In 1977 the BBC gave airtime to Tom Jackson, General Secretary of the British Union of Post Office Workers. Mr. Jackson was up in arms about a recent proposal that the British mail adopt the German method of addressing envelopes in which the house number is written after the name of the road, not before it (i.e. Downing Street 10, instead of 10 Downing Street). Jackson spoke at great length about the enormous burden this change would place upon postal employees, insisting that "Postal workers would be furious because it would turn upside-down the way we have learned to sort." His comments elicited an immediate reaction from the audience, many of whom phoned up to voice their support for Jackson's campaign. What the audience didn't realize was that there were no plans to change the way the British addressed their mail. Mr. Jackson's diatribe was an elaborate April Fool's Day joke.
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.

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I can see your point but to be fair, it happens all over the world.

The Brits have a far safer three pin plug system, as an example, than the rest of Europe. If they want to 'get in line', they'll have to devolve some technology and that isn't an advancement at all.

The Euro is a weak currency and loads of European countries already want to lose it again. The British Pound stirling is quite a strong currency so the Brits don't all want to take a gamble with the new one. Sounds fair to me.

And the language too - don't forget their English is the original which we all speak. Us Americans have raped it and it's fair that they get all 'pissy' about that.

If we had our basketball (derived from Netball, incidentally) turned into a world sport but they make changes in the rules all over, would we not also be annoyed with that? 'Hey, that's NOT how you play!'.

We'd be saying that too.
Posted by Hmmm  in  US  on  Mon Oct 10, 2005  at  01:03 AM

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A professor of English (I think he was an American) once stated that English doesn't borrow words from other languages. English follows other languages into dark allys, clubs them, and rifles through their pockets for loose vocabulary.
Posted by RabidEnglish  on  Wed Oct 26, 2005  at  09:49 AM

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Hrmm, what is confusing about the British monetary system? 100 pennies to the pound. Simple. The American system of cents, dollars, nickels and quarters is a lot more difficult.

And in case you weren't aware, many of the nations that drive on the right hand side do so simply because the British drive on the left. Call it jealousy of the old British Empire if you will...
Posted by Mike  on  Thu Dec 08, 2005  at  03:33 AM

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"1. The British drive on the left side of the road. Except in commonwealth countries and Japan, this is not the way most of the world does it."

Most people used to travel on the left up until the 18th or 19th century, it was mainly the French who changed to the Right (particularly Napolean), as most people in the World are right handed, it was always more natural to travel on the left. So travelling on the left is the original way, the French and American way is the one that changed from the normal...

"2. Use of British spellings despite the fact that American English is the most commonly used in the world. I really don't care about this, but Brits tend to get pissy if you don't use their spellings in things like Wikipedia."

The language is called English, therefore the English way of spelling is correct (aka Standard English), American English is a deviation. And what is your source for the claim that American English is most commonly used?

"3. Resistance to changing to the euro. The British monetary system is just confusing if you aren't used to it."

Confusing how?
US system: 100 cents = 1 dollar.
European: 100 cent = 1 euro
British: 100 pence = 1 pound
I can see how that must really trouble people, it's SOOOOO different.
Posted by Paddy  on  Sat Jan 28, 2006  at  11:49 PM

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Stop making this into an AP Euro debate! By the time I finished reading all the comments, I had forgotten the original prank... which was supposed to be funny, anyways.

Actually, I would much rather discuss April Fool's jokes in seminar than "the recent acquisition of Czechoslovakia and invasion of Poland by Hitler."
Posted by Jean  on  Mon Mar 13, 2006  at  04:58 PM

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nice one :D lol
Posted by xsforums.co.uk  on  Wed Mar 22, 2006  at  09:57 AM

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does Japan even have fractions of Yen?
Posted by werd?  in  New York  on  Sat Apr 01, 2006  at  04:20 PM

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i want magazine
Posted by ernest asuman  in  ghana  on  Sun Apr 02, 2006  at  09:46 AM

