# Outsiders without a clue to your local geography... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 19, 2000, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332 "2000-12-19T12:57:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/41 "2000-12-20T03:33:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > \*\*I’ll tell you what I’m most shocked by after reading this thread: That SterlingNorth and AWB are **both** DC-area Dopers and have not attended any Doperfests. > > \*\* I have too! One last winter at a bar and at RTFirefly’s Halloween party. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/42 "2000-12-20T03:52:01Z")
Thunder Bay, Ontario, is on the east-west Trans-Canada highway, but you have to make a right at a traffic light, otherwise you toottle on down to the US border. Lots of folks carrying lots of weed make that mistake. ---
**Author:** ![SterlingNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@SterlingNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SterlingNorth)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/43 "2000-12-20T04:06:25Z")
Corel has managed to make some accurate renditions of Michigan. But there is **no excuse** for [this](http://fff.fathom.org/pages/SterlingNorth/Michigan1.gif)![sup]\*[/sup] ([sup]\*[/sup]This link offered for a limited time only. Void where prohibited by law [existing or made up by courts]. Mileage may vary. No exchanges or refunds.) ---
**Author:** ![Lost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/22d042/32.png) [@Lost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lost)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/44 "2000-12-20T04:49:26Z")
When I took a lovely driving vacation to Michigan and Wisconsin, travelling from Detroit to Oshkosh, no one told me about [This Bridge](http://www.mackinacbridge.org/)! I see from the map you posted, SterlingNorth, that Michigan doesn’t need it anymore! I am in Alaska and I have so many misconception stories about AK that I don’t know where to start. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/45 "2000-12-20T07:29:50Z")
Every Hollywood movie since Mr. Smith goes to Washington has shown the view out some bigwig’s office. The view is always the same, The Capitol Building, just off straight on, and always from a slightly lower angle than level with the main entrance. There ain’t no building where that view is. It’s on the grass, on the Mall. The closest building to that view is the Mellon Gallery, Part of the National Gallery of Art. The movie Contact, at the end, shows everyone walking down the steps of . . . . The Lincoln Memorial! All the “scenery” shots are of the Capitol, but when we get to the folks walking down white marble steps, it’s the Lincoln Memorial. Then there’s Langley. Everyone in Hollywood knows that that’s where the CIA is. And they always show this charming little town in the hills of Virginia, with picturesque little antebellum farm houses. Yeah. I defy anyone who is not a long-term resident of Northern Virginia to find Langley, even with directions to the CIA headquarters building. It’s gone. There is still a shopping center (strip mall) named Langley Shopping Center. But the rest of Langley has been gone for a quarter century. There’s also a Langley High School, but that is not in what was once Langley either. By the way, Tyson’s Corner (as mentioned above) was named after an intersection where Mr. Tyson had his store, on the corner. He and the store, and the corner are long gone. The Shopping Center is not where it was, and the intersection is no longer called Tyson’s corner, and it has a cloverleaf, and no corners. The two did exist at the same time, for a year or two, although the store was a falling down dump by then. ---
**Author:** ![screech-owl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@screech-owl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/screech-owl)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/46 "2000-12-20T13:11:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SterlingNorth \* > **Corel has managed to make some accurate renditions of Michigan. But there is no excuse for [this](http://fff.fathom.org/pages/SterlingNorth/Michigan1.gif)!..** How nice, a sunshade for the Dakotas. ---
**Author:** ![Carina42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/439d5e/32.png) [@Carina42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carina42)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/47 "2000-12-20T13:26:33Z")
\>\>Denver - It’s not in the mountains, damnit! Denver is flat, flat, flat. Kansas City has more topography than Denver.\<\< Elmwood beat me to it. Hardly any hills in Denver…the mountains are all to the West. Also, it doesn’t snow much in Denver. And, we get more sunny days a year than Los Angeles. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BunnyGirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@BunnyGirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BunnyGirl)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/48 "2000-12-20T13:26:52Z")
That’s MICHIGAN! Ooh, that’s just pitiful. ::sniff:: We’re much prettier than _that_! ---
