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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3793 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 14, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Why are British and American heads so different? I looked up a song on YouTube yesterday and as soon as I saw the singer I made an easy bet with myself he was British. He's got the same turnip-shaped head as, say, Simon Pegg or Anthony Hopkins.

On the other hand, Mitt Romney is a Mormon and thus should be quite close to the insular British genetically, and yet he has this All-American elongated head with a solid-looking jaw. Or if we're talking about singers, Brandon Flowers from The Killers is a Mormon and he has the same head shape as well.

Is it childhood nutrition? My own bias? Different beauty standards in the US and the UK? Have all people of mandible left the UK for the colonies in the eighteenth century?

Wouldn't you have known he was British when you heard his voice?

I can tell when people are talking, but usually not when they're singing.

I can't really identify people as British from their singing, personally.

Not even, like, Mumford and Sons? London Grammar? They sound so very British to me.

There's a lot of interesting ethnic variation in England. The meme explanation is that small round heads and beady eyes are the 'indigenous' britons whilst other physical characteristics, like a longer face and more prominent jaw are primarily due to the Norman conquest. How the Germanic admixture fits in I don't know, but there's certainly a noticeable trend in phenotype.

I wouldn't be surprised if the round headed beady eyed hobbits of England who managed to weather every storm history has thrown at them would be less inclined to move to a far away land, whilst the long faced Normans who had already sailed and conquered would be more predisposed to doing so again.

So, this would mean that Richard Hammond is the indigenous Brit, and Jeremy Clarkson is the Norman usurper? By process of elimination, that leaves James May as the Germanic admixtures, which seems plausible.

I have literally seen this phenotype analysis of them before

I wouldn't be surprised if the way people speak or express emotions on their face over a lifetime affects how they look, as well as things like diet and lifestyle, all of which will differ between countries. Rishi Sunak for example has a face that looks very British to me in a way I can't fully articulate, despite his ethnic background.

Rishi Sunak for example has a face that looks very British to me in a way I can't fully articulate, despite his ethnic background.

British or British public school in particular?

The latter.

Sunak’s face reminds me a little of Tobias Menzies’. Menzies is a Scottish name, apparently, although his mother was a Simpson which could be Scottish or English.

I don't agree, Sunak looks very American to me.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he looks Indian.

Indian facial features are extremely varied though. Many Indians, even some with very dark complexions, have essentially European or Levantine features.

Right, I’m well aware of that, and obviously my comment was intentionally flippant. However, I don’t see anything in Sunak’s phenotype that looks “more British than American” nor vice versa. He’s obviously quite visually distinct from any European-derived person. I wouldn’t consider him one of the Indians who has European or Levantine facial features.

I think he has some hard-to-define Britishness to his look, too.

I've seen some speculate on Twitter that talking a certain languge (a certain accent?) for all of your life will subtly change your facial structure by reworking the musculature of your mouth, making people who grow embedded in some culture from birth on bear this sort of a hard-to-define resemblance through almost invisible subconscious clues, even if their genetics remain distinct.

It's hard to imagine such an effect, if it exists, could be observed between any but significantly phonologically distinct languages. It sounds like a stretch to imagine it could play a role in why some British-English speakers might look different from American-English speakers.

Must be all those hard r's Romney's been slinging that give him that jawline. #cancelmitt

I’m not seeing it at all, and I think any speculation about the effect of accents on facial musculature development is probably pseudoscientific cope.

Top Gear fans often characterize Hammond as "the token American" due to his propensity to crash expensive vehicles and put cheese on everything.

Edit: this comment was supposed to be a reply to @pusher_robot above.

I remember when they got him to review the new Escalade because he was the yankeeboo. The size mismatch was comical, to say the least.

There plenty of regular heads in the UK. This is all just you noticing things. Don't be weird.

Could it be orthodontic practices? Orthodontia can make a surprising amount of difference to the jaw and facial structure.

Or maybe Americans place more importance on being Chad as prerequisite for being a lead singer or politician?

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