Common Misconceptions Many Reasonably Intelligent People Have and Your Corrections

[Shakester]

That Australia is always hot. No, bits of it are hot, but quite a lot of it is temperate and, during winter, the southern bits get pretty damn cold. Not quite Canada/Scandinavia level of winter cold, but not all that far away from it, either. We have fully functional ski resorts in our alpine areas.

That most of Australia is uninhabitable desert. No, we have some pretty large deserts, but most of Australia is inhabited, even if it’s quite sparsely inhabited in places. None of it is “empty” any more than the Mojave desert is empty - people live there and make a living there, there are farms and towns.

That Tasmanian Aborigines were wiped out by the British and are now extinct. No, they’re not; I’ve met some. Their numbers got pretty low, and there was a lot of interbreeding with whites, but their culture survived intact and still exists. I wouldn’t recommend telling one, should you ever happen to meet one, that he’s extinct; they tend to get quite annoyed by people saying that.

That white Australians are the descendants of British convicts. No, only approx 1.5% of living Australians can claim convict descent; there were always plenty of free settlers during the convict era, the gold rushes after 1851 brought ten times more people to this country than convict transportation ever did, and huge waves of post WW2 immigrants increased the population by around a third.

That Australia is full of deadly poisonous creatures. No, we say that to scare credulous Yanks. While it’s true that we *do *have many of the world’s most poisonous creatures, the worst ones are very rare, and you can live your whole life in Australia and never get bitten by anything. Even if, like me, you quite enjoy traipsing around the countryside in reasonably skimpy clothing. I’m 45, have spent my entire life in Australia, and I’ve never been bitten by anything worse than a mosquito. I’ve had people who have never been outside the USA insist that you can DIE from brushing against the wrong trees in Australia. POISONOUS TREES! Er, yes. Right. Whatever.

[WhyNot]

@Shakester

That Australia is full of deadly poisonous creatures. No, we say that to scare credulous Yanks. While it’s true that we *do *have many of the world’s most poisonous creatures, the worst ones are very rare, and you can live your whole life in Australia and never get bitten by anything. Even if, like me, you quite enjoy traipsing around the countryside in reasonably skimpy clothing. I’m 45 and I’ve never been bitten by anything worse than a mosquito. I’ve had people who have never been outside the USA insist that you can DIE from brushing against the wrong trees in Australia. POISONOUS TREES! Er, yes. Right. Whatever.

But you’ve still got those deadly Drop Bears, right?

[Shakester]

@WhyNot

But you’ve still got those deadly Drop Bears, right?

Yes, but if you look up while walking under gum trees, you’ll be perfectly safe.

[Lamia]

@fachverwirrt

Legally blind is not 20/200. It is 20/200 with correction (there’s also a “field of vision” definition). My vision, for example, is about 20/800, but with contacts it’s 20/20 or better. So I am not legally blind.

On a similar note, there is no such thing as being “legally blind without my glasses on” because the standard for legal blindness is how bad the person’s vision is with corrective lenses.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Lamia

On a similar note, there is no such thing as being “legally blind without my glasses on” because the standard for legal blindness is how bad the person’s vision is with corrective lenses.

Isn’t Stevie Wonder legally blind without his glasses on?

[RickJay]

@Shakester

… and you can live your whole life in Australia and never get bitten by anything.

Well, yes, because the bite happens at the end, when you die.

[Stoid]

@RickJay

Well, yes, because the bite happens at the end, when you die.

[zamboniracer]

@california_jobcase

Some people think the upcoming Indianapolis 500 will happen in Indianapolis.

It won’t.

It will happen in Speedway, Indiana.

Speedway being a relatively tiny burg that carved itself away from, and is totally surrounded by, Indianapolis proper.

[Anne_Neville]

@Shakester

That white Australians are the descendants of British convicts. No, only approx 1.5% of living Australians can claim convict descent; there were always plenty of free settlers during the convict era, the gold rushes after 1851 brought ten times more people to this country than convict transportation ever did, and huge waves of post WW2 immigrants increased the population by around a third.

I’ve heard that Australian immigration and customs people at the airports don’t appreciate jokes about being a convict and getting into Australia, either. (I assume that all immigration and customs people have their sense of humor surgically removed when they take the job, no matter which country they’re in, so I don’t joke with any of them about anything.)

That Australia is full of deadly poisonous creatures… Even if, like me, you quite enjoy traipsing around the countryside in reasonably skimpy clothing.

But won’t you get sunburned, if you do that in Australia?

[put_down_the_sabre]

@Anne_Neville

I’ve heard that Australian immigration and customs people at the airports don’t appreciate jokes about being a convict and getting into Australia, either. (I assume that all immigration and customs people have their sense of humor surgically removed when they take the job, no matter which country they’re in, so I don’t joke with any of them about anything.)

I think the real lesson here is that when you are about to make a joke or remark about something obvious about a person (nationality, accent, height, job, hair colour, …) they have probably heard it about a billion times already.

If I were one of those Australian border guards I’d be tempted to taze people who made that joke.

pdts

[Shakester]

@Anne_Neville

But won’t you get sunburned, if you do that in Australia?

Hats. Sunscreen. We have both of those things here. I wasn’t saying I wander around in a posing pouch*, just shorts, boots, and a short-sleeve shirt: my favourite outfit when it’s hot. My point was I don’t have to wear protective clothing since I’m not too concerned about bitey things, even in the long grass. Nor am I overly concerned about poisonous shrubs.

