Yes, that’s right. And if you go to the U.S. Postal Service’s web site, there is a place you can find what the absolutely correct “city” name is to be used for a particular address. (It is part of the zip code lookup.) In most cases it is the official city name, but not always. You’ve mentioned the exceptions in New York of Brooklyn, etc., there is also Studio City, which is part of Los Angeles.
But in every case, only one “city” name is used, not a “district” and “city”. This is the U.S. postal address system. Other countries may use a different system, sometimes vastly different (e.g. Japan).
Probably because our country is so much smaller, but our postcodes identify a section (block) of addresses on a specific street, so all I have to give is the house number. I could literally write:
14
E8 4JB*
…and my mail would find me. The first 2 (sometimes 3) digits identify the borough of London I live in, the last 3 identify the street and a section of that street. But people still write the street/borough/city/county - out of habit, I suppose.
*(made up address, before you all start dropping in)
Even if you confused DC as a state you’d need to know all the other states well enough to know that DC made 51. I would not be surprised if people here recognised all the states’ names when they heard them, but very few are likely to be able to list them all without looking them up. No, I think it far more likely that they just picked up a wrong-headed “fact” and stored it away without question. The shocker was to find more than one person with the same specific misconception at the same time in the same place.
Ironically, those are probably the folks who are better-informed about the US (or at least, who were following the 2008 election and who are somewhat familiar with our political system). If you heard that Obama won Omaha, and know that electoral votes are won or lost a whole state at a time, it’s a natural enough conclusion. But Nebraska (and Maine, but it’s never yet been relevant) don’t award all of their electoral votes the whole state at a time, but by congressional district, and Nebraska’s second district, which is basically the city of Omaha, went for Obama.
Quoth SanVito:
D’oh, of course British place-names that end in -shire are all counties-- I should have realized that. Yeah, all of those names are familiar. As for locating them, though, at best I could tell you whether they’re England, Scotland, or Wales, and often not even that.
Another point of confusion: In the US, a suburb is a distinct entity, legally and politically at least, though generally economically dependent on its metropolis. We do also sometimes have a metropolis completely absorbing what was a separate city, but the result is just a neighborhood, and has very little significance. For instance, a Clevelander might be from the Ohio City neighborhood, and if another Clevelander asked where in the city he was from, might say “Ohio City”, but he’d never put “Ohio City” in his mailing address.
Possibly, but that seems like a rather optimistic estimation of the average foreigner’s knowledge of the US electoral system. I think it’s simply that “Omaha” is a vaguely familiar US place name that sounds like, and indeed is, a name derived from a native-American language as a lot of state names are, whereas the big US cities that foreigners have heard of tend to have English- or Spanish-derived names. So I guess “Omaha” just sounds like it should be a state.
I heard a similar error made over the Carolinas a few months ago, in a British podcast that I subscribe to. (It’s the News Quiz, hosted by Sandi Toksvig, if anyone’s curious.) The comedian-panelist kept referring to a study from the “University of Carolina”, and in general implied that he thought there’s just a single state with that name. None of the other panelists, or the host, corrected him on it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
Let me take this one for fun. I’m a Yank who’s spent about one week in Britain in my life. Here’s what I’ve gleaned from literature/pop culture… (without looking anything up)…
Yorkshire: large area in the north
Lancashire: I know this is Liverpool because of “A Day in the Life,” and am confident
that it also includes Manchester
Suffolk, Norfolk: on the east coast; where the Vikings landed
Warwickshire: drawing a blank
Worcestershire: no idea; if I had to place it I’d put it down south
Devon, Cornwall: these are down in the southwestern corner; have attractive
seaside views; the locals talk with pirate accents
Kent, Sussex: suburban counties south of London; I imagine them as having a lot of
posh sections, but could be wrong - in the States Kent & Sussex are often used as
codewords to indicate moneyed elegance, as in the names of clothiers
Essex: I know about Essex girls, so I presume this is like the New Jersey of
England
Lincolnshire, Staffordshire: presume they’re to the north of London (?)
additionally…
I have the impression the West Countries is a semi-agrarian area west of London;
am aware that rock groups used to hang out there to “get it together”
Midlands is of course centrally located & includes Birmingham
East Anglia is the eastern projection into the sea
My host sister in Bulgaria was surprised when I pointed out where Hawaii is to her daughter (who was eight and looking at a child’s atlas). She had been sure it was in the Gulf of Mexico.
