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Story
September 23, 1887
The Willimantic Journal
Willimantic, Windham County, Connecticut
What is this article about?
A London correspondent notes that many Americans traveling in Europe secretly wish to be mistaken for Englishmen, sharing an anecdote of a Chicago youth in Paris claiming to be from Berkshire amid the Riviera earthquake panic last winter.
Clipping
OCR Quality
98%
Excellent
Full Text
Rather an Exaggerated Type.
The German, the Frenchman, the Englishman, would not like to be taken for anything else; why should the American? I don't know, but it is so. I have never seen more than two or three Americans in Europe of whom I was able to believe that they would not be secretly pleased to be mistaken for Englishmen. Very often, indeed, I have had young men approach me in conversation in continental hotels or cars and confide to me in the purest Chicago or St. Louis idiom that they were English. One of these, I remember, a refugee in Paris from the earthquake panic on the Riviera last winter, gravely answered me, when I asked him what part of England he came from, "The county of Berkshire." Of course this sort of young fool is familiar in America, and his folly is properly commented upon. But he is after all only an exaggerated type of the great average mass of Americans who swarm over the continent during the opera season.
-London Cor. New York Times.
The German, the Frenchman, the Englishman, would not like to be taken for anything else; why should the American? I don't know, but it is so. I have never seen more than two or three Americans in Europe of whom I was able to believe that they would not be secretly pleased to be mistaken for Englishmen. Very often, indeed, I have had young men approach me in conversation in continental hotels or cars and confide to me in the purest Chicago or St. Louis idiom that they were English. One of these, I remember, a refugee in Paris from the earthquake panic on the Riviera last winter, gravely answered me, when I asked him what part of England he came from, "The county of Berkshire." Of course this sort of young fool is familiar in America, and his folly is properly commented upon. But he is after all only an exaggerated type of the great average mass of Americans who swarm over the continent during the opera season.
-London Cor. New York Times.
What sub-type of article is it?
Curiosity
Deception Fraud
What themes does it cover?
Deception
Social Manners
What keywords are associated?
Americans In Europe
Pretending English
Cultural Pretense
Riviera Earthquake
Berkshire County
Where did it happen?
Europe, Paris, Riviera
Story Details
Location
Europe, Paris, Riviera
Event Date
Last Winter
Story Details
Americans in Europe often pretend to be Englishmen; anecdote of a young man from Chicago or St. Louis claiming to be from Berkshire, England, while fleeing Riviera earthquake panic in Paris.