Is Not Knowing the Capital of Canada a Problem?

Rat said:
certainly understandable, while simultaneously unforgiveable, since they both have a city of that name.
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I agree with the qualifier that I have a different standard for ordinary people vs Fox news who have 'people' whose job is to at least know what continent the conflict they're reporting about is on.
 
Rat said:
With no other clue, I would have clicked on somewhere near the Seychelles, and that would indeed have been an unfair question. I think Paris, Timbuktu, etc. are fairly well understood without clarification.

That's certainly understandable, while simultaneously unforgiveable, since they both have a city of that name.
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I forget which network it was, but back in the '80s when Tennessee Williams died, they referred to him as Tennessee Ernie Ford at least twice in the report.

ETA Tennessee is also a state, so this is still geography related.
 
blutoski said:
I agree with the qualifier that I have a different standard for ordinary people vs Fox news who have 'people' whose job is to at least know what continent the conflict they're reporting about is on.
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And people wonder why Fox viewers know less about current events than people who don't watch television news at all.

This is why I believe that the ruling class use the media to confuse and befuddle the rest of us.
 
quixotecoyote said:
"Quebec City" is a city. "Quebec" is a province (state-equivalent).

eta: Does it still count as ninja'ed if my window was just sitting there for a while before I posted?
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According to both French Canadians I know, the name of that city is "Quebec"
 
Rat said:
Actually, as I wrote it I realized that I didn't know myself with any accuracy. I know Trafalgar is in Spain, and I guessed that it was down near Gibraltar. I am glad that I was not too far off. I would have been embarrassed had it been in the Bay of Biscay or anything.

As for the other quarter of the world, you may be right. If someone asks where a battle of the US civil war was, I'm not going to be far wrong if I stick a pin in somewhere between Virginia and the Carolinas for the most part, but that's really why I specified a British person. Even then, I would guess that most Americans couldn't place Iwo Jima with any accuracy, but then most British people probably couldn't place Ypres very well. In short, people are crap at geography.

Did everyone do this quiz? Or even this one?

ETA: I got 89% for the latter of those, which makes me suspect that some are cheating. I think my furthest was 27 miles for Timbuktu.
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First quiz, I kind of blew it. I was thinking Syria north of Lebanon and ended up clicking Homs instead of Damascus. At least I got the right country.

Second quiz: Paris 1 mile, Moscow 1 mile, Rio 3 miles, Baghdad 2 miles, Timbuktu 68 miles. I got the general river right, but accidentally clicked Tonka. Turned out, that was better than 94% of people. I'm thinking some of them might have taken it more than once to narrow it down.
 
quixotecoyote said:
Pretty sure that's incorrect. The only thing I find to support that is the Wiki page, but the links don't support the argument. The official English city page uses "Quebec City" and the city charter says:
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Whether it's technically correct or not, it is what at least two people from that area actually call it. Nuestra Señora de La Paz is generally known as La Paz, regardless of its technical name.

ETA: and if you go to the home page of the tourist section on the site you linked to, http://www.ville.quebec.qc.ca/EN/touristes/index.aspx, it says "Welcome to Québec!"

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a situation like where I live where Washington is called "Washington" when it's clear from context that it's in reference to the state and "Washington State" when context doesn't make it obvious.
 
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IMST said:
Whether it's technically correct or not, it is what at least two people from that area actually call it. Nuestra Señora de La Paz is generally known as La Paz, regardless of its technical name.
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More or less. In common usage, they pronounce it "Keybek" or call it mon pays.
There: now you're practically habitants.
 
IMST said:
Whether it's technically correct or not, it is what at least two people from that area actually call it. Nuestra Señora de La Paz is generally known as La Paz, regardless of its technical name.
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Given we're in a geography thread, wouldn't actual names be more important than nicknames? I certainly wouldn't argue that Kansas City should be accepted as KC in anything but a colloquial manner even if "KC" is much more commonly used in conversation.

ETA: and if you go to the home page of the tourist section on the site you linked to, http://www.ville.quebec.qc.ca/EN/touristes/index.aspx, it says "Welcome to Québec!"
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It also says "Québec City and Area. Find comprehensive Québec City and area information ...". Looks like the broad welcome is broader than the city.
 
blutoski said:
Even Canada has a few megalopolises.
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I agree.

Remember this section of discussion was about whether Americans giving "Quebec" as the capital of Canada is as bad as a Canadian giving "Florida" as the capital of the US. Travis contended that Florida was a state, not a city, so the Florida mistake was worse. I contend that since Quebec is a province, not a city, the mistakes are equivalent (and by implication the argument is humorously ironic).
 
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theprestige said:
Yes, what about Canadians who live in Ottawa?

Finish these hypothetical Ottawan sentences:

"I live in Ottawa, which is my nation's capital, and the advantage I gain from knowing that it's my nation's capital is _________."

