Can you pass the Beverly Hillbillies test?

[Major Tom]

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

 

[Major Tom]

I took the long test earlier, but just broke down and took the short one:

"On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 5 and 8.
In other words, you can see through your bubble, but you need to get out more."

That's fairly accurate, but I think that the apostrophe between the words "words" and "you" was unnecessary. I don't want to seem picky, but the grammar bothered me slightly.

It's tough breaking out of the bubble sometimes.

 

[brewer12345]

I took the long test earlier, but just broke down and took the short one:

"On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 5 and 8.
In other words, you can see through your bubble, but you need to get out more."

That's fairly accurate, but I think that the apostrophe between the words "words" and "you" was unnecessary. I don't want to seem picky, but the grammar bothered me slightly.

It's tough breaking out of the bubble sometimes.

Not to be picky, but its a comma, not an apostrophe.

 

[REWahoo]

Virguphobia is a terrible thing...

 

[Major Tom]

Not to be picky, but its a comma, not an apostrophe.

Oh yes. IIRC, I was renewing my relationship with Trader Joe's 2 buck-chuck while making that post. Not the best of times to be posting on the internet.......

 

[Major Tom]

Virguphobia is a terrible thing...

Bet you can't work that word into a real-life conversation in the next week.

 

[REWahoo]

Oh yes. IIRC, I was renewing my relationship with Trader Joe's 2 buck-chuck while making that post. Not the best of times to be posting on the internet.......

PUI can be dangerous.

 

[MichaelB]

Bet you can't work that word into a real-life conversation in the next week.

Hey Virg, you got a phobia 'bout commas or something?

 

[HFWR]

I didn't figure there were many virgues left...

 

[clifp]

I score 7 out of 20 in the short test and the description of being able to see through the bubble is about right. Frankly I'm surprised I scored so high. I have several friends and former colleagues who'd get close to zero.

The thing that helped my score is playing poker with a revolving group of couple hundred folks. I really get a chance to meet more typical Americans (although decent poker players are well above average intelligence otherwise they become broke). The limited discussions around the poker table involve sports, betting on sports, poker, sports history, movies, pop culture. Things like politics, or current events are almost never discussed and this despite that fact that any given time roughly 20% of the players have been to Iraq or Afghanistan. Investment and retirement planning never come up. In contrast to my non-poker friends where these subjects come up frequently.

Murray is right there is a huge cultural divide in America, I loved the Bell Curve, and will probably read this book too.