**Author:** ![Spritle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Spritle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spritle)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/49 "2000-12-20T13:35:09Z")
Can’t tell if that posted. I’ll try again and apologize… Tom Clancy put a car chase on Rt 50 over the Severn River during rush hour. Anyone who lives near Annapolis knows that this is impossible. Funny thing is that Tom Clancy lives about 20 miles south of Annapolis! ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/50 "2000-12-20T13:38:12Z")
A couple of weeks ago, the Weather Channel sent a reporter here to give live reports about the monster snowstorm which was supposed to hit the area. (It never did, by the way). What was annoying to the locals is that he kept referring to this area as “the Triad”, which is the name for the region around Winston-Salem, High Point, and Burlington, North Carolina. He was actually in “the Triangle”, which is the Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill section of NC. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/51 "2000-12-20T14:00:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Athena \* > \*\*Ha! Try living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I can’t tell you how many maps of the US I’ve seen that simply leave it off. It’s just not there - you see lower Michigan, you see Wisconsin, but between them is just a big space. > > I’ve met people from lower Michigan who don’t realize that Michigan has two Peninsulas. I think it’s because the Detroit papers tend to leave the UP off maps that they publish in the paper. I guess it’s just too much bother to put that extra piece on the drawing. > > Also in Michigan, if you refer to “Northern Michigan” you’re referring to the north part of the lower peninsula. IE, the part of the mitten that the fingers go in. Do you know of any other state that refers to the the geographical center of the state as ‘north’ and anything further north is, well, some backwater that we really shouldn’t mention? > > I’ve taken to describing the UP to people who aren’t familiar with it as “you know, that part of Michigan that looks like it should belong to Wisconsin.” That usually gets the idea across, unless, of course, I’m talking to someone from the LP. They tend to look at me like I’m crazy - “What do you mean, an UPPER Peninsula? Michigan is shaped like a mitten!” \*\* Don’t these people know there was a [war](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=40009#post766259) fought that resulted in Michigan getting the UP? :D:D Other Great Lakes area geography error: I once had an argument with an online trivia quiz writer; he said Wisconsin bordered Ontario because they both were on the shores of Lake Superior. I pointed out a map that clearly showed that Michigan and Minnesota’s borders meet about 25 miles offshore of Wisconsin and go all the way up to Ontario’s border in the middle of the lake. Using his logic, Virginia and Ireland border each other because they’re both on the shores of the Atlantic. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/52 "2000-12-20T14:04:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dinsdale \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Athena \* > > “Michigan is shaped like a mitten!” > > My fave! Ask a Michigander (or most FIPs) for travel directions in the LP, and they are absolutely incapable of presenting them without holding up their hand, saying **“Michigan is shaped like a mitten”** , and tracing the directions out on their palm. Great fun when they can’t figure out whether Michigan is shaped like their right or left mitten. \*\* A friend of mine who’s from West Virginia showed me that WV is shaped like a hand giving the bird, with the thumb curved out to the right. :D:D ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/53 "2000-12-20T14:09:00Z")
Naw, **athena**. Roundabouts here its so windy because Iowa blows and Indiana sucks. One thing you have to give the UP credit for is Jim Harrison! Someone was being generous saying downstate IL starts in Kankakee. I80 is more like it. Probably even the Stevenson. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/54 "2000-12-20T14:15:42Z")
In “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, Helen Benson (Patricia Neal) must hurry and get to Gort the robot before he destroys the Earth. (He’s standing mute on the South Lawn of the White House.) She starts at her house, arguable in Northwest DC. She takes a cab ride that goes by _every freaking monument_ you can think of: Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, US Capitol, Washington Monument, and the White House. I can’t recall the exact order, but I figured when I watched it that the cab must’ve traveled in a double spiral. Maybe this was in the days before the DC Zone System for taxis, and the guy was just trying to run up the meter. :D:D ---
