When I came to visit my fiance now hubby in Michigan USA, 6 years ago, I've never had anyone approach me and mention the "sheep shagger" nickname to me at all but they do know what it mean which I found quite amazed to hear. I now have lived in Michigan for 3 years and no one has still ever said anything to me. Who knows, they might be jealous jealous or something. LOL.But they do like to hear about the welsh/english accent I have and are willing to find the welsh history and language very intriguing.

As we do have their landPiled up and hidden by calling the piles hills and mountains

Yep, I love that! I met a guy yesterday at a restaurant - speaking Spanish in the kitchen with other Spanish-speaking staff - they all looked Mexican but his accent made me go "bing! SoCal!" and sure enough, I asked him where he was from and he was from San Diego, speaking Spanish with a Southern California twang! He was annoyed when I told him that and said no, you can only hear that when I speak English and the waitress, who was from Guadalajara, said no, you speak Spanish with an American accent. It was wild to hear and recognize that sound in another language.

I think the biggest think I dislike is the fact that when an English person says 'sheepshagger' they act extremely pleased with themselves and witty like they were the absolute first person on earth that has ever used the term...the only person I have ever heard of that performed any act of beastiality where I grew up was an Englishman high on acid that got caught in a pig-sty, was arrested and henceforth held in the cells in Amlwch overnight, later charged with cruelty to an animal and an obscene public act.....perhaps the english could now be deemed pig/hog-lovers/shaggers; I just feel sorry for the pig........and whoever ended up with it's bacon during a morning fry up;)

have nothing against the english every welsh backyard should have one

Personally I'd rather get on with people from which ever culture they come from. However, because many English people have a massive insecurity problem and inferiority complex it's always best to have a retort or crisp rejoinder at the ready - just in case. Telling them to go back to Germany where they came from. That usually brings on a Porterhouse Blue - or remind them that they are in fact the illegitimate sons of the Roman hordes if a similar effect is required.What really bugs me though is the media which tries to play up national differences as if we on this rock in the North Atlantic were some how genetically different. The Celts and Saxons along with Jutes, Angles,Picts and in these days people from all over creation live here. Were 60 Million on an island that would comfortably fit into Lake Superior. There are idiots like Anne Robinson - a woman of infinite unimportance who say things like " The Welsh! What are they for? Then you get real morons on radio stations like Talk Sport who delight in trying to belittle Welsh sportsmen usually to the embarrasment of the English people their trying to lure into a racial slur.

And of course, Romans in American films are almost always played by Brits. When we're doing the cradle of western civilization, everyone should have British accents.

I've said this to Ceri but we in the US have "British envy".We worship Brits to an extent. The unconscious stereotype is that British people are more intelligent, better educated, more civilized, have better taste and know better than we do, and on the bad side that British men are all effeminate and all Brits are cold and passionless. I'm sure this comes from the inception of our country, that here is the wild frontier and the UK "the motherland" from which all good things come.Until about the 1960s, the thing for American actors was to have English vocal coaches and you can hear this especially in films made in the 30's and 40s, in the voices of Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Vincent Price and MANY others, that was just the "right" way to talk. Even today it cracks me up to introduce Ceri to people and see this thing come over their faces when they hear his voice, like an enchantment, it's very funny. And he can be standing there in jeans and a dirty t-shirt, swilling a beer out of the can and talking about sheepshagging or beans on toast and they'll say to me later, "he's so cultured!"

Yeah, I just went basically "I have heard you" and went on about my life and assumed that she had led some sort of extremely unfortunately sheltered life and hadn't learned to really interact with other people, haha!I LOVE accents, I love to listen to them and try and guess where people are from, to hear regional variation and fusion accents - the best one I ever heard was a woman from Georgia who married a South African and lived in Australia - wow! Like music. I never understand people who bitch about that - we've had an influx of NYers to Portland and they complain about EVERYTHING and how it's not NY but I love going and finding those different regional things - customs, accents, dress, beliefs, cuisine, culture, all those things. It bolsters my personal theory that there is no "American" culture, there are many.I had a roommate from Glasgow, Scotland, and she could do any UK accent and I could do a bunch of US and we'd take turns leaving the weekly greeting on our answering machine in different accents, with appropriate background music.

