Simpsons.. SO I am afraid that there probably isn't really such a book and it isn't popular around the world.. it's just a tease in a cartoon..
EVERYONE has less than "perfect" (whatever that means) tooth orientation across all 28, or 32 teeth (or however many teeth a person has left). It's one of the plights of being imperfect human beings.
But in this case I'm not taking a shot at the level of dental care available in the UK. The Big Book of British Smiles is a reference to an episode of the animated TV show The Simpsons. In the episode in question the character Lisa "needs" braces and her father can't even afford those old, nasty metal braces that need that external hardware at night (no Invisaline for poor Lisa). If a particular patient was reluctant to go through the process then that book, with "photos" of British people with VERY exaggerated tooth misalignment was presented to the patient to show how their smile might look in the not too distant future. I think that Price Charles was prominently featured . . .
Yes, I got that it's from Simpsons.. it wasn't all that clear from your original post that you knew that.. that's the trouble with humour it doesn't always come across well in print.. SO I wasn't sure if you thought it was a real book! We know there are stereotypes.. mostly there's some truth to it, sometimes not, mostly everyone can laugh at such things..
I think I was thinking about the perfect smiles.. where all the teeth are perfectly even and ultra whitened to within an inch of their life...Hollywood smiles maybe? And that has become an issue.. the desire for perfect teeth - many people do have them fixed dont they. And that trend is rapidly catching on here...
Dental treatment is fortunately free in the UK to anyone under 18 - and available at very reduced prices to everyone else. Unless one chooses to go Private.
Not sure how you could have made the quite incorrect assumption that I was "unfamiliar" with The Simpsons.
If you "Google" that precise book title the ONLY thing that comes up is that episode of The Simpsons. There is no isbn associated with that title.
And yes, Hollywood and Madison Avenue present VERY unrealistic concepts as to what's the "perfect" body. Those movie, television and advertising moguls think that human beings should all be the same, all come off an assembly line. It's actually quite disgusting.
Incidently, the only negative thing I've ever heard about British dental care was for British author James Wight (better know by his nom de plume James Herriot) who related an experience he went through when he joined the British military during WWII. And that was with a "dentist" that was assigned to remove certain teeth from ALL new recruits. Very funny story.
This post was edited by Salt and Red Pepper at August 14, 2017 12:40 PM MDT
See this is where the difficulty lies.... and why even though I try to use logic and reason with you. it can probably never succeed. You cannot see ... SO you said, 'Have you ever seen the Big Book of British Smiles ? It's popular with orthodontists around the world.' There was no reference to the Simpsons.. none.. that'a a fact. There was no smiley or emoticon to indicate that you were attempting humour... none.. SO for all intents and purposes it looked as though you really did seem to think it was a real book.. which, I agree would be ridiculous.. but given some of our other conversations and the glaring anomalies ... well I couldn't be at all sure.
I am aware of James Herriot. Generally a fiction writer - quite famous here. He writes, as I will assume you know of a time when people were less educated, and where people were still coming out of the period where poor people had no access to healthcare or dental care.. You will know, that the NHS system of free health and dental care didn't start until after the war..
Incidentally, since you like stories.. and it is kinda related... I have been very involved in feline health... and in America they often advocate in some breeds taking all the teeth out by the age of 3 such is the level of dental health problems in some breeds of cats there.
Slartibartfast 