From Buzzfeed: It's Thanksgiving So We Asked Brits To Label The United States – We're So Sorry, America (http://markholtz.info/ex)
OK, now if you give me a map of the UK, and ask me where all the major places are located, you are going to see how well I flounder.
Of course, here are some examples of Americans trying to place the European countries (http://markholtz.info/ey).
Quote from: ZLoth on November 27, 2013, 04:01:34 AM
OK, now if you give me a map of the UK, and ask me where all the major places are located, you are going to see how well I flounder.
That's more like asking a Britlander to label places in Oregon.
PS: before I looked closely I thought the fourth one had Ozzy pissing on the Alamo.
Quote from: NE2 on November 27, 2013, 05:01:09 AMThat's more like asking a Britlander to label places in Oregon.
Oregon has several million+ met areas and exports a lot of pop culture/lots of TV/movies set there?
California, maybe.
And Britlander - are you Carl Rogers in disguise?
I used Oregon so the land area would be about the same, but yeah, California would be a better analogy.
Quote from: ZLoth on November 27, 2013, 04:20:21 AM
Of course, here are some examples of Americans trying to place the European countries (http://markholtz.info/ey).
am I the only one who noticed that the map shows Serbia and Montenegro as one country, as opposed to at least two?
The map's also missing Occupied Vatican and Dan Marino.
Nobody noticed Andorra, correct or incorrect.
Quote from: 1 on November 27, 2013, 10:55:45 AM
Nobody noticed Andorra, correct or incorrect.
One of them did, but it took me reading the comments and then looking closely a third time to spot it.
a lot of people completely omitted even looking at the Caucasian states.
Monaco is there. I assume Liechtenstein, San Marino, and the Vatican are omitted for size reasons. Malta probably as well, though it can easily be included, especially given that Monaco and Andorra are omitted.
but the largest problem - and the one that squarely puts the map into 2003-2006 territory - is the absence of a Serbia-Montenegro (and a Serbia-Kosovo, depending on your definition of "internationally recognized independent state") border.
Here's my attempt without using the Internet... I pulled the blank off Google images. Geography isn't one of my strong points. :ded:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1300.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fag88%2FZeffyboy%2Fzeffys_map_of_eu_zpsc3c4e9df.png&hash=67bbc554fe1042f1c5654321752721aa473050d7)
I probably would have earned an 'F' had that been an actual quiz. I had enough of them in my language classes already, those didn't go well.
Quote from: Zeffy on November 27, 2013, 12:57:13 PM
Here's my attempt without using the Internet... I pulled the blank off Google images. Geography isn't one of my strong points. :ded:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1300.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fag88%2FZeffyboy%2Fzeffys_map_of_eu_zpsc3c4e9df.png&hash=67bbc554fe1042f1c5654321752721aa473050d7)
I probably would have earned an 'F' had that been an actual quiz. I had enough of them in my language classes already, those didn't go well.
Most of those islands are part of another country.
Ireland - yes
UK - yes
Portugal - yes
Spain - yes
France - yes
N.L. - yes
Sweden - yes, but no point as that's three countries.
Austria - yes
Italy - yes
Switz - yes
Russia - yes
Is this even Europe over here? - no it isn't, but it counts as Europe for some reason (probably the bit over that narrow straight)
Score 10. Grade D- Some reasonable instincts, some massive fails, not answering over half.
Only one of those visible islands is a separate country, and (while in the EU) it isn't in Europe.
Quote from: english si on November 27, 2013, 02:39:33 PM
Only one of those visible islands is a separate country, and (while in the EU) it isn't in Europe.
which one is that? Iceland? for them, "in EU" and "not in Europe" are ... it's complicated. they're an EU candidate, and on both European and North American tectonic plates.
Cyprus also seems to be in the picture.
Quote from: 1 on November 27, 2013, 03:09:09 PM
Cyprus also seems to be in the picture.
oh right. it's in the EU but it's in Anatolia, geologically speaking. here I thought politically it had always been considered part of Europe; is it instead part of the Middle East?
Quote from: agentsteel53 on November 27, 2013, 03:21:50 PMoh right. it's in the EU but it's in Anatolia, geologically speaking. here I thought politically it had always been considered part of Europe; is it instead part of the Middle East?
