>introduced to american culture for hours at a time

In the past, this has largely been through the spoken word, so most people in the UK (who's job or life doesn't cross national boundaries) will be aware of "color" and "center" and a few others .. but maybe not much more.

It is also easy to understand the gist of story in context, take the contex away and we are left with the kind of conversations we've been having in this group.

It is the World Wide Web which has given people much greater access to the unedited originated-at-source written word. Perhaps that is a temporary blip - maybe voice will be the main method of communication over the web in a few years - who knows?