It was back in 2000 and this is the school I visited. I don’t see what’s hard to believe about a group of boys attending a single-sex high school being really curious about what a coed school is like. It’s not like a interacted with hundreds of teenage from all over NZ and they all went to single-sex schools.
Firstly, there is a fairly major difference in meaning between “fascinated by the idea” and “curious about what it is like”. The idea of a “co-ed” school shouldn’t have seemed unusual or fascinating to these kids. There are apparently 35 co-ed schools in Palmerston North, so it’s not like the kids were unaware of the concept such schools.
These kids would have had regular exposure to the students from those 35 schools through various inter-school activities. The"co-ed" schools are also the standard type shown on television shows directed at high school students. So once again, they would have been well and truly exposed to the idea.
These kids would have had far more exposure to the idea of “co-ed” schools than students of “co-ed” schools would have had to the idea of single sex schools,which feature rarely on Australian TV. No student at any school in Australia would be fascinated by the idea of a boys school. Everyone is well aware that they exist, and everyone has met students form such schools even though they are in the minority.
That s why I am surprised that kids would be fascinated with the very idea of such schools. It wouldn’t be in any way novel. I can understand some of them being curious about details of how the place works if they had spent their entire life in boys schools. But very few students in Australia do that. Almost all children attend “co-ed” schools at some stage in their life even if the end up in one of the few single sex high schools. So I would be surprised if most of them didn’t have direct experience of how a “co-ed” school operates. Certainly a large minority of them would have.
Yeah, I’m in Canberra. I’m sure there are single-sex schools, but I couldn’t tell you any names. In my mind, they’re for toffs.
But y’all celebrate it with parades and going to Mass, no? It’s not an unofficial holiday of drunken debauchery, as it is here in the US, as I understand it? Irish people don’t adorn themselves with huge paper shamrocks, fake leprechaun hats, and “Kiss me, I’m Irish” buttons, or dress head-to-toe in green, or gather to watch pipe bands in Scottish dress on St Patrick’s Day. Or am I mistaken?
The Irish in Ireland don’t have to prove to anyone how Irish they are, so it’s not surprising that the holiday is celebrated differently there than in the U.S.
Yep.
A family member who shall remain unidentified once drove through Sloughhouse, which is famed for some of the best sweet corn you can get at summer’s peak, at least in Northern California. They passed a field with 12-foot stalks of foot-long ears and craftily pulled over to steal a bunch. Dash home, boil the water, shuck the corn, drop it in, boil, spear, butter, salt…
aaaaaccckkkkk silage corn.
An interesting misconception I ran into in England about Canada - is that it is a ‘far northern’ country, and certainly a lot further north, in lattitude, than England.
In fact, the majority of the Canadian population lives to the south of London.
London = 51.5072° N.
Toronto = 43.7000° N; Montreal = 45.5017° N; Vancouver = 49.2827° N.
The most northerly major city in Canada is Edmonton, at 53.5333° N - its at the same lattitude as Manchester.
England is of course a lot more mild in climate than Canada generally, but this is due to the gulf stream, not because it is further south.
I think many British people think that London and New York are vaguely on the same latitude, so the notion that Canada is far north fits into that. I’ve seen a couple of times on this board American posters making the same assumption.
I did mean indigenous american. And yes, I know there are plenty of black hispanics in SA but she keeps running into Americans who are surprised by it. Misconceptions they have about other countries as the title says.
Of the Afrikaans, I believe. It is the country code for South Africa under several systems, including ISO 2-letter codes and webpage extensions.
Thanks, Alessan and JKellyMap 
Your own misconception in the use of the word is what I was pointing out. You mentioned:
I realize now I wasn’t clear, but when I wrote it, my issue was with your use of Hispanic, particularly as “not black”, and most likely as “white only” (it seems). Which is silly when I think many Americans can accept there are black Hispanics (and indigenous Hispanics). It’s even in the census forms. Because Hispanic (or Latinamerican/Latino) answer more a question about country/national origin and less about skin color.
IOW, your friend (and Susana Baca) are Hispanic. Black-skinned ones, but Hispanic/Latinas.
