The Xenophobe's Guide to the Americans

American speech is remarkably straightforward. They tell it as it is. Linguistic subtlety, innuendo, and irony that other nations find delightful puzzle the Americans, who take most statements at face value, weigh them for accuracy, and reject anything they don’t understand.

There have been four elections in which a presidential candidate won the popular (national) vote, yet lost the Electoral College vote.

The United States’ election system was created in large part because of the problem of slaves, who were considered to be residents of their states but were not permitted to vote. The Southern planters owned more than 500,000 slaves and wanted them to be counted as population for the purpose of representation in Congress. The northern states objected on the grounds that slaves were not free citizens but chattel. As a compromise, each slave was counted as three-fifths of a person, which gave the southern states greater representation than they otherwise warranted.

They want the government to mind its own business, but they also want it to help them and do more for them.

One reason Americans are obsessed with staying healthy is that it is much cheaper than getting sick

To solve the problem, Americans observe their holidays on a two-tier system. The first tier established the official government holidays, primarily patriotic, which commemorate notable men and important civil events

a secular country, the United States has trouble with holidays because religious observances and saint’s days are off-limits as far as the public calendar is concerned

On the other hand, in many areas teenagers are given a car as soon as they are old enough to drive (usually 16). The insurance payments are astronomical and the danger extreme. More than 6,000 16–20 year-olds are killed by cars each year, but since there’s little public transport it saves hours every day for mothers

Elementary schools focus on teaching children self-esteem, urging them to feel good about their accomplishments (even if such accomplishments don’t include the ability to perform long division without a calculator).

Being depressed is unattractive and thus not suitable for public display.