The road sign in my home state of Washington read: \u201cLitter and it will hurt.\u201d I didn\u2019t think twice about it, but our guests from nearby Vancouver, British Columbia, mouthed the slogan out loud and could hardly believe their ears. They were traveling with us to a birthday party of a mutual friend.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf all the nerve,\u201d said the wife with a shudder. \u201cI get what State officials are trying to do with their ecology campaign, but you\u2019d never see a sign like that in Canada. That message is way too impolite. People would take it as a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n
I chuckled. I\u2019d read that sign lots of times, and it had always struck me as a realistic warning about litter\u2019s impact on the environment, not a personal threat. But the comment from my Canadian friend reminded me we all have our own biases. We see things through a particular lens that\u2019s been shaped and molded by our respective subcultures.<\/p>\n
Politeness is highly valued in Canada. Citizens from the Great White North tend to go out of their way to say “thank you, excuse me, and sorry.” In \u2019Merica, we like our road signs to reflect our politics. Blunt.<\/p>\n\t\t