Matt T

Have you noticed how American bloggers always refer to their armed forces as 'we', as in 'We will hit them with a cruise missile attack, then we'll move in with two pincer movements' etc, while British bloggers tend to refer to 'the army' or so on, e..g 'The air force will bomb the runway, then the marines will move in'?

I was trying to decide why. At first I thought maybe it was because in the war on Iraq the Americans will be doing all the work, hence 'we', while the British will only be bit part players. However I don't think during the Falklands most Brits would say 'we'. Then I thought perhaps Americans were just more patriotic, and the armed forces are Americans' armed forces, whereas in Britain they are the Queen's armed forces, and we are more cynical about this sort of thing. That may be the reason, but I'm not convinced. Perhaps a better explanation is that Americans really think this is a fight to death -- like world war II. I can image the British saying 'we really hit them hard tonight' during that war. To most Britons this is an unnecessary war and so saying 'we' seems somewhat ridiculous.

posted by Matthew @ 2/26/2003 01:59:00 PM Comments: 0