I'm an American and I have a Chicago accent. I found this out working with a medical director from Wisconsin. We found it out with words ending in -ake (take, mistake, fake -- he would say taaaaaake it, lots of emphasis on the vowel. Not around here, it's more like tay-k (tay-k yer coat off and set awhile)...
and what is this thing called? The Wisconsin office called it a bubbler, but I know it as a water fountain. I think bubblers and water fountains are two different things up there, though (this round one with the arch of water is a bubbler, but the one you'd find in a school is a water fountain)
My nephew did an archaeological internship in Turkey, six weeks long, several summers ago. He found that most of the people there thought Americans drive fancy cars and carry guns. Most of the people from that village who were on the team were Muslim, so when they would respond to the daily calls to pray, the American and British members of the team would either continue their work quietly or take a break in a different area. They hoped to keep a low profile even though they were such a large group of Westerners in that one village. My nephew felt they were pretty successful and as a result they learned a lot about the area of Turkey they were working in, and the country in general.
I went to Russia in 1998 as part of a mission work team from church. Part of the pre-trip training was on the culture and how not to stand out as an "ugly American". It was about being respectful, courteous, dressing modestly and in a way that didn't call unwanted attention to us, and treating others as we'd like to be treated.
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