Geographically, it is in Asia. Politically it's considered Europe (likewise Armenia).
Turkey is a real borderline case, politically, though is obviously a trans-continental country with most in Asia.
Quote from: english si on November 27, 2013, 04:12:31 PM
Turkey is a real borderline case, because some people think it's in Europe, some people think it's in Asia, and some people eat it for Thanksgiving.
Fixed.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on November 27, 2013, 03:21:50 PM
Quote from: 1 on November 27, 2013, 03:09:09 PM
Cyprus also seems to be in the picture.
oh right. it's in the EU but it's in Anatolia, geologically speaking. here I thought politically it had always been considered part of Europe; is it instead part of the Middle East?
It's not part of the Middle Eastern clusterfuck, but it's half-Greek and half-Turkish, probably the crazier half of each. Turkey is mostly Asian, and their culture is quite split now (used to be more European). I'd say it counts as Asian.
Quote from: ZLoth on November 27, 2013, 04:01:34 AMOK, now if you give me a map of the UK, and ask me where all the major places are located, you are going to see how well I flounder.
Your wish is sort of fulfilled - this is something slightly different as this isn't all major places, and some aren't that major.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg585.imageshack.us%2Fimg585%2F2934%2Fs6lk.png&hash=c4610dd28f1a89b7a08919aeaaf2107c00e94bd8)
40 things to label: 20 towns/cities (black dots, A-T), 5 nearby other countries (white areas U-Y), 7 counties (in yellow, 1-7), 3 national parks (green areas, 9, 10, 14), 3 World Heritage Sites (green dots/line, 8, 11, 13), a non-London tourist honeypot (green, 12) and an island (green area, 15)
Some incorrect answers will give you a point if close enough.
U sheep
V three-legged sloths
W for fuck's sake just give it back to the Irish already
X goats
Y frogs
Z haha falklands war
At least the Brits know where Louisiana is located. I guess since they were involved in the War of 1812.
Quote from: english si on November 27, 2013, 08:40:10 PM
Quote from: ZLoth on November 27, 2013, 04:01:34 AMOK, now if you give me a map of the UK, and ask me where all the major places are located, you are going to see how well I flounder.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg585.imageshack.us%2Fimg585%2F2934%2Fs6lk.png&hash=c4610dd28f1a89b7a08919aeaaf2107c00e94bd8)
Hey, that's not the UK. :P I'll try anyway.
Q - that
has to be London.
S - Plymouth; why it's pronounced [plim-uth] is beyond me
T - Dover?
U - Wales
V - Isle of Man?
W - Northern Ireland
X - Scotland
Y - France
1 - Yorkshire
3 - Norfolk
5 - Essex
7 - Cornwall
R - Brighton
9 - Liverpool
10 - Leeds?
Quote from: Takumi on November 27, 2013, 10:47:24 PM
9 E - Liverpool
It should have been a hint that A-T were cities, and 9 is supposed to be a national park.
Quote from: sammi on November 27, 2013, 10:35:21 PMPlymouth; why it's pronounced [plim-uth] is beyond me
How else would you pronounce it? Ply-mouth? The river is the Plym.
Quote from: Takumi on November 27, 2013, 10:47:24 PM10 - Leeds?
Nope - see Sammi's last
Quote from: NE2 on November 27, 2013, 10:09:30 PMW for fuck's sake just give it back to the Irish already
We did try - they just didn't want to join with the rest of the island in 1922 (and they are one reason why it took so long for home rule to happen - so long that they wanted independence by the 1910s, and then that took a good few years to sort out the least-bad solution), and continue to want to hang on to us. Well more than half do...
We've only stopped their autonomy when they couldn't stop arguing and it had no real rule. They actually have far more devolved than Scotland, and have had it for longer. The Irish rule Northern Ireland. We've wanted shot of it since about 1922, but we respected their right to self determination, where repeatedly a small majority has said "please rule us".
Quote from: english si on November 28, 2013, 01:05:50 PM
Quote from: sammi on November 27, 2013, 10:35:21 PMPlymouth; why it's pronounced [plim-uth] is beyond me
How else would you pronounce it? Ply-mouth? The river is the Plym.
Well there's the problem. The etymology was never obvious to me, so I've always pronounced it Ply-mouth (as you said). Like a lot of other names I find rather unusual "Gloucester", "Leicester", etc.
