PC equivalents and such

[OC Richard]

I would imagine getting one "National" costume for the USA would be impossible.

Well like in anything else, the people outside of a region see it as monolithic, seeing only the shared characteristics, while those within that region take the shared characteristics for granted and are highly aware of the diversity within the region.

So, for an example we can relate to here, I'm a piper and I've been often hired to play for "British" events. To many here in the US, Highland Dress is the very symbol of Britain. I'm often asked "are you from England?"

A guy I work with is a Korean War veteran, and he told me that in one situation, when his unit was cut off, they heard "the most beautiful sound in the world", the sound of bagpipes, which to them meant survival. "Here come the Limeys!" they shouted in joy. It was the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.

Of course this is all absurd to someone in Britain, but it's the process I'm talking about.

The flip side is people outwith the USA calling us "Yanks". Evidently in New England "Yankee" refers to a quite specific cousinage of old families in one particular area of one particular state, but outside of New England it refers to New Englanders in general. In the US South it refers to anyone in the Northeast quadrant of the country. A Virginian or Texan would be quite insulted to be called a Yankee, but there it is.

Likewise I've seen caricatures of people from the USA and they're shown wearing cowboy hats and speaking with vaguely Southern accents, which people from most parts of the USA would find strange if not actually insulting.

The same process happens with accents. I hear an American trying to do an "English accent". This is absurd: my experience has been that no two people from England speak alike (not even members of the same family), so the entire notion of an "English accent" is as silly as the notion of an "American accent". Once again, people from outside see only the shared characteristics, not the internal diversity. I heard a Scottish woman doing her "American accent" and it was the most bizarre mix of New York Bronx, Southern, and Valley Girl.

I spent some time on YouTube one day listening to Brits, Aussies, etc doing horrid American accents. Many seem to conceive of only one US accent which they call "Texas". Others conceive of two, "Texas" and "California" (by which they mean "Valley Girl".)

Here's one guy...pretty awful stuff, but he has a couple valid obseverations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG0Ecf-zHSI

For those outside of the US, here are three examples of genuine USA accents:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIZgw09CG9E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwA...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM_iG5N83do&feature=fvw

The Appalachian speech in the 2nd video above is exactly how my parents and all my relatives back in West Virginia talk, and the California accent is just about how my children, born and raised here in Orange County, talk.

And here are some of our attitudes about our own speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vF9g...eature=related

So anyhow, the two leading candidates for a US National Costume would be the "frontiersman" dress (think Daniel Boone) or "cowboy" dress.

I would love to see photos of variants of Highland Dress using elements of each of those...