Now, I can see people being shocked that she’s a black Hispanic from Peru, when they have this image that Hispanics in Peru are all of Native Americans or European-descent.
Funny… I always thought Budapest and Munich were farther apart. Plano to San Antonio is only a 5-6 hour drive.
I wouldn’t call it a misconception exactly, but I’m always kind of amazed at the wealth and density of history contained in some European locales. I mean, I did a study-abroad program in Oxford one summer, and when I got to looking things up, I was amazed to find that where I was staying had been populated for nearly 1000 years, and had been part of some pretty interesting events over the years.
The oldest and most historic places anywhere near to where I live or grew up are New Orleans and San Antonio. Only a couple of buildings at the college that I stayed at in Oxford were YOUNGER than those cities, and they were founded in 1718. Most of the buildings at the college were 100+ years old by the time those cities were founded!
By comparison, where I actually live now was probably scrub land until sometime in the mid-19th century, when it became either farmland or pasture land,which is what it stayed until probably around 1968 or so, when it was cleared and they built my house on it. Same thing where I grew up- scrub until probably the early 20th century, and then some combination of ranch land and rice fields until about 1960, when they built houses on it.
You’ll see all of that stuff and more on St Paddy’s Day in Dublin. It is a huge tourist draw and they go mad for the green Oirish tat. The traditional version and the debauched modern version coexist comfortably enough and we have the day off!
Here in southern MD, there are numerous produce stands where the Amish sell sweet corn in the summer - ah, bliss!!
Bear in mind I grew up in suburban Baltimore and have only been living here for 11 years. I didn’t understand how the acres and acres of corn fronting main roadways didn’t have anything to prevent passers-by from helping themselves to the corn. Then it was explained to me. I’m not from a farming family - corn is corn, right? 
My mother-in-law is actually a fan of feed corn, picked quite young and boiled or cut off the cob and fried in bacon fat. That is what she grew up eating and she still likes it. She does like sweet corn too, and eats it happily in season but wants at least some field corn every year.
As for pulling off the side of the road and picking a few ears of corn, a few peppers, a handful of soybeans, some wheat stalks for crafts… every farmer I have ever talked to about this says they don’t care but I still can’t do it. It feels too much like stealing.
I learned that you can eat some field corn. At my uncle’s farm, we would get it into the pot in about 10 minutes and it was quite edible, though not as delicious as sweet corn.
I dislike supersweet corn. Some of them taste like sugar, with no corn taste left in them.
One myth people have is regarding women’s rights in the Arab world, especially Gulf States. Many are aware that women can’t drive in Saudi Arabia and need the to go in the presence of a male guardian.
I have recently seen some bash the mainly the wealthy Arab oil states as being crappy places for women in regards to rights and holding important positions. And most the people that have expressed these false myths are not Westerners, but others in the Middle East, such as Iranians.
They argue that Iran and Syria are better in terms of placing women in notable positions and those nations are extremists and therefore Iran and Assad are the ones who should be allies of the west.
They go something like “In Iran women can drive and have careers, unlike American allies like Saudi Arabia and (insert another Arab country here)”.
Reality is Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Jordan all currently have women serving as their Permanent Representatives to the United Nations. In other words UN ambassadors.
So it’s a myth that other Arab monarchies are like Saudi Arabia. In the wider Muslim world, Pakistan also has a woman as a UN Ambassador, unlike Iran. So to say that all our regional allies are like Saudi Arabia is patently false.
That is not to say women’s rights are great, but to use SA’s driving laws against women as being true for other states is not correct either.
I think this is based on the fact that many US accents pronounce “Patty” and “Paddy” the same, which I don’t think is the case in Ireland. Americans have odd ways of pronouncing the T and D sounds - sometimes a T becomes a D, and sometimes it drops out completely.
Many years ago when I first finished school I was working for a seed company picking Maize (field corn).
I was hungry so I pulled one of the plant and ate it raw. Surprisingly edible although a bit tough and dry. Picked younger and boiled briefly it would have been OK.
Yep. Also, people who give out about it are dicks.