EDIT: Oh, and local ones too. I used to live in the city of Vaughan [vawn], which I used to pronounce [vaw-hun] when we just got here. Never said it again. :P And a street near the lakeshore is called Strachan [strahn]. :/
English is weird. :pan:
Quote from: sammi on November 28, 2013, 02:45:54 PM
Well there's the problem. The etymology was never obvious to me, so I've always pronounced it Ply-mouth (as you said). Like a lot of other names I find rather unusual "Gloucester", "Leicester", etc.
English is weird. :pan:
I'm not gonna lie, a few months ago I've always known Gloucester as "Gloo-ces-ter" and not "Glaw-ster". Yes, English is weird.
Quote from: sammi on November 28, 2013, 02:45:54 PM
Quote from: english si on November 28, 2013, 01:05:50 PM
Quote from: sammi on November 27, 2013, 10:35:21 PMPlymouth; why it's pronounced [plim-uth] is beyond me
How else would you pronounce it? Ply-mouth? The river is the Plym.
Well there's the problem. The etymology was never obvious to me, so I've always pronounced it Ply-mouth (as you said). Like a lot of other names I find rather unusual "Gloucester", "Leicester", etc.
EDIT: Oh, and local ones too. I used to live in the city of Vaughan [vawn], which I used to pronounce [vaw-hun] when we just got here. Never said it again. :P And a street near the lakeshore is called Strachan [strahn]. :/
English is weird. :pan:
I wonder how many of those Brits got confused with
New England? :D
It must be nice for you Canadians to have a "normal" Thursday like this! I wish we did here! :(
Connecticut has a ton of British place names, of course! While we don't have Gloucester, we
do have Plymouth, to the west of Bristol. I'm in the city of New Britain, yet have never seen an Old Britain. You
will see Olde English though! ;)
Our bordering town of Berlin is pro-nounced BER-linn, not ber-LINN like the German city. It irritates me when people say the home city of Yale University as
NEW Haven. :rolleyes:
Lastly, if it wasn't for the "Informer" song from Snow of about 1993, I wouldn't be able to pronounce Etobicoke! :clap:
Massachusetts has these towns which are also British town names:
Boston, Cambridge, Ipswich, Gloucester, Plymouth, Leicester, Worcester
As well as Berlin just like Connecticut and New Hampshire do.
^^ And pronunciations differ across the US and Canada as it is.
shur-LOTT, not SHAR-let (Charlotte). Southerners say the latter.
Houghton is pronounced "ho-ton".
Grand Rapids kinds gets slurred as "granrapids".
And the Cheeseheads even spell Cheboygan differently as Sheboygan.
Then some areas bastardize names.
Marseilles, IL is pronounced "mar-sales", not like the French city.
Then sometimes we maintain the pronunciation such as in Charlevoix, Mackinac (Mack-in-awe), and even Joliet (as in French before spellings were settled - spelled Joliet, Jolliet, and currently in French as Joliette - all pronounced the same).
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on November 28, 2013, 06:57:54 PM
It must be nice for you Canadians to have a "normal" Thursday like this! I wish we did here! :(
Isn't our Thanksgiving a regular day down there? Columbus Day apparently.
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on November 28, 2013, 06:57:54 PM
Lastly, if it wasn't for the "Informer" song from Snow of about 1993, I wouldn't be able to pronounce Etobicoke! :clap:
I used to pronounce it with the K too, so it always bothered me whenever they wouldn't pronounce it on the news.
But I am a Torontonian now, I even pronounce "Toronto" without the second T. "Tronno". :P
Ooh, another one. One commercial here says
Islamorada [eye-la-morada]. :confused:
TL;DR English is weird.
Yes...Columbus Day. I feel it shouldn't even be a holiday, but I digress. :-(
Toronto is close to Scarborough. I once lived next to Scarborough...Maine (resort town of Old Orchard Beach).
Do people around there ever exclude the ugh part of the city name? Most people in the NFL will say Foxboro when referencing the New England Patriots NFL team. However, when you pass through the town along I-95, the town line sign clearly says "FOXBOROUGH." I've seen people do the same with Westborough, MA.
