coworkers, as a general rule

[Maxwell]

I think americans fail to grasp that some of their states are larger than other peoploes countries, that and most of the people I know here used to think europe was a country not an entire continent....

[House of Mustard]

Kris Humphries, the first round draft pick that the Jazz just got, said "I'm excited to be playing for the city of Utah."  They've been playing that quote over and over on the radio.

[stacer]

And all the people in Utah who have never been outside of Utah and refer to anything east of Denver as "The East Coast"

(and yes, i've heard multiple people say that...)

Fuzzy and 42, I got that ALL the time in Utah. I can't tell you how many people I talked to said things like, "Oh, Illinoise (pronounce the s)? You're from Illinoise? Wow, you're from back East/ the East Coast/the East?"

Etc.   When I ask them if they know where the Mississippi is, they have a vague idea that it's somewhere near New York or something.

This isn't limited to states, though. When I went to the University of Illinois (which is in downstate Illnois, east-central), I can't tell you how many Chicagoans had no clue where my hometown was, even when I kept getting bigger and bigger on reference towns--do you know where Galesburg is? No? How about Peoria? No? How about Rock Island and Davenport? No? How about the Mississippi?" And in that case, sometimes they then thought I was from out of state.

[Entsuropi]

See, I would have to say that New Mexico was right next to California. And north of Mexico.

It is somewhat sad that I am really bad at UK geography. Not a clue where, for example, East Anglia is. It's down south. Show me a blank map and I can point you to the big 3 Scottish cities, but I'll be really vague on my current location.

And I'll share a quote with you:
Me and my parents were in some random USA fast food joint. The waitress, confused by our accents, asks us where we are from. 'Scotland', we reply.
'Oh! I'm descended from Scottish! Uhm, what language do you speak there? French? German?'
'...'

And this offering from Bill Bryson:
'Where are yah from?', asks the old American guy.
'Well, I'm from England', replies Bill Bryson. He is actually American but he had lived in Britain for 20 odd years by that point so he just refered to himself as British.
'Well son, yah speak real good English for a foreigner.' Utters the old man.

Plus the old tired complaint about Americans acting as though Scotland had 20 inhabitants. 'Oh, so-and-so is from Scotland! Do you know him?' Well, no, I do not personally know all five million Scottish.

[Maxwell]

americans do that for any countrie not just scottland, but trust me when your from a small(er) place like ireland you get that right and left, although once somebody asked me if I knew a guy from ireland(I forget who he asked me about) and I actually did know the guy, but just out of spite I told him I didnt...

[Brenna]

Plus the old tired complaint about Americans acting as though Scotland had 20 inhabitants. 'Oh, so-and-so is from Scotland! Do you know him?' Well, no, I do not personally know all five million Scottish.

This happens no matter where you are.

"You've lived in Texas? Do you know...."
"You've lived... You must know so and so"

Sorry, people, you can try (and occasionally I will know who you are talking about), but just because I've lived in whatever large geographical area I've talked to you about, it doesn't mean that I know that one person out of the tons of people who happen to live there as well!  

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

a couple things. just statistical probability, Entropy, you're more likely to have met any given person in scotland than I am to know someone from DC, which has more inhabitants.

Of course that changes when you start talking about people in the LDS church, which is a much smaller demographic and more tightly knit, so it IS more likely to get a positive response when you ask if a Mormon knows a Mormon even in a rather large geographic area.

anyway, in a drastic position change, i'm more likely to go easy on people I can get to about half the major east coast cities in 5 hours from my home. So if you're not thinking hard about it and you just go by personal experience, it's probably to assume that you can get to DC in about 5 hours. 10 on the outside.
Course, that's when working on autopilot. Pretty easy to forgive though. It's hardly as stupid as thinking that there are no mountains or wilderness in the east, which is a very common perception in the west.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

yeah I had a couple Elders who kept telling me that there were no mountains in the east.
They may not be as high but the Smokies and Appalachians and the Blue Ridge do get up there.
I will say that I can say without a doubt that folks in the Rockies dont have easy access to an ocean though.

I can see why most people dont have any real grasp of geography though, travel is essential to knowing just how big a place is. For instance, New York State and Pennsylvania are HUGE
When Eric and I went to Palmyra it was a day long trip for me.
-left NC at 6:00 am... got to DC by 10
Rented bigger car and hooked up with mike and left DC by 11 and then arrived in Palmyra NY at about 12:30 or 1 AM. Granted I did travel 2/3 of the east coast in a day (which would have made the minds of my ancestors explode) but 3/4 of the trip time was taken up by either Pennsylvania, or New York.  

I feel pretty spoiled when it comes to travel anyways, since my dad was in the army and every 3 years We ended up traveling across the country to another base (every other time was to VA)
Driving from DC to Washington State via South Dakota and the continental divide is in no way fun by the way.
A solid week of driving and stretching punctuated by signs for "The Wall" drug store.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Maybe that's it; I've traveled throughout my life.  I mean we took trips to D.C. and Toronto from Ohio, not to mention summer vacations to North Carolina and Michigan.  And those are just in the car.  I have relatives in Washington state, so I've been there a lot, and on top of that I've flown to England, France, and Hawaii.

Oh and I've driven across the flat large part of the  country (Ohio to washington and then later Ohio to Utah).  Road trips are fun.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

... can also be quite clueless.

I speak of their political opinions. Yesterday one guy suggested, quite seriously, that we bomb an entire Iraqi city for every one of our guys they destroy. I hope to God that I don't have to explain to you how retarded and sick this idea is. Because, y'know, crapping on their country some more is really going to make them want to stop doing what little they think they can (as disgusting and violent as it is) to get us the heck out of there.

Then today I got sent an email from a coworker that said anyone against hte war is unamerican. Which is also retarded. Blindly accepting the government's position and going along with it? That's unamerican. No matter which side of support for the war you come down on, unless you've investigated and debated your position, THAT'S unamerican. The email also seems to stupidly think that if you don't support the war effort, you hate the soldiers who are fighting it. I still don't think the US should have ever been there, but that doesn't mean I don't support the individuals bravely doing their duty in the face of danger.

ARGH. I shouldn't have to put up with this crap at work.