Brits take a crack at US geography

[sidewinder]

You probably know this but Dutch engineers did a lot of work draining our Fenlands in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire.

There's even an area of Lincolnshire called 'Holland' and a significant number of the locals both there and in Nolfolk/Suffolk can even trace their ancestry back to the Dutch. Big 16th and 17th Century influx I believe.

I always thought that area when you get off the ferry in Zeeland was so flat that it was like being on the journey to Mordor.

It's actually very complicated - various reforms over the years have redrawn boundaries. The map I put up seems to be out of date.

This map is how I visualise it:

This one is better:

What a bizarre map. Seems to imply that the cosmopolitan metropolis of Trowbridge is the major town/city in Wiltshire

Edited November 30, 2013 by sidewinder

[A Lark Ascending]

What a bizarre map. Seems to imply that the cosmopolitan metropolis of Trowbridge is the major town/city in Wiltshire

I thought Trowbridge was the county town of Wiltshire. That was certainly where my university grant got paid from (back in the days when you got paid to go to university!). County Hall or whatever they called it was there.

Avon seems to still be there - I thought that had gone.

[sidewinder]

Aha - yes, it would still be the county town I think. Bizarre when you think that the likes of Swindon and Salisbury are left of the map and are much bigger places (not to mention Bath - but that is in NE Somerset). The Anglo-Saxon purists would have course have said it should be Wilton on the map !

Edited November 30, 2013 by sidewinder

[Jazzjet]

It's actually very complicated - various reforms over the years have redrawn boundaries. The map I put up seems to be out of date.

This map is how I visualise it:

Though they have not labelled Berkshire (where Reading is) and Buckinghamshire (under the last letters of Oxford). Or Rutland (next to Leicestershire). Or Nottinghamshire!!!!

How many have you lived in?

Think I get 9 (8 between 1955-1977; 1 from 1978).

This one is better:

I don't understand why they don't just cut us off in Cornwall at the Tamar and let us get on with it by ourselves!

[A Lark Ascending]

You've been listening to too much Alex Salmond!

Edited November 30, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[seeline]

I dunno - my hunch is that there are more than a few US-based Anglophiles who would get at least a few of the counties, though not necessarily be able to identify them on a map. Names of counties are often cited in novels and sometimes in poems and song titles. Avid folk fans might do better than you'd imagine!

[J.A.W.]

And here are the Americans taking a crack at European geography...: http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/americans-try-to-place-european-countries-on-a-map

Edited November 30, 2013 by J.A.W.

[erwbol]

I love the turkey who labeled Turkey 'India?'.

[GA Russell]

Thanks, Bev! i didn't know that Manchester was so close to Liverpool. As I recall, Liverpool was the #1 city of the British Invasion bands (thanks to Brian Epstein), and Manchester was #2 with Herman's Hermits, The Hollies, and maybe The Moody Blues (?).

[A Lark Ascending]

The Moody Blues were Birmingham (also spawned Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin [from it's leafy suburbs] and some of the non-London Fairports).

The argument usually used for Liverpool as the No. 1 British invasion city is that as a port some of the kids there got access to American rock n' roll and blues records earlier from merchant seamen fathers and brothers. Not sure how much that is romantic myth. I suspect it has as much to do with the social changes of the time that were challenging traditional authority and the dominance of the South. For a while things Northern (accents in particular) had the stamp of modernity. The South has truly re-established its dominance since.

Edited December 1, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[Edward]

I dunno - my hunch is that there are more than a few US-based Anglophiles who would get at least a few of the counties, though not necessarily be able to identify them on a map. Names of counties are often cited in novels and sometimes in poems and song titles. Avid folk fans might do better than you'd imagine!

I completely agree with your assessment (I am interested in poetry, so I almost mentioned Shropshire, but I was uncertain as to whether it was a county or some other type of geographic region), but what very small percentage of the U.S. population do those Anglophiles comprise? If I asked all sixty of the college graduates with whom I work (and, yes, I realize that there are a lot of very bright people who do not have a college education as well as a lot of college graduates who are idiots) to name as many counties as they could in the United Kingdom, I doubt that I would receive more than a handful of correct answers.

[A Lark Ascending]

Does this matter? How much knowledge of anything do you need before you need it?

Knowing the English counties is of little practical use to most Americans. Unless they are interested in English history, literature or are contemplating spending some time here.

There's a whole educational/philosophical argument lying here. We go round in circles in Britain deciding what children ought to know (as in knowledge rather than skills) - every ten years or so a government redesigns the National Curriculum but all it tends to do is reflect the political and cultural preconceptions of those designing it.

There's a rough outline of things that make a good starting point (and they differ between nations) - say the broad outline of British history with some European and world context and challenges in our case - but I've always felt education can stand kids learning different things in different places and, where it is practical, getting a chance to follow their own interests. I know far more about music (which I hardly studied at all in school) than I do about chemistry (which I studied for 5 years).

