> Howdy there from the country across the pond! Yeah! English message! Yeah! anyway...
>
> The other day I saw some footage of Tom Hanks being incredibly sentimental and mushy at something like a press conference. Do you lot in the US of A actually LIKE that kind of stuff? Sentiment can ruin a good bit of comedy (it happens a lot in The Simpsons). Any thoughts?
>
> Incidentally, go and see my cool website:
> i.am/philip.and.i.speak.to.america

I'm not going to answer your actual question about sentimentality but I would like to say a few things, which Sam in his wisdom will probably delete.

We seem to get a lot of posts like yours, on this forum. Posts which ask a question about some aspect of American culture or society. Posts which, to be blunt, seem less concerned with genuine curiosity about whatever topic they purport to be about, than with getting across the idea that Americans Are Stupid And I Want Them All To Suddenly Realise My Country Is Better.

Philbee, I am not from the USA, which is why I am replying to your post on behalf of my American friends at this site. From the way you start your post with "Yeah! English message!", you obviously have the false idea that this site is chock-full of insular Americans who are not aware of anything outside their own borders, and that a message from any other country is by way of being a calendar event. Even a passing acquaintance with this forum would correct that idea.

Secondly, posts like yours do nothing to make me think Americans are stupid and do everything to make me think that YOU are. You are doing your own nationality a disservice and nothing else.

Thirdly, posts like yours reveal a disregard for humanity that I find contemptible. It may not have occurred to you that America, like every other country, is made up of PEOPLE. My country has only three million people and I have yet to identify any common national character I can call the Typical New Zealander. The USA has *cities* with more than three million people. Go on, tell us how every single one of them is the same stupid American.

If you genuinely *were* curious about the sentimentality issue, I apologise, and suggest you learn to write better so that such misunderstandings don't occur in future.

Brunnen-"hrrmph"G