50 ways...

....to get angry.

Besides fifty ways to leave your lover, fifty ways to lose weight, and fifty ways to spice up your resume, there are apparently also fifty ways to express your unhappiness with someone. And I would have never known about them had it not been for today's department meeting.

While discussing curriculum changes, classroom assignments, and the likelihood of getting paid for overload next semester, one co-worker brought up a slightly juicier topic, namely a senior who intends to graduate this semester, but whose intentions are, once again, seriously impaired by his inability to show up to his internship. As this is not the first time this particular young has struggled with taking on responsibility, the co-worker related how the student's supervisor had given said student a "Come to Jesus talk".

I know I have written about this particular southern expression before, and explained how it is a phrase that seems to be mainly used by older Christian African Americans who have been raised in the south. It was thus extremely amusing to hear my young, white, atheist, and Great Lakes born and bred co-worker use such a typical expression.
"Well," he corrected himself, "That's not what Sandy said."
Sandy is the student's supervisor, who happens to be a transplant as much as the rest of us. "Sandy said she read him the riot act."
Almost immediately all of us, secretly relieved to be away from such annoying topics as exit exams and GREs, jumped in on the conversation. Another co-worker remarked that apparently white people tend to read someone the riot act, while some black people call someone to Jesus. I told people that in Holland we "read someone a lesson", while my co-worker from Latin America said that down there they "take people to confession". A professor from China thought for a while after noting that in China they "show people many different colors.", while someone else looked at me, and said; "And I bet your husband rips people a new one, because that's what they say in the military".
Soon after this little discussion, we were pulled back into more serious topics, and unfortunately, our discussion about the fifty ways to get angry at someone ceased.

But all the way home, the different expressions kept coming back to me, and I kept wondering to what extent these expressions are related to the culture they come from.
Obviously, the military one is the easiest. They just don't like to beat around the bush. There is no coming to Jesus, no reading lessons, they are going to cut right to the chase and rip you a new one. Or make you do a hundred push ups, or show up to work in your blues. There's nothing colorful about that.
The Dutch expression immediately reminded of the notion of "betutteling" that I only wrote about last week. In Holland, we like to wag our finger and tell someone how horribly mistaken they are, and what better way to do that than to read someone "their lessons"? In addition, it also almost sounds Calvinist to me; "You sit there and listen quietly while I read ten sermons from the book of Psalms to explain how wrong you are." Whatever it is, it certainly took me back to the Protestant school my parents mistakenly sent me to for a few years.
The Latin-American expression also reeks of religion, albeit Catholicism in their case. And, as the Latin-American professor pointed out, Catholics sure like to go to confession, if only because once they're forgiven, they get to do it all over again.
Unfortunately, I realized I know too little about the Chinese culture to make something of their saying. Whatever it alludes to, it does sound wonderfully poetic. There is no reading, prosyletizing, or religion involved; all they do is make you see different colors. That sounds almost appealing, doesn't it?
And what to make of the two American expressions? Could it be that "reading the riot act" refers to a reliance on laws and regulations? A desire to tell someone what the rules are, and make sure they know the consequences for breaking them? For all I've seen in the past years, Americans tend to dislike laws and anyone who tries to impose them. Americans don't seem half as crazy about following the rules as the Dutch, or better yet, the Germans are. So I'm not quite sure where that comes from. And why don't all Americans use the same expression? Being Christian is not reserved to African Americans or southerners only, so why only they use that colorful expression, I don't know.

Personally, I think I'm just going to be mad from now on. Plain, simple, and very predictable. I like it.