English superiority thing could be tiresome, bothersome. British one should not…

Same here:
Poland managed to build some damn empire. Polish (private!) army took the Kremlin and held Russia obedient: something neither Hitler not Napoleon managed to repeat. Poland rescued Vienna against the Ottoman Might. One Polish priest managed to go where no non-Italian had gone before, for centuries, to the See. Heck, even Polish defeats were victorious. And so on and so and so on. Now, with the coutry turned neither rich nor big, but betrayed and damaged, Poles developed something I’d call lost superiority thinking: we know we were [have been] the badest mighterhackers and our moustache stands tall and one day the world will see.

True, Poles in UK often take jobs beneath their qualifications even when they could have better. But rest assured that they, especially when elder, have the thing within the silent heart: “Yes, history threw me here. I wipe your street, mop your floor, clean your loo. But I can discuss Kant’s categorial imperative and drink vodka — and you’re capable of doing only one of these things”. It’s “servant smarter than master” feeling. Sort of, the mice in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Sort of, the Sith, lain in wait.

On the other hand, English superiority complex (we are superior because we are so obviously superior) is rather tiresome – although it is better than Polish inferiority complex (all Poles are antisemitic obscurantist idiots, except for me and my clique! obey me, serfs, I will lead you to Europe!).

Restroom / bathroom are the result of US prurience (i.e. they don’t want to mention there’s a toilet in there). A strange and anachronistic characteristic of a nation that otherwise has invented the slash/torture multiple-death-count movie.

When I have ten minutes I will endeavour to read through pdf. Looks intriguing.

I always have linguistic problem with toilet in US vs UK English. In both meanings of ‘toilet’. Restroom / bathroom? Rest – yeah, maybe, but anyone bathes there? Is lavatory out of place, is WC out of political correctness? What happened to john and loo and why? Do children go to men’s or ladies rooms? Then, all those names of man’s lingerie. Pages like this one confuse me.

Well, maybe it’s all the same? And so:
* pants => statement
* underpants => understatement?

And the second problem is finding something to brag about, now that they have lost their empire. I guess this is the source of they propensity to tag along Americans and join any colonial venture that offers itself. Perhaps it is not their empire anymore, but it is still Anglosphere! They are still conquering Afghanistan!

“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserv’d to blame, or to commend,
A tim’rous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading ev’n fools, by flatterers besieg’d,
And so obliging, that he ne’er oblig’d;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and templars ev’ry sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise. ”

Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot by Alexander Pope