Re: [OT] Brits try to identify the 50 US states on a map

On 2/6/2025 8:23 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

On 2025-02-06 1:19 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

On 2025-02-05 6:07 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

On 2025-02-05 10:21 AM, suzeeq wrote:

On 2/5/2025 5:57 AM, Rhino wrote:

If you're in the mood for a bit of a laugh, you might like this video.
Several teams of two Brits are given a map showing the 50 US states
and are then given 10 minutes to label all of them. (They are also
given a list of the states). They made some surprising guesses.
>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9GNf51_NvU [9 minutes]
>
Several other videos in the same vein show up on my recommended list.
I also saw one where Americans tried to pronounce British place names
(NOT the easy ones like "London"), and another where Brits tried to
pronounce American place names (again, NOT the easy ones). They're all
in good fun.
>
I like to think I could label quite a lot of the US states correctly
but I know I'd have trouble with some. Then again, I'm not sure if
most Americans would get them all correct either ;-)

>
I'd have a hard time placing all the English shires in the correct
place, or even larger cities like Leeds and Birmingham. And I've looked
up some of them on google maps.

>
You'd do better than me then! I can point to a few places that I've been
but if you asked me where Lincolnshire is or what was in it, I'd have to
look all of that up. Mind you, I understand the shires have no political
significance at all: they don't function like states with their own
governments. There are really just two levels of government, the federal
government and local "councils" whose boundaries are not based on the
shires.
>
What about the 50 states? Could you label all of them correctly given a
blank map?

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That was actually something we had to do as a test in either late grade
school or early high school.
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So I could’ve done it 55 years ago, but I doubt I’d get more than half of
them now. I’d be able to fill in the borders like doing a jigsaw puzzle,
but the middle would remain empty.
>
This is the perfect example of the stuff we complained about learning in
school that we would never ever need to know and we were right.
>

I wonder if we were wise beyond our years or just too lazy to want to
work that hard for something that didn't seem useful to know....
>
In any case it really isn't particularly useful to be able to identify
all 50 states EXCEPT for random quizzes like this one. Education systems
should not be geared towards teaching useless stuff.

>

>
But boy howdy are they ever.
>
Like “to be or not to be“ from Hamlet. We had to memorize it and got points
for each line of it we could write down in a pop quiz. But none of it meant
a thing to us.
>

We had to do a Shakespeare every year of high school and I don't
remember ANYONE enjoying it: we just did our best to endure it.
>
I know that almost EVERYONE says he's the greatest writer ever - even
people I respect enormously like Solzhenitsyn - but I've never really
understood why Shakespeare is thought to be so brilliant.
>

 Ditto
...

I don't know how many *try* to write Shakespeare-ianly nowadays, but I'm nevertheless guessing that nobody's coming close:
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
 From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
        For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
        That then I scorn to change my state with kings.