# Misconceptions about USA **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 19, 2003, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510 "2003-09-19T00:33:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/161 "2003-09-22T14:04:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spogga \* > \*\* > Yet we hear of American football teams re-locating hundreds maybe thousands of miles away from the city that bears their name, so you could have the Miami Muffdivers playing in Washington but still carrying the same name. > This makes no sense, who do the muffdiver fans now support?and who in Washington would go watch a team they knew sod all about. > \*\* you’ve been misinformed. This does not happen in the US. of course, teams do move, but when they do they do not keep the old cities name. They do sometimes keep the same nickname, though that’s not even common anymore. When the Raiders moved from Oakland to LA, they became the LA Raiders(and then the Oakland Raiders again when they moved back), but when the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore, they became the Baltimore Ravens. Some confusion might come from the fact that teams do often play outside of the city they are named for, (The Detroit Pistons play in Auburn Hills for instance) but they are still in the same metro area. This can be especially confusing in NY, where the NY Giants and NY Jets both play in New Jersey, but that’s because that part of New Jersey is still part of the greater NYC metropolitan area. I hope that all made sense. ---
**Author:** ![spogga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ab097/32.png) [@spogga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spogga)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/162 "2003-09-22T14:19:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by booklover \* > \*\*Sorry for the hijack–do Brits only serve eggs with bacon? What do you eat with pancakes, then? \*\* Pancakes are generally, as our Irish friend says, sweetened with lemon and sugar but what he omitted to mention is that they are not an everyday type thing. Shrove Tuseday or Pancake Day as we call it is the time when most families eat them…mounds of the buggers dripping in all sorts of sweet things, maple syrup, Ice cream, jam, choc. spread…I could kill for one now actually ---
**Author:** ![spogga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ab097/32.png) [@spogga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spogga)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/163 "2003-09-22T14:30:56Z")
5-HT: So it does happen, teams move but OK drop the old name…still seems a bit strange to me. BTW where do the Miami Muffdivers play?🙂 ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/164 "2003-09-22T14:50:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spogga \* > \*\*5-HT: So it does happen, teams move but OK drop the old name…still seems a bit strange to me. > BTW where do the Miami Muffdivers play?🙂 \*\* In that case, it depends on the conditions under which the team moves. Fans in Cleveland, for instance, despise the Baltimore Ravens\* and their owner for abandoning the city(Cleveland was later awarded an expansion team, so the Cleveland Browns do exist again). As far as the new city goes, usually they had no team at all prior to the move, so they start following the new team despite the lack of history. \*for their part, the city of Baltimore had already been on the receiving end of a similar situation when the Colts left and moved to indianapolis. They’ve never really forgiven the team for that one either. ---
**Author:** ![Sparrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sparrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparrow)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/165 "2003-09-22T14:52:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spogga \* > \*\*5-HT: So it does happen, teams move but OK drop the old name…still seems a bit strange to me. > BTW where do the Miami Muffdivers play?🙂 \*\* Somewhere down South I should imagine! ---
**Author:** ![spogga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ab097/32.png) [@spogga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spogga)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/166 "2003-09-22T15:06:51Z")
SPARROW: I knew that was coming!! ---
**Author:** ![burundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@burundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burundi)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/167 "2003-09-22T15:23:09Z")
**spogga** , when you’re in Alabama, you should be sure to eat at a Waffle House. Their pecan waffle with bacon and grits is truly excellent and, from the sounds of it, a uniquely American treat. (It’s also great hang-over food.) Four weeks of vacation a year? Damn. That’s terrific. Come on, American workers, unite to throw off this silly 50 work-weeks a year tradition! ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/168 "2003-09-22T15:45:28Z")
Here’s [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=212775](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=212775) a thread dealing, unintentionally, with European misconceptions about US health care. And I hope **Moe** is OK. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![spogga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ab097/32.png) [@spogga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spogga)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/169 "2003-09-22T15:56:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by burundi \* > \*\ ***spogga** , when you’re in Alabama, you should be sure to eat at a Waffle House. Their pecan waffle with bacon and grits is truly excellent and, from the sounds of it, a uniquely American treat. (It’s also great hang-over food.) > > Four weeks of vacation a year? Damn. That’s terrific. Come on, American workers, unite to throw off this silly 50 work-weeks a year tradition! \*\* I’m staying with a pal who has a gigantic boat and no doubt he will take me to all the finest eateries, having said that I don’t particularly like the sound of pecan and bacon and grits?( WTF) Don’t want to rub it in and all but I am on 6 weeks per year plus as I said the 8 odd days for Xmas etc., you could do worse than joining the postal service because I think your guys get a good deal as well.\>\>\>\>\>\>\>smug smiley\<\<\<\<\<\<\< ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/170 "2003-09-22T16:13:33Z")