As an afterthought to my last post - and this is after looking it up - I confused Sussex for Surrey. Surrey is more associated with menswear than Sussex.
One problem is that you have “historic counties”, and the counties as they are at present. So, from that list:
Yorkshire: An area which consisted of 4 historic counties (East Riding, North Riding, West Riding and the City of York. There are present-day counties with “Yorkshire” in their name, e.g., South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.
Lancashire: The historic county included Liverpool and Manchester, but the present-day county of Lancashire is much smaller.
Warwickshire: Another case where the historic county is much bigger than present-day county. Warwickshire used to include Birmingham. It still includes Warwick (of course!) and Stratford-upon-Avon.
Midlands: This is an area much larger than a county, and can be subdivided into the East and West Midlands, the latter including Birmingham
Damn fine effort, Sire, and considerably better, I suspect, than I could do with US states. (Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Lincolnshire and Staffordshire are all roughly in the Midlands, by the way. You obviously skipped that chunk on your visit Warwickshire used to be home to Birmingham, but no longer. It is still however home to Straford-Upon-Avon, just south of Birmingham. The signs boast ‘Shakespeare’s county’).
For the record, Surrey and Sussex are both posh southern counties. They are part of what’s known as the ‘home counties’ - the affluent region that surrounds London.
No, I don’t believe I can, which is embarrassing. I see Northern Piper mentioned Charles Tupper; to me he was just a short-lived 1890s Canadian prime minister.
But in a sense, that’s my point. In Winnipeg said he’d do much better with American presidents than an American would do with Canadian prime ministers. That’s because American presidents are emphasized in the study of history. But do we know, for example, who ruled the US before the Constitution was ratified? Same thing with the Canadian prime ministers: Canadians know how the country was created in 1867 and can name post-Confederation prime ministers (well, some of them, In Winnipeg may be exceptional in this regard), but what do they know about the pre-Confederation period, when Canada did in fact exist yet?
I think people here could name most American states, and place most of them in the general region where they are found. Not precisely, they could confuse Alabama with Georgia with Mississippi but they’d have an idea that all of them are Deep South states. I don’t expect them to be able to name American presidents or Canadian prime ministers other than the last few ones and some important ones (Lincoln, Laurier?) I can name and place Australian states on the map (I don’t think other people here could) and while these English counties names ring a bell, I have no idea where they belong on a map, and I’m not the exception.
There’s a stereotype here that French people have absolutely no idea of how big Canada is, and expect to be able to see Niagara Falls, the Rockies and Northern Canada during a one-week trip. But honestly I think many Canadians have no idea of how big Canada is. Just a few days ago my friend said that Winnipeg and Calgary were close to each other and I had to point out that the distance is about the same as between Montreal and Sault Ste. Marie.
And probably, the ultimate source of the wrong factoid was DC. Here’s a couple pages as evidence, which are titled “51 States”. And these actually appear to be US sites. The author says something about “51 states” at the top of the page. Looking at the content, they clearly meant “50 states and the District of Columbia”. They probably just felt that sounded to unwieldy, so they elected to be wrong instead:
I would be surprised if the general level of knowledge of US states were really as low as some of the responses to this thread would suggest. Most people I know would recognise the name of any American state, most would, given the name of any major city, be able to name the state without even thinking about it. Many people I know, either well-educated, well-travelled or just paying attention to the world they live in, would do a reasonable job of placing most of the states on a blank map.
I recognised every name that came up, thinking of them myself is a completely different thing. It is just not needed knowledge. If you tell you are from Maine I know where you are from, remembering there is a Maine and where to put it when looking at a blank map is a different function.
We tried this out once - my parents live in a village in Yorkshire, and we established that the least we could write on the envelope and still have it arrive (next day, no less) was the first three letters of their name and the postcode. Heh.
Warwickshire used to be home to Birmingham, but no longer. It is still however home to Straford-Upon-Avon, just south of Birmingham. The signs boast ‘Shakespeare’s county’).