**Author:** ![Juniper200](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@Juniper200](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Juniper200)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/55 "2000-12-20T14:31:02Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by AWB_ > \*\*Don’t these people know there was a war fought that resulted in Michigan getting the UP? \*\* Good lord, we _fought_ for that? 😃 There was a plane crash in my hometown (Monroe, MI) about four years back, and in their write-up of the incident, Newsweek described the community as “remote.” Uh, sure. We’re 45 minutes from Detroit and Ann Arbor and about 25 minutes from Toledo. Granted, the crash was in an off-the-beaten path part of the county and there was a bastard of a snowstorm going on, but at no point did you leave blacktop to drive to the crash site. It was about a 10 minute drive from I-75, fer christsake! I’d hate to have seen the article they’d have written if the plane had crashed Up North or something. Oh, and never in my life have I used the wrong mitten when giving Michigan directions. I live in the lower right hand corner of my right palm, thankyouverymuch! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/56 "2000-12-20T19:21:48Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by SterlingNorth \* > \*\*Corel has managed to make some accurate renditions of Michigan. > But there is **no excuse** for [this](http://fff.fathom.org/pages/SterlingNorth/Michigan1.gif)![sup]_[/sup] > > ([sup]\*[/sup]This link offered for a limited time only. Void where prohibited by law [existing or made up by courts]. Mileage may vary. No exchanges or refunds.) \*\* Oh my. That is… umm… I’m speechless. But it proves my point, and even adds to it. When the mapmakers _do_ manage to include the UP on a map, they butcher it. At worst, it comes out like the above. At best, it looks like Wisconsin has a hard on. **AWB** , I knew about the whole Toledo thing. I used to make jokes about Detroit still being upset that they don’t have Toledo, but nobody ever gets them, so I stopped. ---
**Author:** ![StephenG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@StephenG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StephenG)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/57 "2000-12-20T19:23:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dire Wolf \* > \*\*OK, Chowd Dopers, I get the “Wustah” and “Lestah”. I have relatives up there. But how do you get “weigh-em” out of Wareham? \*\* Uh, just remembah that we don’t use ah ahs at the end of wids, and you’ll be okay. Fah the reckid, the fihst syllable of “Wareham” rhymes with “there” or “theah” (one syllable, not two), depending on how accented yah speech is. (The above, when read aloud, should sound like a thick Bahstin (er, _Boston_) accent.)) ---
**Author:** ![StephenG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@StephenG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StephenG)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/58 "2000-12-20T19:26:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dire Wolf \* > \*\*OK, Chowd Dopers, I get the “Wustah” and “Lestah”. I have relatives up there. But how do you get “weigh-em” out of Wareham? \*\* Uh, just remember that we don’t use our "r"s at the end of words, and you’ll be okay. For the record, the first syllable of “Wareham” rhymes with “there” or “theah” (one syllable, not two), depending on how accented your speech is. So, it’s more like “wheah-ham”, as far as I can tell. But I’m from the city; what do I know? Them countryfied folks likes to talks different-like… ---
**Author:** ![Falcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/49beb7/32.png) [@Falcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falcon)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/59 "2000-12-20T19:37:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spritle \* > \*\*Can’t tell if that posted. I’ll try again and apologize… > > Tom Clancy put a car chase on Rt 50 over the Severn River during rush hour. Anyone who lives near Annapolis knows that this is impossible. Funny thing is that Tom Clancy lives about 20 miles south of Annapolis! \*\* SPRITLE! I love you! This annoyed the HELL out of me. (And did you notice the skyscrapers along Rt. 50 in the movie? Nice touch.) Falcon, who grew up in Annapolis… ---
**Author:** ![Hodge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Hodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hodge)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2000, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332/60 "2000-12-20T22:24:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elmwood \* > **Buffalo - the locals always use long-gone businesses and institutions for landmarks in giving directions. Expressway names are used instead of their route numbers, even though the names are not on the signs. Street signs in most areas are quite small – there’s few overhead signs like what you’d find in most other cities – so even finding major streets is a hassle.** LOL!! I know that only too well. I don’t go to Buffalo much now but I keep my trusty (annotated) map in the glove box. I especially like how they hide expressway exit/on ramps behind blind corners, trees & other obstacles. My favourite recent moment is when Stockwell Day, leader of the right wing Alliance party of Canada, came to Niagara Falls during the recent election. He was standing near the brink of the falls and gave a fear-mongering speech in which he stated that just as the mighty Niagara River flows south, so do skilled Canadian workers, lured by the lower taxes and stronger dollar of our US neighbours. A number of reporters then pointed to the river and told him it was flowing _north_. Then, instead of giving a self-deprecating chuckle & apologizing, he blames his aides for screwing up…_Sheesh!!_ Cheers, Hodge [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outsiders-without-a-clue-to-your-local-geography/46332.md?page=4)