barbaric and un-European

This is why I love Wikipedia

"One watershed event was a swimming competition in 1844 in London . Some Native Americans participated in this competition. While the British raced using breaststroke, the Native Americans swam a variant of the Front crawl, which had been used by people in the Americas, West Africa and some Pacific islands for generations, but was not known to the British. As the front crawl is much faster than the breaststroke, the Americans easily beat the British: Flying Gull won the medal, swimming the 150 feet (46 m) in 30 seconds, and second place went to another American named Tobacco. Their stroke was described as making a motion with the arms "like a windmill and kicking the legs up and down. As this produced considerable splashing, it was considered barbaric and "un-European" to the British gentlemen, who preferred to keep their heads above water. Subsequently, the British continued to swim only breaststroke until 1873."

The comment regarding splashing as barbaric and "un-European" to the British gentlemen I found most amusing.