American teenage subcultures are featured in the majority of American teenage movies. As a result, teenage movies are loaded with stereotypes. We’ve seen American Pie, we’ve watched Mean Girls and most Europeans love to watch American TV productions. You name them. Shows and movies dealing with teenage troubles automatically are set in a world that is divided into social groups, the so-called cliques.

American High Schools evoke stereotypes in our heads, don’t they?

It was only a matter of time for a bilingual blog like mine to pick up a myth shrouded in legend like the one we’re looking at today. Here’s the thing: According to stories that a lot of German teachers tell their students, German lost out to English in a vote on the official language of the United States in the 1776. Time for the myth-busting Philipp to check whether German really nearly made it as the official US language.

Is it true that we could have had the term VSA (V for vereinigt) instead of USA (U for united) on today’s maps?