Comeuppance

I came across an apparently real post on Reddit from someone who actually said "Why do the British use different words for things? Why can't they just use the real words?"

I have more than once been struck by the almost unbelievable ignorance of some Americans, who are monolingual, monocultural, and trained from birth to suppress curiosity. Famous and true examples such as going up to the tourist information desk at the Idaho border and asking if they were in Des Moines, or wondering where the Capitol and Lincoln Memorial were in Washington... state. I actually knew someone who planned to take a day trip from Seattle to Canada "to see Niagara Falls." Geography seems to be an especial challenge: many Americans can't find Iraq... or Venezuela, or Vietnam for that matter... on a map, and there's good reason to believe the story that Trump thought Greenland was already part of America and when informed it wasn't reacted with, "well, it should be." Canada, too, apparently, although why he thinks a nation actually larger than the lower 48 should just be one state doesn't seem to even occur to anyone. Or the Scottish gentleman who claimed an American tourist came up to him while looking across the Firth of Forth, and asked "is the other side Norway?"

But the one about the English language really sticks in my craw, because it really reflects an attitude of arrogance. Maybe the giant comeuppance our nation and culture are going through right now won't be an entirely bad thing. 

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All Goodness there is makes but one demand of us: that we love one another with all our hearts and without exception. When the People keep this commandment, all falls into place: there is peace; there is plenty; there is happiness; and wisdom ranges far and wide in the world.
—Tardig of Escondaria, 3648 CE