Since childhood I've been frustrated by the classic question meant to distinguish optimists from pessimists: "Is the glass half empty or half full?" It seemed impossible to answer in isolation. The best response I could come up with was, "It depends on whether you just poured water into it, or just drank some."
I thought of this recently when discussing the difference between American and British weather forecasts. In America, if a day will contain both sunshine and cloud, the forecast is "partly cloudy." In the UK, however, the forecast for such a day is "sunny intervals." By the old glass-of-water test, this would seem to show that the British are more optimistic than the Americans -- something that goes against both stereotype and my own experience.
But what if the real explanation is that Americans consider sunny weather to be the norm, and mention the clouds because they find them to be the most unusual feature of the day -- whereas the British expect their days to be gloomy, and therefore find spells of sunshine worth commenting upon? Who are the optimists then?
2 comments:
I agree with you about optimism and pessimism in the national characteristics of USA and GB and I like your pertinent retort about the weakness of the half-full, half empty glass analogy. You've also, unlike myself, the advantage of being able to see both sides of the coin in your residency to cast judgement upon these traits.
Yes, even if you bear in mind that the middle of North America is quite different from English or Danish or French weather, there is something special about that Atlantic pattern. The weather that comes into San Francisco from the Pacific is nothing like. I can't express it better than you two have done.
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