Probably the same person who asked my Puerto Rican teacher's assistant for her passport. And brother to the person who asked a friend from New Mexico if she's here on a work visa.

And what is the currency in Hawaii?

My daughter was born there in the U.S. Army hospital to Kentucky parents while Hawaii was still a territory, and two different people asked me if she was a U.S. citizen.

well, is she? ;-)
Or people who want to know if West Virginia is near Richmond. (the capital of the other Virginia.)

Or people who ask how long it takes to drive from Australia to Los Angeles.
Or my very favourite - a Canadian couple we knew were living in Canberra and adopted a 6 week old Korean baby. Someone asked them what language the baby would speak when it started to talk........

or people who think you still ride horses to the grocery store if you live in Oklahoma and others who get Iowa and Ohio mixed up. They are the same people who probably run for public office.

Well, Ohio and Iowa are at least half identical, so that is forgivable. Just say you are from Ohiowa, that should stump them.

My favourite is the docent who was the tour guide of a house in the French quarter in New Orleans telling hundreds of tourists how ice was obtained during the summer. "It's amazing but the lakes are still frozen in Canada in the summer and the ice was cut and shipped down the Mississippi." ???? Obviously, she thought this country was still in the grips of the last Ice Age. Now this was a person who should know better.

>Or people who want to know if West Virginia is near Richmond. (the capital of the other Virginia.)

Well, see, I can understand that one. My geographic knowledge of Europe and Asia are heads over tails better than my knowledge of our country east of the Rockies. The more I travel, the more I remember, and yeah, I would have known better to ask such a question. But it took me forever to visualize where the Virginias and Carolinas were, and to remember that New England is indeed north of NY.....

When I tell folk I'm from Az they usually assume we have cowboys and indians. They also assume that the entire state is one big barren desert, and are shocked to find out that many places actually gets snow enough for skiing.

>>When I tell folk I'm from Az they usually assume we have cowboys and indians. They also assume that the entire state is one big barren desert...***grin*** Do "Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport" ???

No, but this time of year, its best to beware of snowbirds!

Electing George W. Bush for a second term.

another thread hijacked

...and how is my comment different in spirit from other posts, presuming you are referring to me as hijacking the thread? Why have you singled me out when everyone else has strayed from the initial post? Hasn't the whole RP forum been hijacked by OT threads? Fair dinkum grrrrr...

Adam

If you want to discuss politics..take it over to the Hot Topics forum,or IVillage will get you.They closely watch the forums...and good for them.

Another common geographical misconception is that many times people think of California as being all like L.A. Don't let anyone from San Franciso hear you say that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hot Topics

picasocat, I suspect many people agree with you in your first post. However, discussing bush and politics is not what this thread is about. Read the header please. And then come up with something that fits, or take the politics elsewhere. Thank you.

I have to confess that geography is one of my weaker subjects, and always has been. For a long time I thought Andorra was in the Andes (because of the name).

Recently my 14-year-old daughter pulled me up sharply in the middle of a story about an early boyfriend: "What do you mean, the Austrian guy? I thought you said he was from Vienna."

re lack of geographical knowledge. Many years ago I was on a cargo boat far out in a Norwegian fjord when a loud US passenger demanded a member of the crew tell her how many blocks it was to the next port of call.
He spoke good English but had no concept of the term 'block' as a measure of distance ( probably shared by everyone NOT from North America). I think the answer should have been about 53 miles.

Is a 'block' the same length as a piece of string?

I read somewhere that there are 8 city blocks to a mile in New York City-a block is the distance from one cross street to the next cross street. From the corner of 5th and Main to the corner of 6th and Main. Every city's block distance is a little different, obviously.

Is a 'block' the same length as a piece of string?No comprendo. Why do you ask that, Vee?

A block to an American is a parcel of land, usually in a city, measured from street corner to street corner. Wait, I'll copy the dictionary definition. Here's what Merriam-Webster says:
6 a (1) : a usually rectangular space (as in a city) enclosed by streets and occupied by or intended for buildings (2) : the distance along one of the sides of such a block b (1) : a large building divided into separate functional units (2) : a line of row houses (3) : a distinctive part of a building or integrated group of buildingsMaybe the American woman on the cargo boat was drunk or something! I don't think many Americans -- even landlubbers -- would mix up a measure of land for a distance on water unless they were impaired in some way.

I think Vee meant that a block would be a varying distance according to how the city was set out. Adelaide is one of the best planned cities I have been in - all the inner streets are in a grid, very few one way streets, exceptionally wide streets for the time it was planned - but not all the blocks are the same length.
So unlike a mile or a kilometre, a block is the length the planner made it. Right Vee? :-)

Kath, I thought that might be what Vee meant, but without a segue I wasn't sure. Now, we'll see if she verifies it.:-)

So, block, in Australia, is used in the same way as in North America, it seems. Then, that brings up the question for Vee: What is the equivalent in the UK? I know that "blocks of flats" are often referred to there, but I don't think I remember the street-corner to street-corner measure ever coming up when I was there, perhaps because very few cities or towns are laid out in block grids (way too old, most of them, except maybe Milton Keynes and some of the newer suburbs).

