Following up on British humor and frugal eggs, as a bit of cultural investigation, I took the opportunity to ask D his opinions on this topic as a British person. Granted, he's a little bit more international than the average Brit on the street as he worked in the US for two years, in Australia for two years and Germany for seven years. However, I was curious as to what a late 30's British male would say on this topic.
H: What do you think about the egg post and the comments on it?
D: I think you have a bunch of Americans reading and posting on your blog who never lived in the UK.
H: Well sure, some of them are Americans in America and others are Americans in Germany, and others are to/from elsewhere but my UK readers living in the UK are few and far between. Did you see any reason to be offended by this egg cartoon, as a Brit?
D: I think it's advertising or marketing. It's not intended to offend, it's meant to sell eggs in a way which is different from its competitors.
H: Yeah, you're a male, would a female British person perhaps be offended? Your sister or mother?
D: I can see if you are a mother with young children, that you wouldn't want to have to explain the slang of 'to get laid' to a five year old in the supermarket. But in that case you're using the basic explanation that the chickens laid the eggs recently, so what's the problem?
To explain further, the point you're missing H...'to be laid' isn't such a commonly used phrase over here like it is in the US. Sure, we know what it means, mainly from American movies or television, but I would never say, 'I got laid last night', nor would I hear that phrase from any of my friends. You would said 'I had sex last night' and that would be that. So it doesn't have as much force or such a negative connotation to me, because I never use the phrase.
So I would be curious, in particular of the people who were offended, as to who has ever lived in the UK? I would think none, because this type of humor is normal in the UK and wouldn't be cause for offence. Similar to how when I lived in Germany slapstick humor was quite popular there so one saw lots of this type of humor. I can see this egg box wouldn't have made it to the shelves in the US because the definition of humor is different and the culture is different.
H: So would this advertising impact whether or not you'd buy these eggs?
D: Nah. I do buy only free range eggs, which these are, so perhaps I'd buy them, perhaps not depending on the price and expiration date. Normally I buy happy eggs as that is what Asda carries in free range at a good price.
H: Thanks for the info.
So there we have an initial opinion. My population to survey is a little bit small in that anyone whom I interact with is usually a little more international than the average Brit (so working in international company J, for example). However, I will be surveying a female from there next to get another opinion on this topic.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Wow! I had no idea your earlier entry had set off such a hailstorm of controversy. I had fin reading all the posts though!
Post a Comment