This reminded me of something about Ottawa. I mentioned spies in passing in my earlier post, and I should explain. Most people, if they think about Ottawa at all, likely view it as a mild government town. But, being the capital, it’s somewhat of a hotbed of espionage, particularly during the cold war. Remember that the U.S. has/had no diplomatic relations with places like Iran or Cuba, but Canada always did. So American intelligence agencies were always pretty busy in bland, everything-closes-at-six, bureaucratic Ottawa as they were bugging and surveilling the embassies. It’s not like it was front page news, obviously, but it also wasn’t exactly secret.
My wife and I just spent three weeks visiting Germany last December. There were many occasions when a German, or visiting European tourists, mentioned that they thought that we all spoke French in Canada.
This is true. However:
I’ve had people who had been told where in the state I live nevertheless assume that I’m specifically in or right next to New York City; or assume that I’ve got all of the city amenities and lifestyle even if they’re not precise as to which city.
I’ve also seen various things assuming that anybody living in NYS needs to get food in general, and/or particular foods specifically, shipped in from the states they think of as agricultural. I remember one particular article (though it was some years ago and I don’t remember where it was) written on an agricultural topic by somebody claiming to know what they were talking about, which among other things made fun of the idea that one might be able to get sheep’s milk cheese made anywhere in New York State. Sheep dairies are all over the place in NYState.
And we used to have riverboats that traveled between San Francisco and Sacramento (back in the Gold Rush days).
“I wish I was a Delta boy”
–Andy Devine (advertising for Discovery Bay in the 60’s)
I wouldn’t say I thought everyone in Canada spoke French - but bilingual label requirements did make me think it was more common than it apparently is.
I would say that almost any born and raised, under 40 anglo in Montreal will be bilingual, and the younger they are the more fluently bilingual they will be. It’s not uncommon to see younger groups conversing in both languages (“franglais” we sometimes call it) where individuals may switch languages mid-sentence.
Outside of Montreal, most anglos will be unilingual. I personally have been assessed as a sort of low-intermediate but that’s because in Ontario, where I grew up, I had French lessons all through school and, after that I joined the military. In my first year at Royal Military College the policy at that time was that 1st year anglos had franco room-mates. Also, all through my university we had second language training daily. And I’ve had three different two-month French language courses and I make a genuine effort to practice as much as possible.
I have been living in Montreal the last 11 years and I also try to practice at work, in my post military civilian job, as much as appropriate. But outside of Quebec the opportunities are few and far between, especially outside of Ottawa (which is across the river from the province of Quebec and is a large employer of federal civil service employees of both linguistic populations).
A geography professor (who happened to be on my dissertation committee) did a little study on just this very thing:
A lot of people convinced that they could never live in state X because the politics are so backward and dreadful, fail to realize that quality of life depends on a lot more than who the state sends to Washington or even which party controls the state legislature.
Now if we could just find someone to renovate the barn…
Grand Island, Nebraska is not an island whatsoever. (Nor particularly “Grand” in my opinion but I moved away a few years back. Perhaps things have improved.)
Neither Brigadoon nor its necessary corrective, Trainspotting, were documentaries and neither should unduly influence your understanding of Scotland.
I grew up in Ottawa, and it’s to my absolute shame that I didn’t apply myself more in school to become fluent in French. I was in French Immersion, no less: for those not in the know, in Immersion you show up at kindergarten and they speak French to you, and virtually no English is allowed. I’d have like an hour only of English every day Grade 5, at which it started evening out. Many of the friends with whom I grew up in Ottawa are fluent, and could easily get by in the farthest monoglot regions of Quebec without issue. A good buddy of mine was from a household in which everyone always poke Greek: he’ can bounce between three languages without blinking.
Sorry for the hijack but, out of curiosity (I grew up in Ottawa as well), what high school did you go to and when? I went to Sir Robert Borden from '74 to '78.
Though the shame really isn’t yours. None of us really had any idea how much we would need it. And in SRB they taught “Francais Internationale”, not Quebecois French. At the time I thought it was going to be sort of useful but I had absolutely no idea.
Hollywood (specifically John Ford) used to portray Texas using Monument Valley. So not only does it not look like, say, eastern Texas, it isn’t even close to Texas!
(Nudge: “Luxembourgish.”)
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It’s Luxembourgenough. 
I respectfully disagree. When all the shit rolls down from the shitty governor all the way down to local representatives, it effects a lot of peoples’ quality of life in a big way. I have no intention of paying to support that government nor to live among those who do.
I live in eastern Connecticut. Before moving here a couple of decades ago, I had the idea that the whole state was pretty urban with a lot of rich people. This might actually be the case in the southwestern part of the state near NYC, but that is only about 20% of the state.
My town in eastern Connecticut, on the other hand, is about as far from that stereotype as you can imagine. My town is quite rural. There are numerous farms near me, including a small poultry farm less than a half-mile away. Most of the houses in my town don’t even have public water or sewer, but instead are on private wells and septic systems. Half of my town is actually state forest, with numerous ponds and hiking trails. And my town is also quite dark at night, with very little light pollution. If you look at a satellite photo taken at night of the northeastern U.S., I live in the very dark strip exactly midway between the very bright NYC metro area and Boston metro area.
And yet, as rural and quiet as my town is, I can drive to the capital city (Hartford) in about 25 minutes. For comparison, if you overlaid Houston (where I was born and where most of my extended family still lives) on top of Hartford, my house would be well within city limits instead of being out in the country.
I went to Glebe, a bit more than a decade later.
True in some instances.
But in many cases, people are simply intolerant of living among others who hold different views and have preconceived, false notions of how terrible life must be in such places.
It’s far from being a left-only misconception, considering the numbers of right-wingers who contemptuously dismiss the idea of living in them blue, “woke” states.
Emphasis mine.
Agree. Colorado person here. I have seen ONE MAGA hat. I would very much like to keep it that way.
And on that note, pretty much all the palm trees you do see in California are not native to California. A little cursory research revealed there is one species of palm tree native to the area around Palm Springs (where else?), but apart from that all the palm trees you see elsewhere in the state are non-native species that were planted there as ornamental trees. Yet my mom doesn’t believe me when I try to tell her that. She so greatly associates palm trees with California that she’s convinced they’re native to this area.