Yeah, but ask a bunch of teachers or nurses at what temperature water boils. You’ll be amazed by the exciting incorrect answers.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1776&dept_id=6368&newsid=10386812&PAG=461&rfi=9
Quick quote from that newspaper: New York State has more debt than 46 out of the 52 states.
Sheesh… Look at how many results this search pulls up:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q="52+states"&sa=N&tab=nw
So… I don’t know… I really want to know what these people are thinking… where they get these extra two states from. Guam? Puerto Rico? District of Columbia? Why did a publisher endorse a book called “What’s Great About Our 52 States”? The title of the book will just perpetuate the belief that there are 52 states. It irks me.
apologies, it’s not a book: it’s a geography contest.
Welll…maybe not tenfold, but once at least.
Welll…maybe not tenfold, but once at least.
AMEN.
I had to move out of St. Louis to learn that anyone ever said anything but “Mizouree”.
The show to watch on this subject is Street Smarts.
In case you don’t know, on this show people are interviewed on video tape answering various questions. The in studio contestants have to decide who will get which question right or wrong.
Q: How many states are in the United States?
A: There’s 50 states, no wait, they added Alaska and Hawaii, so there’s 52
And…
“How many stars are on the United States flag?”
“38”
“And there are 38 stars why?”
“One for each state.”
“So there’s 38 states?”
“Yes”
And there’s a good chance they’d all be right. Water can boil over a wide temperature range…
Odinoneneye: Of course, they know that to get on TV, they have to act like morons. I think that’s the main mover there.
As for the rest, I have to ask: Just how many kinds of stupid is there?
And rather interestingly, and somewhat to my surprise, although Alaska is on the North American continent, it is not legally considered part of the “continental United States.”
When people refer to “52 states in the U.S.” they are certainly not referring to the 50 actual states, plus D.C., plus whatever. They are merely ignorant or confused. This is probably partly due to confusion with two other common ‘significant’ 52s, the number of weeks in a year and the number of cards in a deck, and partly to confusion over whether there were 48 or 50 states before the admission of Alaska and Hawaii.
I had someone once tell me they had been to “all 52 states of the Union.” I was tempted to ask them if that included East Dakota and New Idaho.
Contiguous means “Sharing an edge or boundary; touching”, “Neighboring; adjacent”, “Connecting without a break: the 48 contiguous states”.
I know what contiguous means.
I had assumed there was a distinction between the “contiguous” United States (the “Lower 48”) and the “continental” United States (the “Lower 48” + Alaska), but apparently legally there is not. Alaska and Hawaii are certainly non-contiguous, but although Alaska is geographically continental it is not legally continental. So that legally the contiguous U.S. is the same as the continental U.S.
What do you mean when you say “legally”?
For what its worth, the UK version of Trivial Pursuit (Genus II, specifically, I think) said there were 52 states. I never knew it wasn’t true until I moved here…
And it wasn’t that we counted Guam and Puerto Rico, just that most Brits think there are 52 states.
DC has a guard command, as well. Some of them are in Iraq right now.
Maybe they’re counting Canada twice
Try reading Max’s link:
Well, actually, this is a matter of definitions- and how you measure. The Missisippi is the longest if you include the Missouri River also- and why not? The Nile & the Amazon are really about the same length, but you can measure either from a different spot and end in a different location and have them each be longer than the other. Thus, the real answer is “it depends on you defintions and how you measure them”. All 3 are very long, and are the top 3.
I think that Odinoneeye hit on the answer: the “52 states” comes from people thinking that there are 50 states, plus Alaska and Hawaii. I’ve almost made that mistake myself a few times.
Last time this was discussed, I tried to nail down most of the sovereign entities which comprise the United States. I’ll take the liberty of quoting myself here to save the hamsters, but you should also take a look at JRDelerious’s posts, and Libertarian’s brilliant mnemonic.