"I live in Ottawa, which is my nation's capital, and it's important that you know I live in my nation's capital because _________."
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theprestige said:
I mean, what advantage does a Brazilian or a Ukrainian or a Nigerian gain, from knowing the name of the capital of Canada or the US, or the ins and outs of UK regional distinctions?

Hell, what advantage does the average Canadian gain, from knowing the name of the capital of Canada.
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Mudcat said:
More like incomplete, not sloppy. But this goes back to the original idea. What do I, or most people, gain by knowing that Africa is continent and not a country? What is the incentive to memorize all the capitals of America, never mind a foreign country? Why should we hold on to a fact that will never be important outside a game of Trivial Pursuit, or Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, or something similar?
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In this thread, I've learned that the reason why Americans don't know things like what's the capital of Canada is that they only retain information that has any advantage to them. For an American to remember something, he has to gain something by it.

Which sort of scares me.
 
Ryokan said:
In this thread, I've learned that the reason why Americans don't know things like what's the capital of Canada is that they only retain information that has any advantage to them. For an American to remember something, he has to gain something by it.

Which sort of scares me.
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Sounds like you learned the wrong lesson.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Not a joke at all. We Canadians spend much of our lives discussing this very question. We are looking for an answer other than, "Not the US of A". :o
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I don't pretend to know anything about Canada's politics. Its a big country, stretched out from coast to coast just as the U.S. is, with as many varied physical characteristics. It undoubtedly has as many social problems.

Just an observation from an outside observer here.
We have made a number of trips there doing the tourist things. Quebec and Montreal a couple of times each; several trips to Niagara Falls. Loved every one of them. Never met a Canadian we didn't like.
I'm a WWI buff, so I know Canadians can fight, but the general impression we came away with was of a very caring, civil and accepting population. I remember saying to my wife, "I could be a Canadian in an eye blink." Of course, I actually couldn't. I could never take those long Winters.
All beer swilling, country bumpkin jokes aside, you guys can be proud.
 
IMST said:
According to both French Canadians I know, the name of that city is "Quebec"
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That is incorrect. Quebec City is a city. Quebec is a province.

I doubt that any Quebecker would say that Quebec City = Quebec. Are the French Canadians that you're referrring to located in New Brunswick, perhaps? (Or some other location other than Quebec.)

Also, have you asked the two "French Canadians" that you know whether they have the same problem with ascertaining the difference between New York City and New York state, and whether they have the same problem ascertaining the difference between Mexico City and the country of Mexico? Just wondering. :)
 
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MikeG said:
The table has Joburg at the top (not including Soweto), and Soweto in 2nd place. How is that supporting the idea that Soweto is the biggest? Anyway, we're both right, and we're both wrong. There are sprawls around all of South Africa's cities, and artificially dividing them up will just lead to endless trivia questions. For instance, in some tables the Cape Flats sprawl around Cape Town, including Khayelitsha, is shown separately from CT, and in some it is included. We digress.....
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When I click the link you gave it shows ME a table with Soweto as #1, Johannesburg #2, and Pretoria #3. (I realize this is several dozen posts ago, but I'm quite sure that I know how to read 1, 2, and 3.

[/end derail]
 
AdMan said:
My point was that the same term--America--does not equal the United States in the rest of the Americas. The majority of the population of the Americas doesn't refer to the USA as "America."
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I agree. Speaking from north of the 49th parallel here, Canadians do not refer to the U.S. as "America". We typically call it either "the U.S." or "the states". I have never referred to the U.S. as "America" and I am not personally acquainted with any other Canadians who would generally refer to it as such.

Calling the U.S. "America" appears to be a uniquely U.S. thing.
 
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LashL said:
That is incorrect. Quebec City is a city. Quebec is a province.
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Colloquially it is often simply called "Quebec". I don't see why people have trouble understanding this. Google the phrase "I went to visit Quebec" (with quotes around it) and you will see that it is frequently (though not universally) used in reference to the City of Quebec rather than the province of the same name.

Seriously, is this what you want to argue about?
 
Rat said:
Did everyone do this quiz? Or even this one?

ETA: I got 89% for the latter of those, which makes me suspect that some are cheating. I think my furthest was 27 miles for Timbuktu.
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The problem with those quizzes may be my computer skills. The maps are too small and you can't scroll once you zoom in. I can't even pinpoint where I currently live because I can't get a large enough zoom of my area and the cursor covers about 75 x 75 km (if not more).
 
blutoski said:
Canada has one land neighbour: the USA.
And the USA has exactly two land neighbours: Canada and Mexico. Canada is their largest trading partner and primary source of oil and other natural resources. Mexico is their 2nd largest trading partner.

Dozens more 'neighbours' if you're allowed to ignore bodies of water, if you consider ice to be equivalent to land, and if you want to include non-continental USA states/territories.
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My bad; I was counting Alaska and Russia twice each.
 
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