Help Me Understand - Page 3

Jasper109 · #1 09-11-2006, 06:42 PM

I was watching a torrent of the WSOP main event the other day and they showed a hand involving a Canadian player from Regina.

At this point Lon McEachern totally butchers the pronounciation of one of the larger cities in our fair country located just to the north of you.

So I post this on the message board of one of the fantasy baseball leagues I'm in. Probably a similar demographic to the posters of OOT.

Not one of 15 guys can say for sure how Regina is pronounced, and 2 of them know what province it is the capital of. The most provinces that any one of them can name is 6 (there are 10) Now none of this surprised me, but it did get me to thinking about the fact that most American have a vry limited knowledge of anything outside of their borders.

So why is it like that? Do you guys learn anything about Canada or Europe in high school history or geography? Maybe it's just my Canadian inferiority complex, but it kind of bothers me that we are so irrelevant, and it bothers me that some Americans think we live in Igloos.

Rick Mercer (Canadian TV personality) went down to the States and filmed a documentary where he asked Americans on the street questions about Canada. It was both extremely funny and sad at the same time. He had the mayor of Little Rock (if memory serves) convinced that the Canadian Prime Ministers name was Jean Poutine.

So I'm curious why I know how to pronounce Tucson properly, while Lon McEachern or any of a number of people editing the video or producing the program for ESPN didn't know how to pronounce Regina.

Why is it that I could name virtually every state on a US map, while probaby less than 10% of Americans could name 5 provinces.

Is it this general arrogance that makes Americans mostly despised throughout the world?

I love your country, your music, movies, TV shows, sports leagues, etc. and I'm grateful that you guys are around to cover our backs, but it still sometimes bothers me that we are lumped in with other countries when it comes to being a non-American.