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What ... no place in France?


THE RUDEST CITIES ON EARTH

Mancunians are the most foul-mouthed people in the English-speaking world, according to Foursquare.

The engineering team at the location-based social network came to that conclusion Monday evening as part of their ongoing efforts to improve the quality of user analytic data. Based on the number of times a user inserts a curse word when recommending interesting locations, users in the greater Manchester area of the United Kingdom were found to insert naughty language into their “tips” 0.0165% of the time.

“It’s good to see that the Mancunians truly are not only the rudest people in the UK, but the rudest people globally,” Matthew Rathborne, Foursquare engineer and “proud British midlander”, said on the Foursquare engineering blog. “Although please keep in mind that this only evaluates the rudeness of English speaking countries (like that would make a difference?).”

Coming in at a close second is the Texas border town of El Paso at 0.0163% profane tipping. The rust belt capital of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania trailed in a distant third place with only 0.014% of their tips being unsuitable for children and Melborne Australia was the only other non-U.S. city to make the top 20, confirming the Australian reputation for saying what is on their mind.

Those percentages might all sound rather small — even the most offensive city only had about 1 curse word for every 6,135 tips or so — but consider what Foursquare’s ‘tips’ are meant for. Users are supposed to recommend interesting new locales (i.e. this restaurant has a great new menu or that cinema has cheap concessions), at least in part to aid people they don’t know personally.

So for a user to publish a profanity-infused recommendation, fully intended it to be read by masses of local strangers, even 1 out of every 10,000 says something about the sensibilities of that town or city.

In keeping with our own endlessly polite reputation (for reference, see the CN Tower scene in Canadian Bacon) no Canadian cities made the top 20, surprising nobody.

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Damn...San Jose, CA is on there!

That's where I live...I agree...rude people here....

NOT ME THO...

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Originally Posted by Barbara Stover Husser:
Damn...San Jose, CA is on there!

That's where I live...I agree...rude people here....

NOT ME THO...

I agree! Not Barb! Or Bob! Or any of their kids!

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It's unanimous!

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You know....I note that there is only ONE New York city there....I'm thinking that this is not a true test of the rudest cities....cause there would be MORE than one New York city -- heh!  Actually where I live...we've gotten the award a couple years of being one of the kindest cities....wonder if it means that people only curse AFTER they help you?

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whew so glad not to see my city there.... but I'm pretty sure we do have the worst and rudest drivers .... people here are courteous  until they get behind the wheel     

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In El Paso it may be more that they don't understand English vs. rude, lol

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Originally Posted by Wendy Vinca:
In El Paso it may be more that they don't understand English vs. rude, lol

I think that's true.  Every time I've gone to El Paso, I may not have been able to speak to everybody but I've alway thought of it as a very friendly town.

And when I look at the list, besides France ... New York's not on the list?

WTF?  C'mon ...

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Originally Posted by Scott Terry:

And when I look at the list, besides France ... New York's not on the list?

WTF?  C'mon ...

Well France isn't on the list because they only used English speaking countries.  I don't see any other stats like what list of words did they use for their curse list.  The bottom ones mean one curse word from that list in every 10,000 entries...so how many entries from each area do they get and is that anywhere near the % of population.  Is there any double entries?...is one person from Manchester making several entries using whatever was determined to be on that curse word list?  I've never looked at Foursquare to see what kind of reviews they have...maybe the rudest cities have a lower site use.

I've seen many rude lists over the years, all of them using different criteria and methods.  And all of them have quite different results.

For me personally out of the big cities in the US that I've been to...Washington DC was the worse.  I have never had any problems with any New Yorkers when I have been there.  But even more than the big cities...when small town America gets it's Stranger Danger ruffled, it can become past rude into seriously hostile mood.

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I'm in shock that neither the Bronx or Manhattan (New York City) made the list!

I guess people are finally changing....

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Originally Posted by Scott Terry:

Originally Posted by Wendy Vinca:
In El Paso it may be more that they don't understand English vs. rude, lol

I think that's true.  Every time I've gone to El Paso, I may not have been able to speak to everybody but I've alway thought of it as a very friendly town.

And when I look at the list, besides France ... New York's not on the list?

WTF?  C'mon ...

That's what I thought, I haven't been to any 'mean' or 'rude' TX towns/cities. **Same thoughts about NY too