Owlie in the USA

Transkrypcja

Fifty states, one country, and a statue that isn’t even American. France built her, shipped her over in crates, and New York put her back together.

From this road to the other ocean is four time zones and four days of driving. America is much bigger than it looks on a map.

Thirteen stripes for the first thirteen colonies, fifty stars for the fifty states. Every part of this flag is counting something, and the stars kept changing.

Four regions, fifty states, and one capital city that belongs to no state at all. Washington is not the state of Washington, and that catches everybody out.

The president lives in the White House. Congress works here, under this dome. Two buildings, two different jobs, and everybody mixes them up in the exam.

Transkrypcja

Americans have eleven federal holidays every year. Four of them turn up in almost every exam, and two of them exist nowhere else in the world.

The fourth of July is Independence Day. Fireworks, barbecues, and flags on every house. It marks 1776, the signing, not the end of the war.

Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November. Turkey, family, and the busiest travel day of the year. It is not the same as Independence Day.

Halloween, on the thirty-first of October, is not a federal holiday at all. Children go trick-or-treating, and Americans spend billions of dollars on costumes.

In February, the Super Bowl stops the entire country. Over a hundred million people watch one football game, and many of them watch for the adverts.

Transkrypcja

Four big leagues, four seasons, and almost no football in the European sense. Here is what Americans actually sit down and watch throughout the year.

Baseball is the oldest one, the national pastime, played all summer. The championship is called the World Series, although almost every team in it is American.

American football is the NFL, played through autumn and winter. It finishes with the Super Bowl, the biggest single television event in the whole country.

Basketball was invented in America in 1891, and the NBA is watched worldwide now. Ice hockey is the fourth league, mostly played in the north.

Transkrypcja

British and American English are one language, but hundreds of everyday words are different. So is the spelling. Let me show you.

Colour loses its U and becomes color. Centre and theatre swap their last two letters. An American called Noah Webster changed the spelling on purpose.

A British flat is an American apartment. The lift becomes an elevator, and the pavement becomes a sidewalk.

But watch out with food. In America, chips means crisps, and a British biscuit is an American cookie. If you want real chips, ask for fries. Hoot hoot!

Transkrypcja

Hoot, hoot! About nine million Americans say they have Polish roots. That is roughly one American in every forty. Here is how they got there.

The first Poles reached America in 1608, one year after Jamestown began. They made glass, and they went on strike for the right to vote.

Tadeusz Kościuszko built the fortress at West Point and helped America win its freedom. Then he went home and fought for Poland. Two countries, one hero.

Kazimierz Pułaski built the American cavalry and died fighting at Savannah. Illinois still keeps a holiday in March that carries his name.

But watch out! Chicago is not the second Polish city, though people say so. It is one of the largest Polish communities outside Poland. Hoot hoot!