[Zak]

As an American who has spend a good amount of time in Europe, I've noticed a cultural difference that may be relevant.

Almost universally, Europeans take their shoes off when entering a home. As a guest, it is expected, and failing to do so unless specifically instructed not to is rude. A majority of Americans I know do not take their shoes off at home and guests are not expected to unless specifically asked or given some cue.

Feet on a desk in an office would be considered rude in both Europe and the US, however, I have a suspicion it's considerably more rude in Europe.

[makeitsuckless]

> Almost universally, Europeans take their shoes off when entering a home.

Utter bullshit.

I'm sorry, but I have no more subtle response to such clueless arrogant pontificating prefaced with the typical "as an American who has spend a good amount of time in Europe".

If you had bothered to even superficially explore a single small country on the continent, you wouldn't have such a naive uninformed notion of European cultural diversity.

For you information: any such very, very, specific cultural habit, from taking of your shoes to how you have dinner, is almost certainly nowhere near "universally" true within any given European country (which historically tend to contain multiple cultures), let alone the entire continent.

[VeejayRampay]

I am not a fan of the way you phrased all this, no need to be that defensive and insulting at the same time.

That being said, I second the content, Europe is way too heterogeneous an entity to draw any continent-wide cultural conclusion.

We mix Southern Spaniards, Sicilians, Ukrainians and Bulgarians with people from the Faroe Islands, Austrians and Scots, this is a wide gamut bunch.

[eropple]

I dunno, there's a good moral argument for giving a fairly mild ration of shit to somebody who insists on using a little experience to draw sweeping conclusions. It happens so commonly and so persistently that I do think a little bit of applied loss of face might be helpful. Hot stoves and all that.

[VeejayRampay]

I understand the sentiment but isn't the web confrontational enough already? I always think of the people on the sidelines who might be lurkers, interested in engaging the community, contributing, whatever and who read those kinds of comments, thinking: "There's no room for error, those people are really aggressive". It's just computers, nothing life-threatening so I like it when we keep it as civil as possible.

[geebee]

I lived for a substantial amount of time in Ireland and France, and absolutely no indication that this is the case, at all. More prevalent in SF than Dublin or Paris.