There’s also Paris, Illinois and Pekin, Illinois (pronounced pee-kin). There is some story circulating involving Chinese immigrants who named the town that because they thought it was directly opposite of Pekin(g), China. Related humuor involves the Pekin high school mascot – they are now called the Dragons but years ago they were the Chinks!:o
There is another town in Illinois, San Jose, where the residents apparently pronounce it exactly like it looks!! – an aquaintance of mine was driving through San Jose while argueing with her family about how they pronounce it there. Her father decided to ask a local, so they stopped at a Casey’s convenience store and went to ask the clerk. Her father approached the clerk and said “please say the name of this place real slow so we can hear the pronunciation”. The clerk replied (very slow) “caaaseeey’s”.:rolleyes:
A certain graduate of the Ohio State University medical school who I happen to be married to had never heard of “partial-birth abortion”. I thought that maybe it was just the terminology that was unfamiliar (because it’s only called that by the religious right), so I explained the procedure, and she still drew a blank. I guess the procedure really is rare, but you’d think she would have noticed it in the newspaper, or discussed in an ethics seminar, or SOMETHING…
The Russians/USSR may have never made a manned moon landing but they sent the first probe around the moon in '59, made the first hard landing and the first soft landing in '66. Until the Apollo missions the Godless commies were beating us in all the major milestones of space exploration.
In an Advanced Placement European History class, a student asked the teacher in the middle of the test “What’s an artillery?” She was an otherwise bright girl, but somehow this particular bit of vocabulary had escaped her thus far.
However, here is the ultimate topper in terms of ignorance. I am reporting it to you only because it comes from a usually reliable source. I do not believe it for a second.
14%?! How can 1 out of 7 Brits not even know who Jesus Christ is? What do they think people are saying when they hit their thumbs with hammers? Could some Brit here please tell me that your citizens are not really this ignorant? Us Americans get slack all the time because we can’t find Canada on a map or name one of our allies during World War II, but at least we’ve all heard of Jesus! Somebody tell me this is some sort of joke!
Okay, I have another story. I wouldn’t say it’s shocking that the person involved didn’t know about it, but the quote about not knowing of the aurora borealis reminded me of it.
I did the “European Trekking Thing” when I was 21. You know; strap on a backpack, jump on a plane, and hang out for several weeks. It was in a youth hostel in Flroence, Italy where I met an Irish schoolteacher. I don’t remember how we got on the subject, but I told her that we have special fish in California. They’ll actually swim right up on the beach and you can pick them up, take them home, and eat them. Of course, it only happens in a certain month under the light of a full moon ;). She didn’t believe me. I was going to send her a National Geographic article about the grunion (from 1968, but I don’t remember the month. My high school biology teacher’s photo is in it because he was friends with a guy who studied grunion.) but I never got around to it.
So anyway, I guess “grunion runs” are not well known world wide, so it’s not surprising that this woman from Ireland would have thought I was joking.
(BTW: There was a Beverly Hillbillies episode where they heard the grunion were running. They went to the beach to defend the country from these invaders, and thought the surfers were grunion.)
…it’s not as weird as you think. I was chatting to a friend once about the musical, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, by Sir Andrew Large Bankroll and Tim Rice, and I said it was pretty good, and that if they ever did another West End revival we could go to see it. And she said fine, she’d like that, but before going I’d have to explain the story.
This friend grew up in Belgrade. Since this forum is mainly read by Americans, I’ll explain that’s a big city in the Clinton Machismo Demonstration Zone formerly known as Yugoslavia. A Communist country, hence no tuition about jesus. Why would there be?
A very large percentage of the Brit population have no reason, in terms of race or ethnic origin, to know anything at all about jesus. Putting the shoe on the other foot, how much do you know about the origins or tenets of the Sikh religion? Same sort of thing. In any case, I would take issue wih the original survey question: it should be not who jesus IS, but who he allegedly WAS.
Keeping reindeer is a relatively important livelihood in Lapland, but they’re most certainly not used for transportation (tourist traps notwithstanding).
Them deerbiters out there in the sticks use motor sleds for herding deer in the winter, ordinary cars otherwise.
[shameless hijack]
I just want to say something: When I started a thread titled “What school subject is taught worst?”, I suggested the answer to the title’s query was “history”. Some agreed, some disagreed.
After reading all of the posts in this thread, I feel justified in my answer.
[/shameless hijack]
When I was in Colorado, some girl asked where I was from and when I told her Florida, she looked at me funny and said something along the lines of “You mean people live there? I thought it was just a vacation place.” I mean, she was about 12, but still. :rolleyes:
Believe it or not… my wife is English (that’s the believable part of this) and we live in Alabama (ok, so that is believable too). FOUR people here, at different times in the last year or so, have - upon being engaged in conversation with my wife - said something to the effect of “I love your accent! Where did you learn to speak English so good?”
(Yes, I know, it should be “so well” - but this is Alabama after all).
We kind of look at the person to see if they’re joking - then look at each other with that “oh sweet Jesus they’re serious” look - and then patiently educate them on language in England.
As for my own stupid story - when I was a wee lad, I always heard people talking about going to Miami on television, etc. I had never actually seen the word “Miami” written out before so I always took it to mean “my ami” - and I didn’t know what an “ami” was or why someone would want to go there. I got better.
When I go to Florida visiting my dad one year, I am always astounded at what people think of Arizona. People think of it as the wild west, with cowboys running around in dusty chaps and 10 gallon hats, shootouts, Indians running around living in teepees… I swear! There are people who really still think it is like that! Also, I remember once talking about saguaro cactus with someone and they knew what they were… the tall thin cactus with arms. However, they thought they grew to, at most, maybe 6 feet tall. When I said they could get up to 60 or 80 feet high and have dozens of arms, they didn’t believe me. I had to get my mom to send a picture of my dad standing next to a really tall one. He is just a little speck at the bottom.
Lots of people don’t believe that birds live in cactus. People think gila monsters are make-believe. People think all kinds of weird things.
I agree, Opal–it is amazing how those saguaro dominate the Phenonix skyline, but hardly annyone ever comments. I think some people are confused and think that they are left over fakes from Vegas or something. I bet he didn’t believe you about the jackalopes either.
Where in Alabama, Superhead? There are several of us that live in Huntsville, and a few more in Montgomery and Birmingham. HTere has been some talk of a Birmingham dopefest in mid-January.
My grade twelve history teacher told me that a lot of people of the Jewish faith fall into an ethnic category called Semitic peoples or Semites, a category that includes arabs.
If anyone knows more about this than I do, please correct me.
Montgomery - in fact, I’m a friend of the ever educational Ogre. 'Twas his bidding that brought me here, although he has yet to reciprocate my going to http://www.freelotto.com and trying to win the lotto and win us some money. Grinch. (Although if he had, in fact, played the Grinch, he would be Jim Carrey and I would have a very rich friend who would have just cause TO NOT DO THE HONORABLE THING AND GO TO http://www.FREELOTTO.COM TO HELP HIS FRIEND BECOME RICH!)
