This question is for our friends in the United Kingdom….?
Do you ever take off your headgear (cap, hat, etc.) and hold on to it with your hand when standing at your feet hearing your national anthem "God Save the Queen"? In the United States, we men who wear head gears take them off hand place them on our left chest or left shoulder when either pledging our allegiance to our national flag or hearing our national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner". Have you Brits took off your headgear during your national anthem?
6 Responses
Rollo
30 Jun 2010
The Dark Side
30 Jun 2010
No. That looks just strange to me. Correct protocol when hearing the national anthem is to stand to attention. We don’t pledge allegiance to the flag either – we don’t see how you can have allegiance to a piece of cloth. The correct pledge is to the Queen – that’s the oath that all the British armed forces take.
Dude
30 Jun 2010
Rollo has been quite selfish in his answer,he has left virtually nothing of substance for any other contributor to say.We don’t brainwash our children at school or feel the need for hypnosis,with the anthem used as some kind of post hypnotic auto-suggestion,for later in life.Does that mean that we are not patriotic?Try an invasion and see what happens.
davght
30 Jun 2010
As a Scot my anthem is "Flower of Scotland." The second verse of "God Save The Queen" is too insulting to Scotland. The "United Kingdom" must be the only country to have an anthem that is anti one part of it’s people.
Tom K
30 Jun 2010
O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
God save us all.
I would say that second verse is possibly ‘offensive’ only to the enemies of HM The Queen and by extension of the United Kingdom. The old verse about rebellious Scots to crush is no longer in the anthem and since Scotland could no longer be considered an enemy to the Kingdom of England (it no longer exists specifically) there is no reason for Scots to feel offended. To me it seems another example of hostility on the part of the scots to the english for no apparent reason. Don’t forget it was a King of Scotland that inherited the throne of England not the other way around.
I am English and British, I am patriotic however I feel standing is enough respect to be shown for the national anthem, of course there would be occasions such as a royal funeral when any headgear would be removed for the anthem. In America though I think the whole pledge of allegiance breeds mindless loyalty and a blinkered population.
peek
30 Jun 2010
We don’t really have a singular national anthem as such in the UK. I mean, try getting the Tartan Army to sing GSTQ.
Of course not, that would be just plain effeminate.
The only time that we really need to sing the national anthem in Britain is at a football match or the cricket. In which case, there’ll be scarves in the air and we’ll spend the next 90 minutes (or five days in the case of cricket) singing at whatever bit of ex-colonial scum, incapable ally or former enemy has washed up on the doorstep in sporting combat.
Quite frankly, British sporting crowds in full song make Americans singing the national anthem, seem quite dull and dim.