stereotypes.

[Olly Buckle]

Qwertyman recently started a thread in writing discussion 'In defense of stereotypes', and a couple of people objected to his example as not being particularly stereotypical. Lucky Scars posted this...

a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

Qwuertyman doesn't really do 'Oversimplified' does he? Too much of a writer

So let's help him out with some real stereotypes. I'll kick off.

David looked like the plumber from a Dutch porn movie.

[Olly Buckle]

Wore glasses, a graying stubble beard, gray hair and a jovial look about himself probably in his mid to late 50's.

It's an old photo, I was mid sixties then, mid seventies now. Still look exactly the same though.


She tilted her head to one side and looked quizzical in a way someone had told her looked 'Cute' thirty years before.

[Olly Buckle]

He turned to look at the questioner. It was a girl of about ten with blonde plaits, glasses and a brace on her teeth.

Biro, on the other hand, was a long thin man, a bit 'plastic' and easily seen through, who always had a point about being 'write'.

[midnightpoet]

Oh dear, British humour. Like a man mowing the yard in a coat and tie.

[bdcharles]

She tilted her head to one side and looked quizzical in a way someone had told her looked 'Cute' thirty years before.

I like this. It's clever and economical, because it not only conjures up a certain picture, but says a lot about the personality of the character, namely that she is the sort who a. puts a lot of value on cuteness and b. has't moved on from that notion in 30 years. From that, you just know she's going to be insufferable trouble

[Theglasshouse]

A school bully who targets people for being different. I like this example since a school bully could be paid to help other kids from being bullied.

[Theglasshouse]

Class clown that likes to be noticed and popular by making people laugh.

[midnightpoet]

Thats true me and Olly and others would have gone to work with men who worked in factories and they wore ties. It was an oldies way of dressing before leaving the house.

I took this as a satire on British “stuffiness,” and considering Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot walking around in the hot Egyptian desert dressed in a formal suit and tie like he was going to high tea with the Queen at the palace. It occurred to me she was using a stereotype but changing it from a British toff (if I’m using the right word) to a “foreigner.”

[Olly Buckle]

My father would apologise if he sat down to dinner on a very hot summer's day without a jacket. He would not leave the house without a hat, nor would any man in the early 50's. Not so much a stereotype as the cultural norm.


'He had a full set and glasses, looked like Gerry Adams, or Rolf Harris.

[TL Murphy]

Stereotypes are all the same.