The fact that a British kid (or adult) doesn't know where Utah is or an American kid can't find Gloucestershire is neither here nor there - until they need to know it.

Every few months the right wing press in Britain do one of those daft surveys about history, geography or science and come up with shocking results about young people thinking that Churchill is a nodding dog or that Belgium is the capital of Northern Ireland. All part of their agenda to demonstrate how the country is going to pieces and how we need sorting out with some good old-fashioned common sense.

Edited December 1, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[Jazzmoose]

All I knew was that Yorkshire was up north and the 'sex' ones were down south. Must make Yorkshire pretty boring...

[BillF]

Thanks, Bev! i didn't know that Manchester was so close to Liverpool.

Yes, things are nicely concentrated round here. That's what brings so many jazz venues within easy reach!

[GA Russell]

Were Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders from Manchester?

[J.A.W.]

Were Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders from Manchester?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mindbenders

[seeline]

I dunno - my hunch is that there are more than a few US-based Anglophiles who would get at least a few of the counties, though not necessarily be able to identify them on a map. Names of counties are often cited in novels and sometimes in poems and song titles. Avid folk fans might do better than you'd imagine!

I completely agree with your assessment (I am interested in poetry, so I almost mentioned Shropshire, but I was uncertain as to whether it was a county or some other type of geographic region), but what very small percentage of the U.S. population do those Anglophiles comprise? If I asked all sixty of the college graduates with whom I work (and, yes, I realize that there are a lot of very bright people who do not have a college education as well as a lot of college graduates who are idiots) to name as many counties as they could in the United Kingdom, I doubt that I would receive more than a handful of correct answers.

My geekiness re. English history and literature is showing, I think... Although I suspect that I know some of the old names for the counties, not the ones that are used currently (for the most part), and I wouldn't even come close to being able to name them all! (Not sure I could name all 50 states without a cheat sheet, for that matter.)

Edited December 2, 2013 by seeline

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I dunno - my hunch is that there are more than a few US-based Anglophiles who would get at least a few of the counties, though not necessarily be able to identify them on a map. Names of counties are often cited in novels and sometimes in poems and song titles. Avid folk fans might do better than you'd imagine!

I completely agree with your assessment (I am interested in poetry, so I almost mentioned Shropshire, but I was uncertain as to whether it was a county or some other type of geographic region), but what very small percentage of the U.S. population do those Anglophiles comprise? If I asked all sixty of the college graduates with whom I work (and, yes, I realize that there are a lot of very bright people who do not have a college education as well as a lot of college graduates who are idiots) to name as many counties as they could in the United Kingdom, I doubt that I would receive more than a handful of correct answers.

My geekiness re. English history and literature is showing, I think... Although I suspect that I know some of the old names for the counties, not the ones that are used currently (for the most part), and I wouldn't even come close to being able to name them all! (Not sure I could name all 50 states without a cheat sheet, for that matter.)

Not many of the English names have changed as a result of local government reorganisation. Manchester and Liverpool used to be in Lancashire, but they're separate counties now. Yorkshire was divided into four but one was called Humberside - I see on one of Bev's maps that's now called the East Riding of Yorkshire - I suppose people wanted to make sure their sons could play cricket for Yorkshire (you have to be born in Yorkshire to get on the team). Tyne & Wear is a new county; so is West Midlands - those are just Newcastle and other places and Birmingham and other places; I suppose no one wanted to call them Newcastle and Birmingham

Wales is where most of the names have changed twice since 1972.

MG

[seeline]

Wales is where most of the names have changed twice since 1972.

why? That seems ridiculous and quite strange.

As a kid, I learned some of the county names from songs: "In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen" and so on...

Edited December 2, 2013 by seeline

[Big Beat Steve]

Wales is where most of the names have changed twice since 1972.

MG

No more Cardiganshire or Denbighshire or Monmouthshire or Glamorganshire , then? (No, I did not look them up online to find out )

BTW, what made me realize that apparently almost ANY place can be a "-shire" in the UK was when I found out there actually is a Renfrewshire up in Scotland (Renfrew being a character's name of sorts that for some reason I came across in several unrelated novels and/or radio plays through the years)

Edited December 2, 2013 by Big Beat Steve

[page]

We have only twelve provinces.

No one trying yet, maybe we should make it mutiple choice??

[J.A.W.]

We have only twelve provinces.

No one trying yet, maybe we should make it mutiple choice??

I don't think anyone is interested in Dutch geography

[page]

We have only twelve provinces.

No one trying yet, maybe we should make it mutiple choice??

I don't think anyone is interested in Dutch geography

Well, that is their loss then.

[etherbored]

I don't think anyone is interested in Dutch geography

speak for yourself!

[Shawn]

The Moody Blues were Birmingham (also spawned Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin [from it's leafy suburbs] and some of the non-London Fairports).

Also, The Move, E.L.O. (who did a song called Birmingham Blues) and much later Duran Duran.