Americans have a rotten grasp of geography. And I am living proof. It's not a gap in my knowlege: it's a gaping wound.
Jack and I were talking the other night. I am a descendant of people from Wales and related to the royal family of the Netherlands, and it came up in conversation. "Where is Holland?" asked Jack suddenly (knowing fully well that I am completely retarded when it comes to geography).
"What does Holland have to do with anything?" I asked.
"Holland is just another name for the Netherlands," he answered.
"No it isn't!" I said. I was thinking of a little girl I had known when I was very young, who had been from Holland. She was introduced to me by the same grandparents who always pounded my lineage into my head. Surely they would have told me if we were genetically related? They were so obsessive about all of our ties.
"It is!" said Jack. "Jean-Pierre's mother is from Holland. Where do you think Holland is?"
"Um," I said intelligently, "Near Germany?"
"Argh!" said Jack, or something equally gutteral. "OK, if I'm right, what do I get? No wait, scratch that. I'm pretty sure that I'm right and that's terrifying."
"Whoa, bud! Don't get ahead of yourself! You are so wrong. C'mon! Let's go check it out online," I said assertively. I pulled him into the study and cleared the paperwork from the extra chair next to me. "Sit down!" I commanded, dramatically motioning him into the chair. I googled maps of the Netherlands. "See?" I said triumphantly. "Holland isn't even near the Netherlands!"
"You're doing something wrong," he said. "Try putting in Holland and Netherlands maps." I did, and came up with maps showing that Holland and Netherland were somehow intertwined. When I went to the Wikipedia reference, it turned out that Holland is a province in the Netherlands, just as Florida is a part of the United States. So, I wasn't entirely wrong, but I sure as heck wasn't right, either. Jack retired to the couch, triumphant.
I need a remedial course in geography.
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16 comments:
I did not know that Holland was a province in The Netherlands... I had always used the two names interchangably. Either way, they are Dutch, which only complicates things!
Psst, did you not read Anne Frank?
My dad was a geography and language Nazi. We learned both well, but I've had several students make me very sad when I made references to geography and they had no idea what I was talking about.
UWL, I grew up among the intellegentsia but when there's a gap in my knowlege, it's extreme. :P Schools need to pound this stuff into young mushy minds at an early age.
Miss C, apparently a lot of people use the words interchangeably! I read that somewhere last night, too!
Chris, you're on! I'm going to make this a weekly occasion! You (and Carrie and Michelle) had better get geared up! :D
Put on your wooden shoes and read the little story by Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge....
I've always considered myself to be decent at geography.
Back in March, I posted a link to a little US Geography game on my blog. Click on this link and the one in the post and see how you do...
Green, I got a "D". :P
Kathleen, time for us to spring for an Atlas...
Uncle Joe, ;o) I did, years ago. Strangely, I didn't realize it was a part of my ancestors' "homeland"...?
I understand and identify with this post completely, being so horrible at geogaphy.
Maybe a map of the world would serve nicely as wall paper inside my home!
My bride always says she was absent that day!!!!!
It's all she can do to find even the region states in the US are. Don't worry though she graduated 3rd in her class with a 3.89.
jsull28fl
Holland and The Netherlands is pretty much the same place.
And the language is "Dutch" as opposed to "Hollandish" or "Neatherlandsish".
But do not worry. You know more geography than the President.
We had a couple of au pairs from Poland and luckily my daughter took an interest in geography because of it. When she was in first grade, the teacher told me she astounded everyone with her knowledge of Europe. Last year she was one of two students in 6th grade to qualify for the geography bee.
When I fly to Amsterdam, we stay at a hotel in The Hague (Den Haag). Until I went there, I didn't realize it was a city, not just a political center! I saw Milosevic on trial at the world court and drove by all the embassies there. Very neat place!
Sometimes even if you think you have a handle on geography and where everything is, they go around and change boundaries or names of countries altogether. Did you know that Persia and Iran are the same country? At one time, maps of the world labeled the country of Iran as Persia.
It can be a bit to keep up with, but I'd rather study that anyday than any form of math. It is in that subject that my brain cells suffer from the gaping wounds. Yeah, I can add, subtract, multiply and divide.... beyond that I need a calculator and CPA.
I could care less that X2-Y3+=1. I'll leave that to the bean counters.
But then tell me where new holland is!
The geography of the world is a necessary study, but difficult because it changes. I confess that I was taught in school that the Netherlands and Holland were one and the same, and when I last traveled through there I found nothing to show me different. But, of course, that was before you were born, back when Estonia was part of the Soviet Union and Poland was considered almost the same. Hungary was in the throes of a Revolution that was put down with great violence by the Soviet Union.
And what is a dutch oven?
I am horrible at geography!
Unless, of course, I have been there before.
Otherwise, no way.
It gives me great pleasure how bad Americans are at world geography, it makes up for us Brits having bad teeth...
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