Re: CHAT: Ability of Americans & Europeans to locate each others cities (was Re: The [+foreign] attribute)

When I was staying in England (Wigan, between
Manchester and Liverpool, not a particularly wealthy
or educated area), I told people I was living in St.
Louis, and I always got something like, "That's near
California, right?".  Just like for New Yorkers and
Angelenos, nothing between the coasts existed,
apparently.

I always did exceptionally well at geography, so I
don't use myself as the standard for the average Joe.

Clint


--- Tim May <butsuri@...> wrote:
> Thomas R. Wier writes:
>  > Quoting Christophe Grandsire
> <christophe.grandsire@...>:
>  >
>  > > En réponse à Padraic Brown
> <elemtilas@...>:
>  > > > > since they also have /S/
>  > > > > they can make an effort and not affricate
> French
>  > > > > |ch| :))) .
>  > > >
>  > > > Yeah. Well, it ain't spelled that way! :Þ
>  > > >
>  > > Yes it is... in French ;))) .
>  >
>  > Exactly why should someone be expected to know
> the values
>  > of foreign words when they haven't been trained
> in it?
>  >
>  > > Anyway, most Americans wouldn't be able to
> correctly situate Paris and
>  > > Prague...
>  >
>  > That's true.  And most Europeans would probably
> have difficulty
>  > situating St. Louis and Chicago.  (I remember an
> anecdote on
>  > sci.lang several years ago to that effect.)
>  >
>
>  Personally, I could locate Paris easily enough, I'd
> have a fair
>  chance with Chicago and I could find the right
> country for Prague on
>  an unlabelled political map (couldn't tell you any
> closer than that,
>  though), but I'd have very little chance of
> locating St. Louis (well,
>  I would _now_, I just went and found it on the big
> map, but it took
>  me a while).  And I've got Anglo-American dual
> citizenship - my
>  flatmate last year didn't know Washington state was
> different from
>  Washington DC.
>
>  Continentals may of course be far better informed.
> I wouldn't care
>  to speculate.
>
>  I _can_ name most of the national capitals in
> Eurasia and the
>  Americas, though, so that's something.

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