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Why Europeans Call These Things “AMERICAN” ???
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Apr 22, 2025
American fridge, coffin or bread? Why do we call it like that? Guide to cultural differences Europe vs USA Get SECRET MAPS & TIPS for Prague here http://patreon.com/honestguide Honest Guide https://instagram.com/realhonestguide Janek https://instagram.com/janekrubes/ Honza https://instagram.com/honzamikulka/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HonestPragueGuide/ The music we use for our videos https://bit.ly/HonestMusic Get creative assets for your videos https://bit.ly/HonestFilmmakersAssets 0:00 Cultural Differences 0:25 American Fridge 1:36 American Coffin 2:38 American Bed 3:18 American Potatoes 4:21 American Bread 5:40 American Night 6:31 American Smile
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0:00
American fridge, American bread, American bug attacking our country
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Why do we call these things American when for American they don't need that adjective
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Well, let us explain. Hi there, I'm an honest guide here in Czech Republic in Europe
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and this is my favorite series we have on our channel which is cultural differences
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And why do we sometimes use the adjective American to things that are not necessarily American
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Let me give you a first example and that would be a fridge. This fridge right here, even though it was made in Korea, is actually American
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Or if I want to go buy it, if I go online, I will go into the section or into the aisle that says American fridge
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Now, you in US would refer to it as the side-by-side. We call it American, mainly because it's big and because it has the side-by-side door
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So this we refer to as the American fridge. because one half of it is fridge, the other half is a freezer
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But here's the funny part. This we still refer to as the American fridge
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It's in the American fridge's aisle, but the top part is only a fridge
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The bottom is freezer. So in the U.S., they actually refer to this as the French door fridge
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French doors are now the most popular style of refrigerators, so that demand also brings up the price a little bit
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Samsung, Korean. Samsung, Korean, Korean, Korean. So much for America, huh? Now let's stay with these box shaped objects
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that we refer to as American, but let's move from the fridge to a coffin
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Yes, if somebody dies here and you wanna get them a coffin
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you can go to the funeral home and say, I want an American coffin
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Now the difference is that the regular coffin would be cheap and made out of cheap plywood, but the American is like solid, big, and has that
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opening where you can look at the dead person. Now, in the US, you'd refer to that as a casket
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I actually didn't know the difference between a coffin and a casket. I thought they're synonyms, but the difference is that this is what a coffin looks like, and this is what a casket looks like
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But we, to your casket, would refer as the American coffin. Now, the only reason I can think of to
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get an American casket here is if you want to have a funeral with the open casket, which I've
2:27
actually never attended, never heard of, or never been to in our country. So I guess that's mainly
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an American thing. That's why, therefore, you would go to get an American coffin. Since we're already
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in the horizontal position, let's move from a coffin to a bet. More specifically, the American
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bet. You want to wake up like an American movie? I'm actually quoting IKEA, the Swedish seller of
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furniture and they sell American bets here They sell regular bets as well but what is an American bet Well it a bet with the box spring base Now I didn really know what the differences are but there a platform bet and a box spring bet So the box spring bet
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we refer to as the American bet. In general, we're usually talking about something that's
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larger and quite a bit higher. Now, this is a regular potato and this is American potatoes
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Now what the hell is that? Well it's actually a spice to use for potatoes to make them American
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But before these turn into American potatoes you also have to slice them and put them in the oven
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because we're making potato wedges. That's what you would call them in US. But we refer to them
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as American potatoes. And you can even go to the store and get the spices for it that are called American
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One of the biggest cultural differences in a supermarket we noticed is that our aisle
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with cereal is tiny little. This is the only selection we have of cereal. I mean, on the other hand, we have automated robots that just kind of wander around
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This wasn't planned. Anyhow, the aisle is actually much bigger as the sign says, but all of this is just
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healthy stuff. Like, we don't have Fruit Loops or Lucky Charms and stuff like that
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Like, healthy cereal? Since we've already been to the supermarket to get the American potatoes, we also grab the American bread
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Now, what is that? It's a regular sandwich bread that we usually refer to as the toast bread, but it has American flag all over it
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Because it is much wider and larger in size than our toast bread
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I mean, you can clearly see the difference, right? This one is also like fluffier
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I prefer this one. This is the regular Czech one. But not regular Czech European bread
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Our normal bread is much better and nicer. So this is the American bread
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We even have the flag on it and stuff. This is actually a Czech company that makes it
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This specific one is made in Germany. And the company is owned by a Slovak guy who used to be our prime minister
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Now he didn't invent the packaging and the fact that it's an American bread
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He actually copied it from an Austrian company, Ölz. That is a family Austrian company that first brought this to our market
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Also, they sort of marketed it as an American sandwich bread. So this guy saw it and he copied it
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And you Americans are now just like, what? I thought you guys eat baguettes
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No, that's the French people with the fridge. Now, the next one is quite interesting
