The Wit’s Guide To Xenophobia

Or, the uncouth is out there

Henrique Alvim Corrêa’s 1906 illustrations for the French edition of The War of the Worlds. The French, eh?

There’s an undeniable optimism baked into xenophobia. It may seem like someone hates foreigners, but the word itself knows that at their core they’re just scared of them. Also, by them we mean aliens. And if you aren’t scared of aliens, you haven’t been paying attention (to the X-Files).

“Many polled showed a marked disapproval of the Pirenians. The fact that these minorities were invented by the pollster did not diminish the hostility.”
— Leo Rosten

But of course when we say xenophobia we’re talking about a fear of human beings from different places. And of course when we say different places, we’re talking about France.

- “What asses these Frenchmen are. Why can’t they talk English?”
- “They are possibly more to be pitied than censured, m’lord. Early upbringing no doubt has a lot to do with it.”
— P.G. Wodehouse

The best way to insult foreigners is to praise them first. Hence the old joke that “Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, and everything is organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the police are German, the chefs are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and everything is organized by the Italians.” Or to keep it simple, heaven is French food and British rock ’n’ roll, and hell is vice versa — and then you can beat the system by asking Satan to be tortured by Heston Blumenthal and Phoenix.

“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.”
— George Bernard Shaw

John Robert Colombo, that Canadian patriot, added a characteristically self-deprecating spin to the formulation by saying that “Canada could have enjoyed: English government, French culture, and American know-how. Instead it ended up with: English know-how, French government, and American culture.”

“Foreigners may pretend otherwise, but if English is spoken loudly enough, anyone can understand it, the British included.”
— P.J. O’Rourke

Fear of the unknown ought to evaporate as soon as we know the unknown, right? On that count, there’s no better book not to read than The Clumsiest People in Europe: Mrs. Mortimer’s Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World. This 2005 gem by Todd Pruzan is a tour through a ludicrous 1849 geography guide he unearthed in a Massachusetts used book store, and it was worth reprinting for two reasons. First, the casual bigotry that bestselling children’s book writer Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer applied to every nation but England is epic: Her world was populated by savage Spaniards, filthy Welsh, whiny Dutch, ignorant Italians, rageful Irish, lazy Turks, out-of-tune Greeks, deceitful Burmese, drunken Georgians, murderous Tartars, unremarkable Belgians, and the clumsy Swedes of the title, all of whom add up to a strong argument against colonialism.

“I think all nations regard each other as dirty in their personal habits, irreligious, and morally lax.”
— Nancy Mitford

And second, the great truth buried under all the scorn: Mrs. Mortimer had practically never been to any of these places. From a brief trip to Belgium in her youth, she was able to extrapolate a world of prejudices. She’d heard quite enough to save the trip. So the truly committed xenophobe can do the world a favour and stay home. After all, that seems to be what the actual aliens have done.

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”
— Bill Watterson

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“The great and recurring question about abroad is, is it worth getting there?”
— Rose Macaulay

Where do you keep your ketchup? Some people insist on the refrigerator, though all that vinegar means it’s fine on the shelf. The reasoning behind each choice is a reminder that we approach different problems in different ways, and I once heard this metaphor effectively used as an argument for hiring different kinds of people. One caveat: Anyone who doesn’t refrigerate their mayonnaise is likely to max out their sick days.

Issue No. 313 of Get Wit Quick salutes the brave and hard-working citizens of Pirenia, without whom everything would still be possible. The newsletter mascot is a magpie named Magnus after the magician in Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy. The title font is Vulf Sans, the official typeface of the band Vulfpeck. The book was Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting. All human hearts look nothing like the ❤️ you should tap below.

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For those wonderful people who support this newsletter at the low price of $30 a year, here’s a new offering of high-quality quips for special occasions.
To begin, since you are all high rollers:

What to say — and what not to say — when eating oysters: