# Geography is apparently a lost art, sorry, skill
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [March 1, 2026, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118 "2026-03-01T19:43:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 11
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2026, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/201 "2026-03-15T10:30:51Z")
IMO there are plenty of extroverts here.
But this is also “safe space” where the strong introverts can admit that in public. So you see them standing up and speaking out like they’re at a 12-step meeting: “I’m [whoever] and I’m a total introvert.”
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2026, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/202 "2026-03-15T12:32:20Z")
> [@snowthx](#):
>
> I can see In-n-Out thinking Tennessee being the headquarters for their “East Coast” operations, if you think about just dividing the country into two sections for management purposes. It’s not like the city needs to be on the ocean - otherwise Baldwin Park (their West Coast HQ) isn’t coastal enuf (it’s about 30 miles from the beach)! How pedantic do we want to be?
Why do they include the word “coast”? Why not Eastern and Western? To my mind, “coast” is absolutely unnecessary. Instead, adds some ambiguity - suggests some meaning that is arguably incorrect. or unclear.
I suspect “West Coast” is an artifact of their origins in California. Of course, when they were solely based in California and the SW, they didn’t have to designate their HQ as coastal - or even western. Once they crossed the Mississippi and perceived a need to bifurcate operations, they were free to choose whatever descriptors they wanted. I wonder if retaining the coasts suggests a plan to eventually add additional zones, such as Midwest?
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### Author:  [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2026, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/203 "2026-03-26T20:32:27Z")
> [@Eric1](#):
>
> Well, we actually only did one continent at a time. Africa was kind of a nutcracker for our minds.
As a recently retired GIS professional, my wife bought me a globe. Great, it’s lovely.
But we may need to by a new one every year.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2026, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/204 "2026-03-26T20:36:24Z")
Collect the whole set! 🤪
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2026, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/205 "2026-03-26T21:07:37Z")
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> I’m from the east side of Cleveland, my mother has strong western PA influences, and I never heard that in my life. For reference, the waterway in question was Doan Brook just north of the Cultural Gardens.
FWIW I grew up just 20 miles south of you in Summit County, with the same Cleveland-cum-Western-PA family heritage, and my neighborhood had a crick. Although, even “up” here north of Akron there’s a lot more West Virginia influence than you find in Cleveland proper.
The “difference” between a creek and a crick is news to me, though. Sounds like the distinction is whatever someone’s older cousin may have told you once.
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2026, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/206 "2026-03-27T03:49:25Z")
On the first day of high school freshman history class, the teacher had everybody draw a world map on a letter sized piece of paper. He basically told me, “that’ll do” when I wrapped the paper into a cylinder to make sure my projection was lined up in the Pacific.
I read the encyclopedia for fun and was a total map head. Nowadays, I’m [carving the globe onto Granny Smith apples](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/s/MWqYCjvHxJ) upon request.
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### Author:  [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2026, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/207 "2026-03-27T08:56:56Z")
> [@garygnu](#):
>
> Nowadays, I’m [carving the globe onto Granny Smith apples](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/s/MWqYCjvHxJ) upon request.
Pretty cool. But dude, where’s my Philippines???
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### Author:  [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2026, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/208 "2026-03-27T18:33:57Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> I did the same transition … as a college freshman who wanted to be able to read my own lecture notes later that day. 🙂
The exact same thing happened to me at the same time. All of my high school notes were in cursive, but college was so much faster-paced that my cursive handwriting became illegible, so I switched to printing. The last thing that switched over was checks…I decided since I was printing everything else I should also print the payee and amount on my checks.
The only thing I write that is still in cursive is my signature, which is more of [tughra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tughra) than anything else now. I blame the Navy making me routinely sign fifty (50) equipment tagout line items in a row, followed by signing fifty individual tags. There’s no faster way to devolve a person’s signature than that.
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### Author:  [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/209 "2026-03-28T11:47:25Z")
> [@robby](#):
>
> The last thing that switched over was checks…I decided since I was printing everything else I should also print the payee and amount on my checks.
One of the lasting lessons from my high school years was how to fill out a check to foil forgery (which turned out to be a much smaller problem than Mr. Harmon implied, although possibly because of the lesson, I suppose). The method involved always printing the payee and amount, and using capital letters (larger ones for the first letter of a word, smaller for subsequent ones). 1973, freshman social studies.
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### Author:  [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/210 "2026-03-28T12:10:08Z")
I made the same transition from cursive to printing block letters in high school. My cursive has always been bad. I never liked it.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/211 "2026-03-28T15:38:33Z")
On a bad tremor day, I need to ask a co-worker to be my amanuensis to get my route sheet filled out at the end of the shift. On a good day, I have to use my right hand to restrain my left, so my times are (barely) legible when I write them down.
My signature is created one letter at a time, using the Palmer style of cursive (just like we all saw arrayed above the chalkboard in elementary school sixty years ago). Sometimes, when I’m feeling ambitious, I take a little extra time and make the letters look joined up.
Speaking of elementary school, I always sucked when it came to labeling the countries on pre-drawn maps of Africa and South America (way to bring us back to the topic of geography, @kaylasdad!).
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### Author:  [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/212 "2026-03-28T15:52:37Z")
My very first obsession in life was geography and memorizing national profiles the way most kids do baseball cards. My real obsession was knowing what resources were available and where and then trying to figure out how they could be equally distributed so there would be no poor starving people. Everyone thought I was so weird I had to suppress that obsession. That went from age 6 to about 12. Encyclopedias were my only source.
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/213 "2026-03-28T15:54:02Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#):
>
> The “difference” between a creek and a crick is news to me, though.
I grew up near a “crick”. Everyone, young or old, would say “Goin’ down by the crick.”
But if we used the name of the crick, it was "Harmony _Creek",_ and the street that paralleled it was “Harmony _Creek_ Parkway.”
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/214 "2026-03-28T15:59:43Z")
> [@garygnu](#):
>
> Nowadays, I’m [carving the globe onto Granny Smith apples](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/s/MWqYCjvHxJ) upon request.
You need to monetize that somehow! At least get hired by the Minnesota State Fair to stand outside the Apple Pavillion…
> [@Bullitt](#):
>
> My cursive has always been bad.
Well, that’s become a No-Longer-A-Problem!
My kid takes one look at a card from grandma (who, though pushing 100, still writes beautiful cursive with a fountain pen) and says “She wrote in code again. Can you read it to me?”
By the way, my millennial SIL’s signature was the last cursive he used, but that’s evolved to a straight line (hey, it works, and it’s quick)!
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/215 "2026-03-28T16:26:29Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#):
>
> My real obsession was knowing what resources were available and where
Can you tell me where I can score some gutta-percha?
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### Author:  [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/216 "2026-03-28T16:28:57Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> > [@HoneyBadgerDC](#):
> >
> > My real obsession was knowing what resources were available and where
>
> Can you tell me where I can score some gutta-percha?
Your local endodontist?
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/217 "2026-03-28T17:13:00Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#):
>
> My real obsession was knowing what resources were available and where
Oh, God… for some unholy reason one teacher spent way too much time in grade school quizzing us on the chief mineral exports from each country in South America.
To this day, when I hear “aluminum”, I think “And British Guiana exports bauxite!”
Curse you, Miss Sackett!
(Yeah, I’m old, it’s Guyana now, and they’ve since discovered crude oil reserves off their coast, so I’m sure that’s their major export now.)
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/218 "2026-03-28T17:34:23Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#):
>
> My real obsession was knowing what resources were available and where
I remember in elementary school, we had a big world map with little icons for all of the various sorts of resources found in various places: There were sheafs of wheat and ears of corn in the American midwest, symbols of ore and coal in the mountains, etc. I was very relieved to see that, of all of the little radiation-trefoil symbols they were using as an icon for uranium, none of them were found in the Soviet Union, which meant they’d have a hard time building very many nukes.
It never occurred to me that we just didn’t know where the Russian uranium mines were.
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