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obviously this whole thread is wicked old now, but why the hell would the British wish to switch to the Euro? The Pound Sterling is worth quite a bit more than the Euro and always has been, which I believe is the predominant reason they declined switching even though they're part of the EU.
Posted by chloe  on  Sun Apr 02, 2006  at  07:37 PM

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and to think this was all started by an Aussie having a little joke... No need to get pissy is there, there's more dialectical variants of English in Britain than the rest of the world put together! American English is a breeze compared to a sentence in Black Country or Geordie... and god forbid we get onto txt spk.
Posted by Sarah  in  Liverpool, UK  on  Sat Apr 22, 2006  at  04:56 PM

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'The British monetary system is just confusing if you aren't used to it.'

Yeah, 100 pence to the pound. Really confusing.
Posted by Don  in  Northumberland  on  Sun Apr 23, 2006  at  08:38 AM

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I'm confused.
Posted by American  in  America  on  Mon Apr 24, 2006  at  05:07 AM

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Why do we have to change to the Euro? The Queen's pounds are the strongest currency in the world. So.........
Posted by Tom  in  England  on  Sat May 06, 2006  at  12:42 PM

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you guy's are so silly to argue over this issues, U.S. is clearly just a larger version of Britain, with bigger cars and more fat people.
Posted by ana  on  Sat May 13, 2006  at  07:47 AM

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HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY COUNTRY!!!!!!

YOU WILL PAY, BY CHEQUE NOT CASH.
Posted by Dingledong  in  I don't know!  on  Sat Jun 17, 2006  at  12:04 PM

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I think dingledong is from britian, if anyone wonders. Also, Britian is not anywhere the same as the U.S. As most of the population of the US detest us Brits, calling us "quaint" and "pompous", when that is never the case in Britian, especially London, and believing that American english is the only english.
Posted by Monsterman  in  Fairyland  on  Sat Jun 17, 2006  at  12:10 PM

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duh duh duh
Posted by wolfwood N.D.  on  Sun Nov 26, 2006  at  08:59 PM

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I disagree, Monsterman. The only bashing I hear is from the British, usually talking about us "Yanks" in some disdainful manner or another. Really, some of you need to pull your heads from your own arses, and others could stand to remove the sticks from their butts.
Posted by Beth C  in  USA  on  Fri Jan 19, 2007  at  01:24 PM

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Old thread, but heck... this is interesting.

Quote from UK: "As most of the population of the US detest us Brits, calling us "quaint" and "pompous", when that is never the case in Britian, especially London, and believing that American english is the only english."

Quote from US: "I disagree, Monsterman. The only bashing I hear is from the British, usually talking about us "Yanks" in some disdainful manner or another. Really, some of you need to pull your heads from your own arses, and others could stand to remove the sticks from their butts."


Sounds mutual to me. US bashing UK, UK bashing US. And all because of some prank years ago about a postal system modification. And who cares about which English is "proper"? It's a living language, and as such, every location that uses it--even every individual that uses it--is going to bastardize it somewhat. So? Even the "pure" English that those in the UK speak is a bastardization of older dialects. Try to read Beowulf in its original English form, and you'll see what I mean. And that was a bastardization of something older, I'm sure. And if the original speakers of latin were alive today, they'd be complaining because English stole stuff from their language.
Posted by OE  on  Fri Feb 23, 2007  at  11:56 PM

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Very good, although you missed my favorite Irish one. I remember this from years ago as a child growing up in Ireland. A Cork radio station once ran a news story on April 1 declaring that the government had decided that Ireland was going to join the rest of continental Europe and begin driving on the right-hand side of the road. However, it was going to be a phased-in project beginning with heavy trucks and buses on January 1 the following year and all other traffic by March 31. Apparently the phones went crazy at the radio station with people trying to point out the obvious flaw.

My favorite prank to pull is to give someone a message that a Mr Russell, Jack had called and wants them to call them back urgently at this number___ (the number being that to a local dog kennel).
Posted by nkelleher  in  CA, USA  on  Thu Mar 29, 2007  at  02:44 PM

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