CaveMike seems to have made the comments that I most closely agree with. Some additional points to make:
Geography: The US has few borders and is far from Europe. Also, many of our cities are named after the original European cities. The citation of Paris, France makes a great deal of sense in many parts of the US, for example. It would never make sense anywhere in Europe, however as there is only one Paris (there is no Paris, Germany, etc.)
Automobiles: There are some mistaken ideas about road racing, etc. and how that relates to automatic transmissions. Anyone serious about racing in the US does not use an automatic transmission, not even for drag racing, not if it is on a competitive level. Even NASCAR cars have manual transmissions.
As for the idea that Europeans prefer manual transmissions - my Russian father-in-law quickly shattered that illusion after he drove my automatic Audi A6. He swears his next car will be an automatic. I lived in Germany for 6 years, and I never found that Germans were dead set against automatic transmissions. Mostly manual vs. automatic is perceived through cultural macho filters or perceptions which don’t exist so much here in the US (although we have many other cultural biases, of course).
Could you explain, therefore, why Australians don’t feel the need to do this, since Australia conforms to all the criteria you have given above? Come to think of it, so does New Zealand, to a lesser extent, and they don’t do it either.
When I lived in the US, I spent a long time trying to locate a stick-shift to buy because I can’t stand driving automatics, so my [del]anecdote[/del] datapoint counters yours…
So what the heck are you talking about? Of course Australians don’t feel a need to cite the countries associated with these cities.
You can buy manual transmission cars anywhere in the US. Until my Audi, all I’ve ever owned were manual transmission cars.
So again, not sure what the heck you are discussing - the fact that you don’t know how to shop for a car? I can’t see where your “anecdote” or datapoint fits into the discussion, other than you wish to reinforce an idea in your own mind that you are superior to Americans … or somehow you culturally find automatic transmissions inferior to manual transmissions?
I have to agree with you on this one. I’ve owned 4 cars so far and all are manual. Europeans do drive cars with automatics but about 80% seem to be manual. Just walk down a typical street and count the numbers of parked cars you see with manual / vs automatic and you’ll see which one has the definite majority. I once asked a friend living in the Netherlands what the perceptions were about manual / vs automatic. Besides the more control a manual offers as well as the simplicity in design and maintenance, he pointed out (no doubt jokingly) that the only time people there buy automatics is when they can no longer shift gears, ie when they arms stop working Tongue in cheek of course. In the USA its flaunted more as a convenience thing. Because who wants to bother with shifting gears when the car can do it for you?
Actually, racing enthusiasts are pretty much the only people in the US who would deliberately seek out a vehicle with manual transmission. Most Americans think of manual transmissions as being outdated technology, the vehicular equivalent of vinyl records.
I think people are reading way too much into this. My impression has always been that Americans do the placename/state thing simply out of habit. It’s just a stylistic thing. The state seems to be added as a matter of course, even concerning such little-known places as Los Angeles, California, and New York, New York. I hear it all the time, and it doesn’t bother me (in fact, it’s helped my knowledge of US geography by osmosis, over the years). So if they do it for the the big places, they’re going to do it for the small ones too, and there’s no reason why places with borrowed names should be any exception.
My dear friend, you have cited three cities. Australia is filled with hundreds and hundreds of towns, villages, and cities that are in fact named after extant conurbations elsewhere in the world. Perth, Torquay, Newcastle, Tamworth, Ivanhoe, Albany, Bridgetown, to name but a few.
As for the automatic/manual thing, I don’t see the need for ire. It’s not a criticism - I’m merely pointing out that you cited one Russian guy who liked using an automatic, and that changes your entire opinion. I am one British guy who hates it, and am facetiously seeking to change your opinion back.
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu is one of the less savoury suburbs of Glasgow.
Oddly, the little mining village of California, near Falkirk in Scotland, is one of the few places over here that is named for somewhere over there. Well, that’s what I was told by a resident, and having been to both places I know which one I’d prefer to live in.
We’ve got a road called California. Not California Street, not California Road, just California. Yes, it causes confusion. There’s also an area of Ipswich called California, including things such as the ‘California Social Club’. I don’t think it’s safe to assume all the influence has been in one direction, not by a long stretch.
Circuitously, yes. From Wikipedia’s page on Melbourne, Derbyshire: “In 1837 a then tiny settlement in Australia was named after William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, Queen Victoria’s first Prime Minister, and thus indirectly takes its name from Melbourne Hall, seat of the Lamb family, and the village.”
Most “English” place names in Australia are direct ripoffs, but quite a few are not so obvious, usually being named after people instead of places. Liverpool, a large satellite city of Sydney, is one other.
Bingo. Most of the “dumbing down” thing is crap, but this is the one element of truth. Is it not true that 'Mericans have a comparatively low per capita rate of having and using a passports? As I understand it, your educational system perhaps doesn’t look outside of the US when it comes to history and geography as much as many places. This just means that you have to explain overseas references to an American more than a Brit. It’s not exactly “dumbing down”. It’s more explaining references.
Which is silly because there’s no way Benz could build something that good.
Tongue in cheek of course. In the USA its flaunted more as a convenience thing. Because who wants to bother with shifting gears when the car can do it for you?