The Typical American

A foreigner is very much at a loss to describe a typical American, as there are all sorts of them and we can hardly strike an average or construct a type by posing them as in a collective photograph.

But if we must try, here goes for the typical American of the educated classes. He is not very like an Englishman; he is rather more like a Frenchman, but still more like an American. You cannot say where he differs in appearance from a Briton; it may be in his necktie, his boots, or the way in which he brushes his hair. He seldom looks as if he lived much in the open air or was fond of field sports. He is much livelier than an Englishman, more original in manner, more fertile in ideas, more modern in every way. He does not mind explaining to you the niceties of baseball; he seems to know a great deal about cookery.

He very seldom talks with an English accent, and even when he does, his idioms betray him. He takes an interest in poker, but is no gambler. He is much too familiar with English life to be very keenly curious about it. He is rather fond of the play, knowing and caring very much about British authors, actors, pieces, and so forth. He is kind, courteous, ingenious, obliging, a good fellow, and welcome because he is infinitely more alive than most of the British. He is patriotic, but no Chauviniste. He does not talk about the War and Mr. Abraham Lincoln. We are sorry when he goes away, and glad when he comes back again, with a new budget of good stories, for, if he has a national trait, it is the swapping of anecdotes. He is not a man that anybody would think of trying to impose on, but he is not demonstratively acute.

On the whole, this appears an amiable type; but is this the typical American? It is really impossible to say, when he is taken out of his business, his home, his furniture, his books, his newspapers, his restaurants, and shops, and theatres, and streets.

In my opinion there is no typical American, I, however, believe that there are some traits which are found in almost every American.

Nations are like human beings: when they are young, they have the qualities of children. This childishness has given birth, in this country, to the chief American trait – inquisitiveness. Take American journalism. Doesn’t it live by catering to this national trait? Let an artist, a singer, a painter, a writer, become popular in America: will not your papers immediately inform the public what he or she has for breakfast? Personally, I think such details must be very uninteresting, but they are not. Journalists are like other men of business: they supply the article that is wanted. The personalities, the details of private life, some of them most trivial, that are made public every day – all this tends to show that inquisitiveness is an American trait, and, I personally believe, the chief American trait.

Are there any other traits, more or less typical of American manners? I believe there are. Generosity, impulsiveness, forgiveness, and – excuse the word – cheek are among them. The American runs wildly after the dollar, but he does not love it; he likes it for what it provides. He will resent an insult, but very quickly forgets it; and there is no man in the world that can stand good-humored chaffing as well as he does. He is extremely confident, simply because he has done such marvellous things in such a short time that he simply believes nothing is impossible to him. His ideas are eccentric, but eccentricity is only an exaggerated form of the activity of mind. He lives on a continent so vast that he can hardly see a limit to it.

I repeat it, I have never discovered the typical American, although I have discovered traits that are characteristic of most Americans; and, as for American gentlemen, I have never been able to distinguish them from English or French gentlemen. The aristocracy of nature is universal.

(After Andrew Lang and Max O’Rell; adapted from http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_typical_American)

Write down the adjectives which the authors use to describe the characteristics of the typical American. For each characteristics find the explanation the authors give or the definition.

Example: lively – fill of energy and enthusiasm

Inquisitive – asking a lot of questions about things people don’t want to talk about (Let an artist, a singer, a painter, a writer, become popular in America: will not your papers immediately inform the public what he or she has for breakfast?

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3. Find the words or phrases in the text that match the following definitions:

a. confused and now knowing what to do

to come across, or encounter suddenly or unexpectedly ______________________________

b. able to produce good ideas or results ______________________________

c. a large amount of something ______________________________

d. to show something, to reveal something ______________________________

e. a limited stock or supply of something ______________________________

f. provide people with something they want or need ______________________________

g. try very hard to achieve or get something ______________________________

h. to experience angry feelings because you have been

treated without respect or have been offended ______________________________

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