With regards to the dialogue about “How the heck did the ‘westward ho’ settlers know how to get to where they were going in this huge land etc. without getting lost?” – Sometimes they did. Rather famously, there was a fairly large group that split off from a caravan and tried to take a short cut to get to the golden land of California. The main body of the caravan stuck to existing routes and existing wagon ruts and relied on following people who had personally done the trek before, but the splinter group followed the writings of a person who advised taking a more southerly and direct route that was shorter in overall distance. This alternative route, unfortunately, went straight through Death Valley and then up into the Sierra Nevada range. Name of splinter party group: The Donner Party. I’m sure there were many smaller groups of foolhardy people who just took off and disappeared and were never seen or heard from again. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/171 "2003-09-22T16:39:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spogga \* > \*\* I mean I don’t even like driving 28 miles to visit my brother…he lives a long way from me, my son even further, something like 35 miles and thats L-O-N-G. > \*\* Sweet jesus man, I’ve driven that far just for dinner. That’s something I find most people from outside the US (or even in small towns inside the US) have issues with. When you say “let’s go get a steak” and you hop in the car and drive 20 miles somewhere really good and they ask “How far away IS this place?” My parents (and my sib and I) grew up in a very small town in Northern minnesota, where at the most it was 7 miles tip to tip (at least the commercial areas). When the grandparents (my Grandmother had only left the town a few times and never left the state until we moved) found that sometimes you’d choose to drive 20+ miles to go see something or go for a meal she was just flabberghasted. Also on the travel issue. If you live in a major hub yeah you can get good international fares… i find fares from Seattle to Tokyo for less than $500 all the time… but if you leave from somewhere where you have to connect to a US city and then go overseas you pay a lot more. Not every major US city has a true international airport. For example Buffalo NY… they CLAIM it’s international because it goes to Canada, however you can’t catch a cirect flight to Lodon or Copenhagen. Anywhere over a large body of water usually flies out of a small number of cities on the coast. ---
**Author:** ![NightUK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c67d28/32.png) [@NightUK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NightUK)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/172 "2003-09-22T16:40:14Z")
My english opinion of America. Detroit - I’d be killed within minutes night or day. New York - I’d be conned into buying something which doesnt exist. San Fran - I’d be sexually harrassed or spiked with GHB by the same sex. California - I’d be too ugly to be allowed in clubs. Alabama - I wouldnt be related or look like anyone else, therefore I’d be hung. Boston - I’d be welcomed in open arms and loved for being english. No major offense intended as still love americans and their accents 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_Heart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Angel\_Heart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_Heart)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/173 "2003-09-22T16:44:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by E-Sabbath \* > \*\*White Plains, a decent sized city, settled 1683ish, in the state of New York, every so often has a problem with brown bears wandering down Main Street. NYC has coyotes. There’s deer and wild turkeys and raccoons and god knows what else in the area. Jersey has bear problems too. > > People think that the Eastern Seaboard’s all built up, wall to wall city. It’s not. Some of it’s still pretty darn wild. \*\* How true. 30 years ago, the neighborhood where I live was forest and meadow. There is woods behind my house, and I see deer, foxes, rabbits and groundhogs on a regular basis. In Nevada and Arizona you can go for miles and miles between exits–but you can do the same on I-70 in western Pennsylvania. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/174 "2003-09-22T16:51:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spogga \* > \*\* I mean I don’t even like driving 28 miles to visit my brother…he lives a long way from me, my son even further, something like 35 miles and thats L-O-N-G. > \*\* Sweet jesus man, I’ve driven that far just for dinner. That’s something I find most people from outside the US (or even in small towns inside the US) have issues with. When you say “let’s go get a steak” and you hop in the car and drive 20 miles somewhere really good and they ask “How far away IS this place?” My parents (and my sib and I) grew up in a very small town in Northern minnesota, where at the most it was 7 miles tip to tip (at least the commercial areas). When the grandparents (my Grandmother had only left the town a few times and never left the state until we moved) found that sometimes you’d choose to drive 20+ miles to go see something or go for a meal she was just flabberghasted. Also on the travel issue. If you live in a major hub yeah you can get good international fares… i find fares from Seattle to Tokyo for less than $500 all the time… but if you leave from somewhere where you have to connect to a US city and then go overseas you pay a lot more. Not every major US city has a true international airport. For example Buffalo NY… they CLAIM it’s international because it goes to Canada, however you can’t catch a cirect flight to Lodon or Copenhagen. Anywhere over a large body of water usually flies out of a small number of cities on the coast. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2003, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/175 "2003-09-23T00:42:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BurnMeUp \* > > > [@](#): > > > > _Originally posted by spogga_ > > I mean I don’t even like driving 28 miles to visit my brother…he lives a long way from me, my son even further, something like 35 miles and thats L-O-N-G. > > Sweet jesus man, I’ve driven that far just for dinner. Nice breakfast spot in Fulton County, Indiana called “Karen’s”, 70+ miles from home. Mmm-mmm-good. BIG breakfast buffet. So I got you both beat, neener neener 😛 (Of course, it helps a lot if you can get there in half an hour to 40 minutes, rather than poking along on the road…) > [@](#): > > Not every major US city has a true international airport. For example Buffalo NY… they CLAIM it’s international because it goes to Canada, however you can’t catch a cirect flight to Lodon or Copenhagen. Anywhere over a large body of water usually flies out of a small number of cities on the coast. Oh, you think Buffalo’s “international” airport is a joke, they just renamed Gary’s to “Gary/Chicago International Airport”. Gimme a _break_, they don’t even have scheduled service inside the freakin’ _state_, much less outside the country. ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2003, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/176 "2003-09-23T00:59:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NightUK \* > \*\*My english opinion of America. > > Detroit - I’d be killed within minutes night or day. > New York - I’d be conned into buying something which doesnt exist. > San Fran - I’d be sexually harrassed or spiked with GHB by the same sex. > California - I’d be too ugly to be allowed in clubs. > Alabama - I wouldnt be related or look like anyone else, therefore I’d be hung. > Boston - I’d be welcomed in open arms and loved for being english. > > No major offense intended as still love americans and their accents 🙂 \*\* no worries, no offense taken. Everyone thinks that about detroit. ``` seriously, Detroit's not that bad. There are certain areas where, if you're not from here or at least really familiar with the area, going in at night is a bad idea. But I've spent time hanging out in the worst areas of our fair city at all hours of the night and never gotten into a situation I couldn't talk my way out of. ``` You really don’t have to worry about San Fran either, and you’d be doing yourself a disservice not to visit there sometime. It’s a great city, with a ton of fun stuff to do. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2003, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/177 "2003-09-23T01:02:32Z")
> [@](#): > > I mean I don’t even like driving 28 miles to visit my brother…he lives a long way from me, my son even further, something like 35 miles and thats L-O-N-G. My office is 43 miles from my home. ☹ (Fortunately, I have motorcycles. 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2003, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/178 "2003-09-23T01:14:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jennyrosity \* > \*\*Is it true that no-one walks anywhere over there, and that even if you want to you can’t as there are no pedestrain facilities? \*\* What are “pedestrian facilities”? ---
**Author:** ![jweb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/71c47a/32.png) [@jweb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jweb)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2003, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/179 "2003-09-23T03:47:21Z")
Another word on travel distances: I live in Minneapolis, my parents live in Northeast Iowa. About 180 miles, one-way. I consider this to be a ‘medium range’ trip: far enough away that I would hate to drive it every weekend, close enough that if I have to drive there immediately for any reason, I can be there in 3 hours. I went to college about the same distance away from home. At college I had the opportunity to get to know a group of students from Wales (one of whom is now engaged to a good friend of mine). The concept of driving that far to go to school was completely foreign (no pun intended) to them. My brother lives in Los Angeles. Two years ago, my parents, sister, and I drove out to LA for Christmas. We drove straight through, stopping every 3-4 hours for food and gas. One way: about 1800 miles, 31 hours including stops. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2003, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510/180 "2003-09-23T08:21:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spogga \* > \*\*Pancakes are generally, as our Irish friend says, sweetened with lemon and sugar but what he omitted to mention is that they are not an everyday type thing. Shrove Tuseday or Pancake Day as we call it is the time when most families eat them…mounds of the buggers dripping in all sorts of sweet things, maple syrup, Ice cream, jam, choc. spread…I could kill for one now actually \*\* Yes, but what is lacking from this discussion is the fact that UK pancakes =| US pancakes. In the UK, “pancake” usually refers to something thin and crepe-like. In the US, pancakes are (ideally) big fluffy things you could shingle your house with, and sometimes contain blueberries (mmmm…blueberry buttermilk pancakes…\). Strangely, you can buy things that look vaguely like US pancakes in UK supermarkets in the bread section, prepackaged. These should not be eaten by anyone, and are only fit to be laughed at. While I’m on the subject: US “flapjacks” = “[US] pancakes”. UK “flapjacks” = “highly sweetened bricks”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misconceptions-about-usa/202510.md?page=10)