Re: OT: baloney and cheese

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 6:50 AM
Subject: Re: OT: baloney and cheese


> Quoting Sarah Marie Parker-Allen <lloannna@...>:
>
> > 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.
>
> I guess I shouldn't be dissing the Americans too mcuh, since on a good day
I
> might be able to get 30 of the American States right, and I'm considered
to have
> an excessive knowledge of geography here.
>
> >  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.
Hmmm.  From Singapour sailing North by the west you get Malaysia, Thailand,
Myanmar and Bangladesh... on the East coast we get Malaysua, Thailand,
Vietnam and China.  In the middle there are Laos and Cambodja.  I am not
sure, however, that they are all.

> The middle of Africa? There's not alot of countries there. West Africa is
alot
> worse.
Well, West Africa has by far more countries but... does that mean that I
could locate, say, Chad in a map with no labels?  Well, I will probably not
do much better with Ivory Coast.  And there are those tiny states like
Ruanda.

And recently I found out that Djibouti is in Africa and not in the Asian
Middle East...

Well, I know where South Africa is. ;)

> > It probably doesn't help that the Swedes haven't left much of a
> > cultural
> > impression beyond tall women with blonde hair.
>
> Nitpick: That's a racial, or whatever term you prefer, trait, not a
cultural
> one.
Well.  Add that that tall lady with blonde hair is kind of dumb, barely
speaks any English and is willing to say "yoh" to any sexual proposition...
that seems to be the stereotipe in US movies and TV series.

> Don't tell me you've got trouble locating the countries in in the centre
of
> Norht America? Same for Australia ... :-)
Isn't Australia in the center of Europe?  ;-)  Anyhow, the most difficult
states in the USA for me to locate are those in the grate lake area and
westwards... This means: the middle of North America.


>
>                                                                Andreas

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