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Nancy Modiano once reported to me (p.c.) an informal tally she did at a conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on American Indian education, with attendance as follows: Anglos were 20%; of the remaining 80%, 20% were Puebloan, and 80% were Navajo (Southern Athabaskan). In a discussion session, the Anglos talked 80% of the time, and of the remaining 80% of the time, Puebloan teachers talked 80% of the time, and Navajo talked 20% of the time. I have had the opportunity to spend time living in places as diverse as Turkey (3 years), Mexico (3 years), and Taiwan (1 year), and working, visiting, or traveling in other countries of the Near East and Latin America, and throughout Western Europe, as well as our neighbor, Canada, and in almost every country I have had the occasion to find myself embarrassed by the loud and obvious presence of Americans, but never of Britishers. Even those who decry stereotyping nevertheless usually concede that it has some foundation in observable fact. While not all members of a population behave uniformly, it is usually 'marked' behavior which attracts attention. While I know that not all of the Americans I encountered behaved so noticeably, enough did to make it easy to stereotype them. Rudy Troike Professor Emeritus Department of English University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona USA ######################################################################## The Variationist List - discussion of everything related to variationist sociolinguistics. To send messages to the VAR-L list (subscribers only), write to: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe from the VAR-L list, click the following link: http://jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=VAR-L&A=1