The Great American Jest

[shootingstar]

My mother's family was Scotch, and it was judged fitting I should pay a visit, on my way Paris ward, to my uncle Adam Loudon, a wealthy retired grocer of Edinburgh. He was very stiff and ironical; he fed me well, lodged me sumptuously, and seemed to take it out of me all the time, cent per cent, in secret entertainment which caused his spectacles to glitter and his mouth to twitch. The ground of his ill-suppressed mirth (as well as I could make out) was simply the fact that I was an American. "Well," he would say, drawing out the word to infinity "and I suppose now in your country things will be so and so." And the whole group of my cousins would titter joyously. Repeated receptions of this sort must be at the root, I suppose, of what they call the Great American Jest; and I know I was myself goaded into saying that my friends went naked in the summer months, and that the Second Methodist Episcopal Church in Muskegon was decorated with scalps. I cannot say that thee flights had any great success; they seemed to awaken little more surprise than the fact that my father was a Republican . . .
(R. L. Stevenson, The Wrecker, Chapter II, Roussillon Wine)

What is the meaning of the word "Jest" there? I think it has an AE meaning but I can't decipher it, I'm afraid. What is the author trying to say with the sentence "Repeated receptions of this sort must be at the root . . . of what they call the Great American Jest;" . . . Who is meant by "they" there? Is it his Scotch family or is it a generalized "you"?

 

[Barque]

What is the meaning of the word "Jest" there? I think it has an AE meaning but I can't decipher it,

He's saying that American culture amused them. You can take it as "The great general perception that Americans and America were funny". There's no specifically AE meaning.

What is the author trying to say with the sentence "Repeated receptions of this sort must be at the root . . . of what they call the Great American Jest;" . . . Who is meant by "they" there? Is it his Scotch family or is it a generalized "you"?

I think he means "Repeated meetings with Americans must have given rise to this". But I'm not sure.

"They" refers to people in general, outside America.

 

[shootingstar]

I think he means "Repeated meetings with Americans must have given rise to this". But I'm not sure.

Thank you very much indeed. I do appreciate your help.
I take 'receptions' to mean something like 'acceptance' in this context. I suppose 'receptions/acceptance' refers to 'I suppose now in your country things will be so and so' in the sentence ' "Well," he would say, drawing out the word to infinity "and I suppose now in your country things will be so and so." ', right? In elevated speech. we use the same word 'reception' in German in this context.

 

[Barque]

I take 'receptions' to mean something like 'acceptance' in this context.

As I said in my previous post, I take "receptions" to mean "meetings". I'm not sure if you read my last post fully.

 

[shootingstar]

As I said in my previous post, I take "receptions" to mean "meetings". I'm not sure if you read my last post fully.

Yes, I actually noticed you take 'receptions' to mean 'meetings' but you wasn't sure.. So I've made a new suggestion. but I'm not sure as well; so the matter is still open, I'm afraid. Indeed, I would like to enhance my suggestion: not 'acceptance' but 'assumptions' should be the correct equivalent to 'receptions' in my opinion - Repeated receptions/assumptions of this sort must be at the root, I suppose, of what they call the Great American Jest. The people outside America assume the Americans to be funny and strange, respectively, the people outside America accept it to be true the Americans were funny and strange, at least in those days and within some Scotch or English families. In #2 you have said quite a similar sentence: You can take it as "The great general perception that Americans and America were funny." Maybe you can use "perception" instead of "assumption/acception" as well.