And it should be clear from the following posts that in some cases you’re wrong (with regard to cities, anyway).
Exactly! Americans really aren’t the best at geography on a conversational basis, so you have to lead them a little.
“I’m from this town.”
“Don’t know it.”
“its by this small city.”
“Don’t know it”
“Its near-by this larger city. Know it?”
“A little…”
“Ok. Visualize in your mind a planet with two oceans. Imagine the thinner ocean has a western shore line… and the bottom looks like a drooping penis. Never mind what looks like dribble… thats Cuba. Now look North… look way up North from the penis…”
Hehe. Busted.
It’s the internet’s first disagreement. Anyway, I clearly touched a nerve, but you can tell when someone’s trying to get some street cred when they actually live in Darbydale Phase II.
My bother in law is Mr. Ireland. Irish flag, Irish shirts, and I think he gave money to help the IRA during the fighting (thus prolonging a conflict that he barely understood). He was really let down when he went to Ireland and was repeatedly told that he wasn’t Irish.
Perhaps he should have kept a receipt.
If you add “the average self-identified Irish American in a fraternity house” this makes sense. Otherwise, there is something fundamentally wrong with people who have missed a hundred years of affable-drunk stereotyping, and seemingly every good family reunion/wedding/holiday, who think their forebears are known for drinking fortitude and have set out to prove it. They need saving.
I’m shocked that he shared this information with you.
I would expect he’d come back boasting about how he was MORE IRISH than all the O’Donnells and Murphys he’d met over there, and how they’d immediately noticed it and complimented him on his echt* Irishness. “Why, I was sartin you came from the next village over!”
*Obviously not the right word, but you know what I mean.
Hey Math Whiz- let’s be conservative and say that people live for an average of 60 years. Fair to say less back then and more now.
That’s (roughly) 2.5 generations. On your planet, 150 years may be 10 generations removed from the Old Country. Here on Earth, it’s really not that far back.
It’s kind of a queer pitting, this one is. I’m wondering why you didn’t go whole cloth and pit Indigenous Peoples of The Americas. 13,500 years is a respectably long period of time.
If you were to pit, say, people in your town who claim to be Manchurian because 13,500 years ago, their “Peeps” strolled across Beringia, I might be right there with you.
Thin broth, this one.
You’re both wrong.
I’m tired of feeling like I’m supposed to genuflect any time someone mentions their ancestry.
No one gives a shit who your relatives were. And if they do, they’re probably bigots.
You think you have it bad? I’ve got some Aryan looking friend who has some “Creole” blood. Probably 1/1264th. To make it worse, he married an Asian woman. You can imagine the fine lectures that everybody gets everytime some black person gets beaten up, of his own ‘mixed’ ancestry. Then, he brings up his wonderful wife, and we get the story of how ‘mixed marriages’ offend so many, and they persecute him blah, blah, blah…to the point of my wishing for death. His, his wife’s, mine, doesn’t matter, just somebody, please, give me a moments peace from this!
I used to be friends with someone who lived in Crete, IL who I caught telling people on the internet he was “From Chicago” with no qualifiers. I would roll my eyes now, but was much younger at the time and from a crappy neighborhood on the south side, so I took genuine offense.
Me: “You’re not from Chicago. Stop telling people you are.”
Him: “It’s part of GREATER Chicago land, same thing”
This went on and on for an absurdly long time. Suffice to say, I genuinely believe the majority of people who do this are trying to do it for improved social cache because they find where they are from, very boring. It isn’t that much more work to say “(small town) which is near (big city they would’ve heard of”.
My cite is that I now live in a suburb, and don’t pretend I live in the nearest main city.
Are you descended from Robert The Bruce of the Clan The Bruce?
Nobody would ever claim either of the larger cities near my town for “added cachet.” But if you say “Greater LA” everybody on the planet has a general idea.
What if you’re from Zombieland?
I’m descended from dead people.
I list my location as Cleveland, not because I think it’s more prestigious or anything, but because most people here probably have no idea where Lakewood, OH is. Being a block off target is a lot more informative than “Huh? I thought that was in Colorado?”.
Ah Lakewood, Ohio, with its lovely lakefront park that has a beautiful view of the Cleveland skyline.
Most normal people consider the suburbs part of the city. Or at least get the general idea. Because they’re not so fucking anal.
I’ve noted that in New York and Chicago, at least, there’s a clear city vs suburbs divide in the minds of city dwellers. (And God forbid, even on these boards I once mentioned visiting my New York friend in Hoboken, I was immediately chastised and informed that Hoboken is not NYC, which, well, duh, I think I realized that when I had to take the PATH over to Jersey. I just think of it as general NYC, and, besides, my friend was born-and-raised in Queens, so I think of visiting him as visiting New York, since we spend most our time across the river.) However, they probably don’t fit under the designation of “most normal people.”
That said, I’ve participated in the playful snottiness myself, especially when somebody asks me “Where are you from?” and I say “Chicago” and they say “what suburb?” And I say, “I said Chicago.”