• Vespair@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    Meanwhile on tiktok British people are apparently mad at Americans for not knowing or caring about Robbie Williams

  • Master@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Its not even that great of a mini van. You can get better for cheaper!

  • Fontasia@feddit.nl
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    6 days ago

    How are you supposed to enjoy the music of Civilisation 7 without knowing The Odyssey?

    On a similar note, you’d think the guy on the right would counter with Beowulf

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      I learned what it is when I played oddworld: abe’s oddysey (and as a bonus I appreciated the deliberate misspelling to insert the word “odd” into the title, which they did again in the sequel, abe’s exodus)

  • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    instead we studied useful things

    Have you ever seen any British television quiz game shows? The amount of world geography and history most contestants seem to know is abismal, makes me scratch my head and seriously wonder what many of these people are doing there, in a game show about knowledge. What are they even doing there, in the delusion that they have a shot.

    “What is the capital of Denmark?”
    “Erm… pass.”

    This person’s comment is just another drop in the bucket in the sorry state of things.

  • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    I’m in Canada.
    I wasn’t taught anything about the Odyssey or Iliad
    But I at least know that they’re ancient and Greek.

  • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I’m a little mad that Nolan is making the Odyssey. It’s gonna be so pretentious and trendy, and I’d be surprised if Anya Taylor Joy, Timothee chalamet and Jeremy Allan White aren’t in it, to round it out into the most pretentious movie in history

    Edit: Nolan can’t film anything but drama. Go watch Batman again and notice how awful the fight scenes are shot and the terrible choreography.

    • VerdantSporeSeasoning@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      Yeah, another heavy dramatic saga to wade through. I think I’d prefer a Simon Pegg/Nick Frost adaptation. Or maybe a Matt Stone/Trey Parker version. Something still epic, but also hilarious and full of the vibrancy of humans.

      • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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        You bring up a point, that in these Greek Epics you do find humor. But Christopher Nolan doesn’t know what a sense of humor is

        • Bilb!@lem.monster
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          6 days ago

          There were a couple of moments in Oppenheimer that had me laughing out loud, but I don’t think that was the intention.

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    8 days ago

    It’s wild that the U.K. doesn’t teach the Odyssey, I thought their whole thing was stealing other peoples’ culture and pretending they owned it now.

    • wingsfortheirsmiles@feddit.uk
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      7 days ago

      I did study it at school but had to take Classical Civilisation for one of my GCSE options. Our default in English Literature was a Shakespeare work as previously mentioned (Merchant of Venice for me). I also recall studying An Inspector Calls?

    • Lemming421@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Shakespeare invented literature, so clearly there’s no value in teaching anything from before him…

    • ScrollerBall@lemmy.world
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      Well Greece wasn’t ever a British colony, so they didn’t have as many opportunities to steal artifacts and culture as they did with, say, Egypt or India

    • arudesalad@sh.itjust.works
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      Just looked it up, the Odyssey can be taught in the UK but it is rarely chosen because Shakespeare is easier to teach and students who pick Shakespeare get better grades on average.

        • arudesalad@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          In the UK secondary students study 3 bits of literature for the exam, modern (20th century+), victorian and classical which is everything before then, I think that’s how it works but that’s just from memory

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        We don’t like to brag about it but we fought the Brits in the War of 1812, one of the things we took from England was Greek literature. In turn, we Americans lost the definition of jams vs jelly and the superior spelling of “colour”.

        • ZeffSyde@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          I rebel against this fact by being American and using the spelling of “Grey” for the color, autocorrect be damned.

    • casmael@lemm.ee
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      8 days ago

      ……………I did the odyssey at various points man I think the guy in the tweet is just Polyphemus or smthn like ‘I don’t know who this nobody guy is, ain’t never heard of no odyssey before bro’

      • fakeaustinfloyd@ttrpg.network
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        8 days ago

        Went to a mediocre high school in the US, and I had an English/writing course where the only materials were the Aeneid, Illiad, Odyssey, and Mythology by Edith Hamilton.

        • Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org
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          7 days ago

          That seems above average, but I don’t have too much to compare it to. I read all of this when I took Latin as my language classes. And the odyssey for fun.

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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          This is what we did as well, in AP English. We also did Beowulf. We also had to read the first fucking Harry Potter book because the teacher liked Harry Potter. Imagine a group of the highest achieving 17 and 18 year olds out of 600 students their age writing papers about a book written for 10 year olds.

          Such a waste of time. We got college credit for this bullshit. I’m still mad about it.

          • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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            I feel like there’s a way to do it that doesn’t suck - an examination of the book WRT the hero’s journey, picking out elements borrowed from English literary tradition to see how they’re deployed v. original texts, etc.

            Real talk though, I feel it comes from a place of not knowing how to appeal to young people. I ran into the very same thing once when asked about course ideas for first year students coming directly from high school. I had no idea (still don’t) what would appeal to kids, so I thought a course that used Harry Potter as a keystone text (everybody being familiar, using it as a bridge to more traditional lit) could work. But as I said the words I knew 18 year old me would’ve hated that, sooo…

  • mhague@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    The world doesn’t revolve around America, but you’ll see idiots in Bumbfuck, Romania talking about Soros and wokeism. It’s got to be exhausting.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      Soros is a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust and moved to America afterwards btw, so when someone from the Balkans is complaining about him it’s not ignorance, it means something very specific.

    • OmegaLemmy@discuss.online
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      I find that people get more ticked off about the woke in non American countries even if it really doesn’t involve them (it should) but even then they increase their hostility because of it

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    8 days ago

    As an American, I am going to dine on this single example as if it disproves the idea that we are insular and provincial hicks for the next decade.

        • lath@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          As a layman, i believe you have a stronger private school presence, which tend to specialize in order to differentiate. But I might be wrong because I have limited information on the topic of British education.

          • ThomasCrappersGhost@feddit.uk
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            We have a strong private school presence, yes. Trouble is it leads to privilege and people get on in life not cause they’re clever, but cause they wear the right school tie.

            • lath@lemmy.world
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              6 days ago

              People often choose the easier path, which in this case means choosing status over knowledge.

        • CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org
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          it’s /s because someone could’ve implied that i consider americans and brits as the winners in this competition, when in fact, the only competition they’re winning is the one for the most villanous politic actions. USA is a leaéer here at the first glance, but brits literally created USA, so that kinda makes all of the USA villainy into a subset of the british one

          edit: i was wrong, the best villains are the french, bc William the Conquerror is the reason brits exist, and therefore also the reason usa does

  • bulwark@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    The problem is, I have this big bag of stones in my glass house, and I want to throw them at the UK for being dumb, but if I do, I also have to admit the US education system is trash.

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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      I’ll throw that stone for you

      The British education system is almost as bad as the American education system. The biggest difference between our cultures is that a lot of Americans are willing to point out how incredibly racist our country is

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        It’s not just slavery minimization. A lot of far right Americans have taken over local school boards to ban books that talk about gay people existing or the fact that sex is something that happens, among other nefarious purposes. And a religious organization in Texas writes pretty much all the textbooks used across the country. It can’t be this bad in the UK can it?

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        So much broken glass, was it worth it? Now I have to go get the broom.

        The amazing part is you somehow broke France and the Netherland’s glass too? Just so much to clean up.

    • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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      I can do both. I’m ot gonna let some backwater pit like the UK insult my home, especially since the UK is essentially completely dependent on the US at this point.

    • Krudler@lemmy.world
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      The world is awash in morons and they aren’t localized to that venue, although by way of it’s very structure, it’s a venue that strongly attracts people incapable of holding two thoughts at the same time.

      As G Carlin would have said, think how stupid the average person is and realize 50% are stupider than that. This is the world we live in - where the trivial thoughts emerging from society’s dreck take have equal stage and prominence to expertise and wisdom