Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[HVC]

But do the Irish communicate like the english or the italians?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Can't be density of population, if that were so then the Dutch would be even worse 

[mongers]

I don't think Brit's are necessarily dishonest, just their communication is built on a lot of subtext. Which can be confusing in cross cultural communication.I blame a class system and a repressive religion


*edit* actually, reminds me of southerners. Bless your hearts.

Not sure I can buy the repressive religion point when we're talking about Anglicanism and comparing cultural communication to, say, Italians

I worked for a very big international law firm and I think everyone had the "cross-cultural communication" but it's always stuck with me because it was quite funny (and also true having worked in global English companies).

But I remember the guy saying there were basically five axes of direct to indirect (e.g. use of humour, use of idiom, politeness etc) and Brits are on the extreme indirect end of basically all of them

FWIW and I have no idea if there's anything to this but years ago I read a book by an anthropologist on English behaviour. One thing I remember is that they talked about polling on social attitudes - things like politeness, privacy/private space or public/private divides - and on loads of areas the country with the closest attitudes to the English was Japan. And I think that's also probably true on extreme indirect communication. I think class is part of it but I also wonder if part of it is just being quite densely populated and socially dense islands.

And not dissimilar climate, latitude and island geography have a big impact.

[Valmy]

Both island nations are devolving into dystopias...but to be fair they share that in common with several places these days.

[HVC]

What's wrong with Japan? Besides the lack of baby making.

[Valmy]

What's wrong with Japan? Besides the lack of baby making.

That's just the beginning.

Xenophobia and a 30 year stagnant economy don't help.