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And it is the American Night. Now it is a name of a film, of a movie, a French film actually, but it is a term used
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when you turn day into night. And it was specifically used during photography or filming
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First time it was used was in the film Wizard of Oz and the reason they used these techniques back in the days is because they didn have good cameras to film during evenings or low lights
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So they had to film during the day, later turning it into night
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Right now you're looking at me with two lights and some daylight, and Hamza can put a filter
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in the final cut that will turn this day into night. Even if you go on Wikipedia, there's an article about it in English, it's called day to night
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the other languages it is called American Night. Now I actually thought that the term American
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Night is used because it is fake. Because it's pretending to be something that it's not. But
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that's not the case of American Night. It is the case of the American Smile. And I honestly don't
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know if you would say that as an American, that somebody has an American smile. Probably not
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But we say that a lot. And it can mean two things. Either your smile is perfect, you have the
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perfect teeth, perfect smile that almost hurts. It's like cringing. And the other term that I would use it for
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is that your smile is fake. That I just don't believe you're actually smiling
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nor you care how I'm doing. If you still don't understand what the American smile is
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let me show you a Czech film that is sort of a parody on the police academy
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where a famous Czech actor explains it. No! Keep smiling
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Zuby, Zuby, Ameritski! Whoa, man, you bought America? That's awesome. Now, what did my friend buy
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I know, in our language, if he would call me and he'd say, man, I just bought America, he would be referring to a car
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Either an old classic American car, like an Oldsmobile or Pontiac or something like that
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or simply a big, large car. There's one more thing that you can refer to as America and not use it as an adjective, but as a noun, actually
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But for that, we would have to go back in time to the communist era when we were behind the Iron Curtain
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and probably go to see my dad at a university where he would say, like, oh, man, he has Americas
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Can I have one? And obviously, they were referring to cigarettes that were very special if somebody got their hands on American brand cigarettes
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It was something special and they would not refer to them as whatever the brand was, but as Americas
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Amerike. Now, since we're already back in time, let's go take a look at another American thing
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And I believe we have some historical footage. These clouds are not bringing joy and happiness because they are from the West
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With the help of the wind and the clouds, the American imperialists send the Colorado potato beetle on to our country
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The father and the son noticed something little on the ground. They leaned down to pick up something from the road
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yeah, during the propaganda times, they would always refer about the beetle as American. That's
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where the term American buck comes from. Now, last but not least, and we have to talk about this topic
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is the American football. Now, what you call football is not football because you're not
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using your foot nor a ball to play it. You're actually using an egg-shaped object and you're
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playing with your hands. Therefore, it should be called hand egg or egg hand. You decide, but not
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football. That's why we refer to your funny game as American football and our football is what it is
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Now, the objective American usually means good or better or something special. There's even a
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famous Czech movie where the actor is asking another actor, if I put two identical matchboxes
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in front of you and I would say that one is from America, the United States, which one would you
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pick? And he says, well, of course the American, it has to be better. And I'm curious to ask you
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Americans, and I know many of you are watching, do you have the same thing with Europe? If something
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is from Europe, do you consider it to be better quality, better taste, better something? Are there
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things that you refer to as european that we wouldn't understand why i actually discussed this
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with my american cousin and she said that there's butter that they refer to as european or yogurts
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or bread so i'm curious if there's more things that we would be surprised that you refer to
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as european i'm very much looking to the reactions in your comments to today's video while you're down
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there you can subscribe to our channel we will bring you another cultural differences we may talk
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about things that are hard to get in this country or things that are hard to get in some other
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country. So let us know if you would like to see that. Until then, next Sunday, bye-bye
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In the end, I usually teach a Czech word. This time I'm not going to do that, but I'm going to
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show you a cultural difference that may shock you when you come to Europe, and that is that you can't
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just grab a shopping cart. They're locked. Well, how do you get it out? Well, you need a coin. What
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if you don't have a coin? Well, then you need a European-type key. And if you happen to have that
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rather than a coin you can just put it in pull it right out and the shopping cart is yours
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it's a neat trick that i was teaching here on this spot in a show i was doing
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prior to the honest guide which was called uh you're poor how to get a shopping cart for free
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and we filmed that with honza so this is the trick and in check this is
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but we would always say was egg
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