International: LAVENDER & PLUMBING

Back in London after three months of negotiation in Washington, Lord Keynes last week lamented: "What a depth of misunderstanding governs the relationships between even the friendliest and most like-minded nations." His lordship was right. Anglo-American fellowship had slumped from its record wartime high. Americans and Britons were getting their feelings hurt again because each people tended to forget that the other viewed it through a haze of preconceptions. TIME here offers a list of the notions (many of them exaggerated or downright false) which influence relations between the two countries.

Britons make the following assumptions about Americans:

1) That they are...

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