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on November 28, 2013, 08:00:14 PM
Do people around there ever exclude the ugh part of the city name? Most people in the NFL will say Foxboro when referencing the New England Patriots NFL team. However, when you pass through the town along I-95, the town line sign clearly says "FOXBOROUGH." I've seen people do the same with Westborough, MA.
And Tyngsboro.
Discussion of this topic should be more appropriate here (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=10330).
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on November 28, 2013, 08:00:14 PM
Toronto is close to Scarborough.
Incorrect. Scarborough is within Toronto, and that has been the case since 1998.
OK. Wasn't aware of that one. Thank you for that! Maybe that city was annexed? My brother has been to Toronto at least (he visited the Skydome for a baseball game in 2004).
Getting back on topic: I couldn't name much in England except for where London is...maybe where the Chunnel portals are and that's it! :(
X Scotland
W Northern Ireland
V Isle of Man
U Wales
Y France
8 Hadrian's Wall ?
Q London
G Birmingham
I won't lie, I couldn't place most of your cities on an English Map if my life depended on it.
What's remarkable to me is that after California, Texas, and Florida...it seemed the British were pretty good at spotting the Dakotas (I can't imagine they're well-known travel destinations for those outside the US).
I got a good belly laugh at some of the entries. But on the whole, the Brits did pretty well.
Quote from: formulanone on November 28, 2013, 08:36:05 PMG Birmingham
No. Everything else right.
Between you so far, you have got 15 out of the 40:
cities (5/20): E, Q, R, S, T
non-England (5/5): U, V, W, X, Y
counties (4/7): 1, 3, 5, 7
tourist (1/8): 8
---
English pronunciation got me when the Jubilee line extension opened - I said (in front of my Cockney grandparents) South-wark, rather than Suv-urk and got funny looks. It was like I had said Green-wich, not Gren-ich.
Not only is there not the phonetic, but we drop letters and squish-together like mad, without changing the spelling.
Quote from: KEVIN_224 on November 28, 2013, 08:31:28 PM
OK. Wasn't aware of that one. Thank you for that! Maybe that city was annexed? My brother has been to Toronto at least (he visited the Skydome for a baseball game in 2004).
Getting back on topic: I couldn't name much in England except for where London is...maybe where the Chunnel portals are and that's it! :(
Yea, the Province of Ontario amalgamated the City of Toronto with five of its suburbs (one of which, North York, was more populous than the pre-merger City of Toronto itself) into the 'NEW and IMPROVED!' City of Toronto in 1998. It quadrupled the City's population.
Also, at about the same time, they amalgamated the Ottawa region. Compare a map of the present-day City of Ottawa with one from before that merger.
:wow:
(Wishing that my home state of Wisconsin had THOSE cajones!!!)
BTW, I would likely be able to correctly place some major cities on the map of the UK, but not the local regions.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on November 29, 2013, 08:49:44 AM
(Wishing that my home state of Wisconsin had THOSE cajones!!!)
Boxes?
L is Birmingham, H is Manchester(?) G is Leeds (I think) and A might be Newcastle upon Tyne.
Quote from: NE2 on November 29, 2013, 08:57:14 AM
Quote from: mgk920 on November 29, 2013, 08:49:44 AM
(Wishing that my home state of Wisconsin had THOSE cajones!!!)
Boxes?
There's only one left and it's near San Diego.
I believe MGK meant to say "conejos"
Quote from: kj3400 on November 29, 2013, 09:29:12 AM
L is Birmingham, H is Manchester(?) G is Leeds (I think) and A might be Newcastle upon Tyne.
L and A are right, the other two are wrong.
Quote from: english si on November 29, 2013, 07:41:07 AM
It was like I had said Green-wich, not Gren-ich.
Takes me back to Second Year. There's a pizza chain in the Philippines called Greenwich [green-itch]. Then one time we learned about the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, and the teacher pronounced it [green-witch].
/me raises her hand "I think it's pronounced [grin-itch]."
Teacher: No, it's [green-
witch]. [green-itch] is the restaurant.
/me facepalms
They should have no problem with Greenwich, Connecticut then! Sure, they'll be surrounded by super rich snobs, but will have an advantage, since the place name came from England to begin with. We people from the Constitution State pronounce it GREN-itch. Imagine the country of Greenland being pronounced as GREN-lend? :happy: