Speaking as one who has a degree in Geography and has made maps and deals with the general public frequently using maps as a reference, I can very confidently state there are LOADS of people that haven’t got a clue how to use a map.
Hum. I’ve been in GIS from before it was called GIS (was AM/FM - Automated Mapping and Facilities Management). And have made many, many maps. Perhaps since the person/department requested a paper map I run into mostly people that know how to use them.
Even though I’ve been in GIS for over 30 years, when on a long road trip even with GPS, both my wife and I like to bring along an Atlas. For amusement if nothing else. It’s also nice to be able to just turn a page or two to get an overview of where we will be going in the next state over or whatever.
Bingo. Try communicating with the general public using a map as a referent when they haven’t requested a map and I bet you’d find close to 1 in 5 completely unable to make use of it without you walking them through how to use it.
The degree of geographic ignorance in this country is appalling. I can’t count the number of times I’ve taken citizen complaints about a specific property and had to walk them through a process of orientation and even failing after that.
“Where is this house that allegedly has the ‘illegal immigrants’ living in it?”
“It’s down the street from me”
“Is it to the north or to the south of your house?”
“I’m sorry honey, but I don’t do directions. But it’s to the RIGHT of my house.”
“Okay, here’s your house…and this way is north…now can you point to where the house is?”
“Weren’t you listening honey, I said I don’t do directions…”
Good point. And while my wife can certainly use maps, she does not like cardinal directions. I do. And I figured out why.
I grew up in places that where mostly laid out in a grid system. Lived in Denver for 15 years too. To the west of Denver is a ‘feature’ that can’t be missed. The Rocky mountains.
My Wife grew up in Pittsburgh. N,S,E,W is pointless there. The road network looks like someone dropped a plate of spaghetti. But she can certainly use a map.
A funny story - once when my SIL was going somewhere in Pittsburgh, I and two others where passengers. SIL knows Pittsburgh, or so I thought. I was in the back seat talking to my niece while SIL drove.
She got lost. I got a paper map out.
Me “Where are we, or about where are we?”
SIL “I don’t know”
Me “Where are we going?”
SIL “Tom’s house”
Me “Uhhh”
She, and I think a lot of people ‘follow their’ nose and can only use physical landmarks for directions. Not knowing where you are, and only the landmark of ‘Tom’s’ house is useless on any paper map. A GPS now saves her. It at least tells you where you are.
We could figure out where we where by finding street signs of course. But SIL needed to find the Zoo to get her ‘bearings’ to find Tom’s house.
So, you are right, there are people that have no sense of direction and in that case a paper map anyway is really of no help.
Yes, that sounds right. But there’s also, I think, something of a culture clash. Most complaints I hear about “rude New Yorkers” come from Southerners. Down here, our conversational mores prescribe a certain amount of social lubrication: “Hey, how you doin’ today?” “Cain’t complain, but I do anyway!” “I hear dat! You take care, now!” “You too, have a good‘un!”. New Yorkers, and Northerners in general, don’t use that much conversational padding – they just don’t see the need. Which comes across as brusque to us. That’s why, I think, Southerners think New Yorkers are rude, and New Yorkers think Southerners are insincere. The one time I visited NYC, I encountered nothing but friendly, helpful people.
I’m not British, but I suspect this is so for Londoners. There’s a comedy sketch on YouTube about a Northerner terrorizing London by saying “hello” to people. And Catherine Tate has a video about a posh London family reduced to panic over a cheerful substitute nanny from Newcastle.
I was once talking with a Frenchman from Marseille, when the subject turned to the stereotype of French rudeness. He said, “Oh, no, that’s not France; that’s just Paris. The rest of us hate them, too.”
Atlases are just generally fun to mess around with; I used to spend hours poring over my parent’s luxuriously bound world atlas. One day I decided to trace the route of a state highway near our Atlanta home, and was fascinated to discover that it finally terminated in downtown Detroit, Michigan.
I know a woman who can not tell her “left” and “right”. She couldn’t use a map if her life depended on it.
In a weird way, I sort of understand this. I’m chronologically challenged. I can guess the current time very closely. But what I/we did 6 months or 6 years ago? Forget about it. Oh I remember it of course, but I’m always way way off on the year.
I can put things in chronological order, but as far as the date it happened? Not a clue.
The last time I saw my PCP (he has since retired) he gave me hell for not following up on my heart/stent. I replied angrily that I had been in the previous year. He showed me the screen he was viewing, proving it had been 4 years.
I sheepishly said, “time flies”.
I’m guilty of this.
My current flatmate has bragged to me about having once worked for a Ponzi scheme. (I suspect he is doing something similar now online, as, since he was made redundant from his sales job this summer, he has been at home all day and nonchalant about getting a steady job).
I know a man who grew up in poverty, and who actually stole things from me when he was safeguarding them for me. He has boasted to me about when he managed to steal from someone else.
That reminds me of the book Trust Me I’m Lying, which I sampled on Kindle once. It’s by Ryan Holiday, who is currently known as the guru of Stoicism, but the book is all about how he made money hand over fist manipulating conservatives into believing terrible things about liberals through the use of fake news. He claims in the book that he’s trying to do something better with his life, but the book reeks of braggadocio about how effective he was and how much money he made, and I found him morally repugnant. Still can’t bring myself to read any more of his books, even though I’m interested in the general concept of Stoicism.
I knew a girl (she was about 14 or 15 when I first met her so I still think of her as a girl) who was very intelligent, but had absolutely no sense of direction. She once had to drive someone to LAX, and she mapped it out – it’s pretty easy. But she had trouble getting home to the San Gabriel Valley, because she didn’t know the Santa Monica freeway went in both directions.
I am that person. Whenever they were handing out the ability to navigate, I was passed over. It’s not as rough now that I have GPS. I used to have to ask myself which way my gut was telling me to go, and go the opposite way.
My Aunt by contrast always knows where she is and remembers how to get to a place after she’s been there one time. I was with her once in the rare event that she didn’t know where she was, and she about had a meltdown.
“I don’t know where I am!” she gasped.
“That is my default state of existence!”
Ha. I’m pretty good at directions and actually enjoy those minutes of “not knowing where I am.” Like, wow, I’m lost!
I agree that southern culture is insincere. Moving back to Florida from Colorado, I’ve been astounded by my immersion in “southern culture”, which is marked by a lot of overt civility joined by a lot of backstabbing and gossiping.
So that’s something bad that many in the south like to brag about: the hypocrisy of being sweet and nice to people who you actually look down upon and don’t like (e.g. the proverbial “bless her heart”)
I heard the exact same line from some nice people from Normandy. I think it’s the national motto (minus Paris).
Oh. So if we really are insincere and hypocritical, does that mean y’all really are rude and arrogant? Or is it maybe just, y’know, different cultural norms, and it’s maybe no more insincere for a Southerner to be courteous to someone they actually dislike, than it is for a Northerner to be brusque with someone they like?
Hmm. Insincere fried chicken or a slice of thin crust pizza served with contempt? It’s all good.
Ditto. I’ve lived here all my life. We call it “good manners”.
well I do tell stories of my former alcoholic/narcotic escapades for laughs occasional y
I’ll match that any day with the people who brag about not owning a TV.
Thank you!
Native New Yorker, although I’ve lived more years in the midwest than any place else-- and I still have not adjusted to the clerks at Walmart who will not permit me to buy something without my first telling them how I’m doing, or how my day is going. Don’t get me started on professional “greeters.”
The heavens opened up and sang the day self-checkouts went public.