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The funny thing is that two months ago when I was taking a train in France with some friends, instead of having a quiet car, they had a noisy car. And it was really quiet in there, by our American standards. There were quite a few elderly couples in the car, it seemed. We were talking and laughing and were probably the loudest on the car. At the end, the person I was traveling with who knew French remarked that the family next to us was talking about how loud and annoying we were. No one told us to be quiet, of course, since this was the loud car.


One of the following things is true:

* Americans speak louder than other people

* Something about the American accent means spoken American travels further and more piercingly than other languages

* People expect Americans to be louder, so there's massive selection bias at work...

Having travelled long and far, I suspect it's all three...




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