That's awful. I think that local accents are a great piece of each of our history's; living in the south I hear some really thick dialects which I think are great. NZ'ers are really down to earth, good people on the whole, as are the English etc. I just think it's a bit of an Englishism to call us sheepshaggers on first meeting.

Yes, yes they do! And we do it to each other, too. I go to the East Coast and New Yorkers start doing an exaggerated West US accent when they hear me and if I am so unfortunate as to say "dude" or "cool" in front of them they all roll on the ground laughing and doing it themselves. I had an office manager from Kentucky at a job in Virginia and she actually said to me, in front of other people, that my accent and vernacular were very affected, annoying and passe' and that I needed "to realize that it's time to move on."

All the New Zealanders I've ever met have been lovely, wonderful people but... http://adultsheepfinder.com/ and I remember a PR course I was taking in LA, we all had to get up and give a ten-minute presentation on any subject we knew well, and this sweet little young guy from Christchurch, about 22 and all shiny and new started his with: "I'm from New Zealand, where there are 6 sheep to every man!" and then was so confused and crestfallen when we all burst into laughter and couldn't stop.

Agreed Tafia. I don't really take the word itself as a real insult; I just think that it is the idea of it being something that you would say to a completely stranger is a bit off. Maybe it's just the psyche of growing up Welsh, but it is just not my first impulse to pull out an archaeic slur the first time I meet someone from another country. Again this maybe just my personal experience, but this has happened to me on many occasions. I was in a Blockbuster Video once with my little boy in Charleston, and a Cockney that was working there called me a sheepshagger in front of the other customers as I was checking out a dvd with him!!

That's rich! A New zealander calling the Welsh sheep shaggers. They should know better.

Interesting question!??!With many English people in Arizona as long as we talk about football, beer and curry I seem to get along pretty well with them!!If they have some affection to Wales childhood holidays etc then their is a bond. But if they are pretty ignorant beyond their english garden then you have a culture clash!!We have to talk generally here but it's more of a class thing as the Welsh population is 90% working class they tend to get along with English people of similar background the conflict occurs when the English Imperial middle/upper class types who feel they are above socially to the Cymry!!Can't say the Scots are much better over here as well!!!I remember when I was dating a english girl once back home her Father looked petrified presuming I was planning to burn his house down!!!The relationship between the Welsh and the English is a subject which should be explored and written about much more!! Well done for starting the debate!!!

You don't have to live in the States - every time I leave my house and go anywhere up the M4 after the bridge I get it. It's definitely not a term of endearment, although they are English, you have to let them have something!

I think the Chicago Tafia has it right. Embrace the slur and make it yours. Many Italians consider the term "Mafia" a slur. We all know, however, that according to the former director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, the "Mafia" is a fictitous organization and doesn't exist. Ha! And...the price of real estate never goes down.

Agreed, as I said a couple of my best friends are English, it just surprises me sometimes that there is an assumed comfort level there that some of them feel. I just wouldn't ever think of saying something xenophobic to a complete stranger; granted after you become friends a little cross border ribbing is acceptable during the 6 nations etc.

Some of the most charming people I've ever met were English - and some of the worst. If the sheep shagger nonsense comes up again admit to it and tell them that's why lamb tastes slimey when they eat it. Or better still remind them that the Welsh often went across the border to England to give the women a taste of Welsh manhood. Of course they often followed us back because they never had such a good time. Naturally your Anglo Saxon male just stood on the border and called us names.

You might remind them what the "sheepshagger" in the Niall Griffiths book of the same name did to the English tourists at the Glyndwr Covenant Stones.

..is it just my experience, but does anyone else born in Wales who meets an English person in the States have to go through that awkward moment when they call you a "sheep shagger", then laugh like they were the first person ever to say it, and expect you to take it with a "what yo old boy!"? Just wondering, because a couple of my best friends over here are English; but other English people who I have met randomnly (we have a lot of tourism from the UK down in Charleston, SC) think this is absolutely okay to say to any Welsh person they meet?
updated by @dafydd-owain-hughes: 01/29/18 01:47:31AM