Re: OT: baloney and cheese

No, but there are for a lot of places that are geographically close
together.  A lot of people mix up states that are next door or nearby (of
course, that's also because there were sadists involved in the determination
of state boundaries, who had a secret love of squares).  But a lot of people
can't tell which is which in the pairings of Vermont/New Hampshire,
Kentucky/Tennessee, etc.  Most people also don't know which one is Latvia
and which one is Lithuania, and I'm always impressed by anyone who can find
Albania or Bulgaria on a map correctly.  Also by people who remember the
names of the countries that are in the *middle* of Africa, and people who
can label a map of Southeast Asia accurately.

It probably doesn't help that the Swedes haven't left much of a cultural
impression beyond tall women with blonde hair.  When you know a lot about a
place, it becomes easier to locate it on a map, in my experience.  I have no
doubts about my ability to find Ireland, Spain, or Lithuania on a map of
Europe, but I'm a lot more careful about Wales, Norway, and Austria (I have
serious problems with the centers of every continent).

Sarah Marie Parker-Allen
lloannna@surfside.net
http://www.geocities.com/lloannna.geo
http://lloannna.blogspot.com

"I will not turn into a snake. It never helps." -- Rules for the Evil
Overlord

> -----Original Message-----
> Behalf Of Andreas Johansson
> I used to believe that the jokes about Americans whose only knowledge of
> Sweden is that Switzerland is the capital of Stockholm were quite
> unfair, but
> life has tought me otherwise. Is there any particular explanation
> for this in
> my eyes very strange confusion? Are there similar confusions about, say,
> Portugal and Poland?
>
> Incidentially, I saw a webpage that spoke of the tiny landlocked European
> kingdom of Swaziland ...
>
>                                                              Andreas
---
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