I'm still puzzling over that cargo-boat woman wanting to know how many blocks it was to the next port. Just throwing out a theory: maybe she was a city dweller and the block unit was the only distance with which she had any experience. Personally, I couldn't tell you how many miles (or kilometers) anything is from my house -- I navigate by landmarks, not distances, on land -- so perhaps I could understand how she would want a distance translated into something familiar. However, she was being very ethnocentric to assume that her measure would mean the same thing to someone else; if, indeed, that was what she was assuming, but without more information there's no way to tell positively. It still sounds to me as if she wasn't thinking clearly -- seasick, perhaps. Vee, see what you've done? You've exercised my mind. :-)

Now, I've obviously mislead you Frieda. The term 'block' is never used in Australia as a length. If we talk of a block, it is a housing block, that is, one piece of land for a house. It used to be 'the quarter acre block' that everyone wanted, but nowadays we have both metric measurements (I think our block is about 700 square metres) and much smaller allotments.

We do also have 'blocks of flats or units'.

We only know of 'block' in the way we were discussing from watching so much US TV and films. We would tend to say 'walk down this street for 100 metres' or 'walk over the next street and go to the left on the one after' or 'keep going until you get to the post office' - that sort of thing.

Our blocks in the west are definitely longer than the ones in NYC. I was astounded by how quickly we seemed to get around, then I noticed the difference in mileage. Mmmmm

Geography has never been taught well in the US. Now with the emphasis on testing the basics, its taught even less. Very frustrating. Its always been one of my fav subjects. As a kid, I used to troll through the huge atlas at home, day dreaming (I also read the encyclopedia. Twice. I either was a determined reader or had no social life) Anyway, I keep a globe and an atlas by my reading chair, so I can readily check a place name if I am not sure, or follow a journey that a character is taking. Can't imagine not knowing how to do that.

Dear ccrdmrbks,

In no way did I enter in to a discussion about politics, I merely mentioned a name, hoping you all would see the humour or irony in it - if you don't take it in jest, then deal with it, just don't suggest I have hijacked the thread. You really need to lighten up a little.

Adam

Thanks everyone for the block info. Kath summed it up very well.
Over here a 'Block of flats' 'Tower block' all refer to solid structures never the land on which they are built. As you might say vacant lot for an empty piece of land, we would say building plot. I think the technical term for building land is 'parcel', or really ancient but used in legal documents messuage or curtilage (from the Norman French).
You might hear someone say "I'm just going to walk the dog round the block" but that is just an Americanism!

Frieda we have no similar 'home-grown' expression for distance and tend to talk in terms of 'hundred yards' 'half a mile' 'up the hill, round the corner and left at the zebra crossing' We have yet to use kilometers altho' the Govt is working on it!

Re the woman on the boat (and this is where it is so much easier talking face-to-face) my point in connection with the heading of the thread was that she should have known better than to use the term block in such an inappropriate situation and among people who have no understanding of the expression.
I was with my Mother at the time who didn't hesitate in decribing the woman as a 'loud New Yorker' . . .with apologies to anyone from that City, but DM's family came from VA and considered themselves to be gracious, elegant, courteous, gentlemanly, honourable and RIGHT about everything. :-)
It is unlikely the rude woman was drunk as the cost of booze in Norway is/was truly sky-high.

I notice that most American friends describe travelling in terms of hours rather than miles. If we used that method in the UK it would be meaningless as it can take half an hour to drive 5 miles on our narrow, overcrowded roads.

Well, Vee, if the woman was truly a New Yorker, that would explain her word choice for measuring distance, somewhat. But I think it would sound just as peculiar to most non-New-Yorker or non-big-city-dweller Americans as it does to Europeans and others.
I notice that most American friends describe travelling in terms of hours rather than miles.
"Hours" will refer to time and only roughly to distance -- an hour could be 5 miles or 60 miles or 600 miles, depending on conditions and mode of transportation -- thus, on an average, good day it would take 14 hours by automobile (with relief stops) to cross the approximately 750 miles from Beaumont, Texas to El Paso, Texas on Interstate 10 highway (which I did recently) but there would be bottlenecks in Houston and densely populated southeast Texas and again in San Antonio, so much more time would be spent in those places than in the wide-open parts of West Texas where you put your foot on the fuel pedal and never have to pause. In Honolulu, however, it can take an hour to go 10 miles by road, depending on traffic, or it can take an hour to fly to one of the other islands. Time is an easy and more meaningful concept to many Americans while the actual mileage is much less so.

In German, you also take a dog around the block (presuming you live in a built-up area, obviously), but that is the only time that word is used.

I just realised that we also 'walk around the block', but only use it in that context. Isn't language a wonderful thing?