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

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.

Replies