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

Andreas Johansson wrote:


>Tim May wrote:
>
>>  I _can_ name most of the national capitals in Eurasia and the
>>  Americas, though, so that's something.
>
>I used to know all in the Old World (the Caribean and Oceania are so packed
>with mini-states that I never bothered trying the New World). However,
since
>you almost never talk of the capital of Niger (Niamey!) and similar
>countries, I've forgotten many African ones. I still remember all the
>European ones, and most Asian.
>
Same here.  I was quite a fragile child and spent a lot of time sick in bed,
flu, bronchitis (nowadays we'd blame it all on my parents' smoking....) and
my favorite reading was our World Atlas. (And yet, geography class in school
was Really Booooring.)  Consequently, most of my geo. knowledge is thus
vintage-1940s, and I've barely kept up with the new countries (many of which
have no business being "countries" ;-( anyway) and name changes.  Kiribati
(Gilbert Is), Pohnpei (Ponape), Chuuk (Truk) etc.??  I once had _two_
students from The Country Whose Capital is/was?  Ouagadougou, a beautiful
word-- fascinating language too, More [mOre]-- and difficult (we used it in
a Field Methods class).

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