*What Americans call a “thong”. Here, thongs are what Americans call flip-flops. It’s worthwhile to know this, as misunderstandings can cause embarrassment.

[Shakester]

@put_down_the_sabre

I think the real lesson here is that when you are about to make a joke or remark about something obvious about a person (nationality, accent, height, job, hair colour, …) they have probably heard it about a billion times already.

If I were one of those Australian border guards I’d be tempted to taze people who made that joke.

Exactly.

[Anne_Neville]

@Shakester

Hats. Sunscreen. We have both of those things here.

Our guidebooks said both were important in Australia. I wore long pants instead of shorts, too, to protect my legs from the sun. And to protect the locals from being blinded by the whiteness of my legs.

Nor am I overly concerned about poisonous shrubs.

We’re the ones that have those. “Leaves of three, let it be,” as I learned in Girl Scouts.

@put down the sabre

If I were one of those Australian border guards I’d be tempted to taze people who made that joke.

Border guards in every country I’ve visited don’t seem to like their jobs. I guess it is kind of a sucky job. At best, you’re dealing with impatient, tired, and possibly not-too-bright people who may not speak your language. At worst, you’re dealing with terrorists.

[put_down_the_sabre]

Here’s a shockingly common misconception: if you marry a citizen of a country, you instantly become a citizen of that country, and can move there immediately with minimal effort or paperwork.

Fact: getting a spousal visa for the US takes about a year in normal circumstances, and costs about $1500 all in, and requires a medical exam and complete police reports.

[Bytegeist]

[QUOTE=Anne Neville]

We’re the ones that have those. “Leaves of three, let it be,” as I learned in Girl Scouts.

[/quote]

On the other hand, “leaves of five, take it for a drive.”

Betcha Girl Scouts didn’t teach that.

[fachverwirrt]

@Shakester

*What Americans call a “thong”. Here, thongs are what Americans call flip-flops. It’s worthwhile to know this, as misunderstandings can cause embarrassment.

Flip-flops are also called thongs in certain parts of America. Which can really lead to misunderstandings.

[Sampiro]

There’s also a surprisingly prevalent notion that Georgia was a penal colony like Australia. Most of the prisoners brought over were from debtors prisons- somebody paid their creditors- and even those were a very small minority of the early colonists anyway.

[Sampiro]

And there’s a common notion that names ending in -berg and -stein are Jewish. There’s certainly a good chance they are in the U.S., but they could just as easily be German or other Central Euro derivation and occasionally have little to do with what the family’s name was in Europe anyway courtesy of Ellis Island name changes and some immigrants taking new names.

You’ll also see charts and stats that say “X% of Americans have Irish ancestry, X% have German, X% have French” etc… An important thing to know about those is that save for broad racial statistics the U.S. government doesn’t keep track of people’s genealogies so most of those are based on what the family thinks its ancestry predominantly is and those can be highly erroneous. Many families that consider themselves Irish for example are actually Scots-Irish, which is a different ethnicity (Scots who settled in northeastern Ireland in the 17th century, many of whom- like the Irish- emigrated and whose descendants in the U.S. and Canada are now more numerous than the ones back in Ulster).

Not all Irish came over during the potato famine: there were substantial communities here already. Nor did all Irish immigrants during or before the potato famine come to the U.S.- many went to continental Europe and to South America.

Speaking of, the African slaves in America accounted for less than 10% of those brought across the Atlantic. Far more went to the Caribbean than to North America.

[An_Gadai]

@Sampiro

Many families that consider themselves Irish for example are actually Scots-Irish, which is a different ethnicity (Scots who settled in northeastern Ireland in the 17th century, many of whom- like the Irish- emigrated and whose descendants in the U.S. and Canada are now more numerous than the ones back in Ulster).

Even the term Scots-Irish is a bit misleading as many of the planters’ origins were in England.

Here’s a few Irish ones.

It rains all the time in Ireland. Okay, rain’s fairly common, especially along the Western seaboard but in many parts of the country it doesn’t rain all that often. Dublin gets less rain on average than NYC, Chicago, Toronto, Tokyo, or Amsterdam.

One that I’ve come across enough times to merit a mention, the notion that you can take a train from London (or Edinburgh) to Dublin. There’s of course the Irish Sea in the way, and as yet no Channel Tunnel like structure bridging the gap.

Ireland has no non-white people. Of course, in the 1970’s one of our most famous exports was Phil Lynott who had a Nigerian father but especially since the 1990’s and the economic boom there are Irish people of pretty much every ethnicity.

[put_down_the_sabre]

@An_Gadai

One that I’ve come across enough times to merit a mention, the notion that you can take a train from London (or Edinburgh) to Dublin. There’s of course the Irish Sea in the way, and as yet no Channel Tunnel like structure bridging the gap.

That is just plain idiotic. Are you sure they didn’t mean a sailrail-type arrangement?

Ireland has no non-white people. Of course, in the 1970’s one of our most famous exports was Phil Lynott who had a Nigerian father but especially since the 1990’s and the economic boom there are Irish people of pretty much every ethnicity.

I can only speak for the Welsh case, not Ireland, but I come across this misunderstanding quite a lot too. I think part of it is that I use ‘Welsh’ to mean the nationality (so there are quite a lot of black Welsh people), but many people (esp. Americans) use ‘Welsh’ to mean some ethnic group, in which case a black Welsh person is almost a contradiction.

pdts