In New York, your home state seems to be about as popular as the weather when it comes to topics for small talk. Ask someone where they come from originally, and it's a 50-50 shot that you'll hear a location outside of the tri-states.
So my roots in Ohio come up fairly often. I usually like talking about home, but I came away from one such recent conversation pretty annoyed.
After learning I was from Ohio, one woman said she had plans to go there for a wedding. Then she remembered that in fact it wasn't Ohio she would be visiting, but Iowa.
Ohio. Iowa. I guess I can see how they might be confused. Ohiowa? But seriously, if you've attended an elementary school in America at any point in your education, there's really no excuse.
(By-the-by, the mix-up happened to me once before, in Austria. But the people doing the mixing up were British, so I gave them a free pass. I was impressed they'd ever even heard of Iowa.)
I've brought up the confusion to some friends, and I'm far from the only one with geographically-challenged acquaintances. At least two friends have encountered people who thought their potatoes came from Ohio.
When I left Defiance for Columbus for college, I frequently had to describe where in the state my hometown was located. But I never thought I'd ever have to describe where my state was located.
I don't understand this at all. Admittedly, I liked to look at maps as a child and got to learn where all the states were at a pretty early age. But still. How can an educated person and a U.S. CITIZEN not know where different states are located??
ReplyDelete(Phil doesn't know!!!)