Interesting graph. One thing I noticed that might make the graph easier to read: there are official post office abbreviations for states. OK for Oklahoma, AK for Alaska, ME for Maine, etc. Most people looking for their state will recognize the two-letter abbreviations easier.
In my experience, many people outside of the states can only really name a few specific states. Often it’s New York, California, Hawaii, Texas, Florida, and/or Alaska.
I’d wager quite a bit of money that less than 50% of people outside of the US would be able to identify which name in the following list is not one of the 50 states: Navajo, Idaho, Utah, and Montana.
I mean if you want to argue anecdotal evidence with anecdotal evidence, then you’d have to match my knowing all 50 states alphabetically. You’d also have to account for my friend in Norway who, when asked what states they could name (specifically in regard to this thread, but wasn’t originally in reference to your reply), gave me 12 names. 10 of them were US states (5 of them were in my list of 6 commonly named states) and the other 2 were US cities. That being said I will also state that they did get my question right despite my expectations.
But more broadly, I’m not saying that there aren’t people in places outside of the US who know many/all of the states or who know much more about the US than myself/most US residents. I am saying that in my personal experience talking with friends I’ve made over the Internet who do not live in the US, those friends generally know only a few states and the 6 I’ve listed are by and large the most common ones I’ve seen them list.
I probably can’t name all 50 but 40+ is a safe bet.
The 10 you mentioned is really low and not representative. On average there will not be much difference between EU and US.
So I believe it’s you who made the mistake of going on anecdotals of your Norwegian friend.
Even if it’s useless information to us we get a lot of it trough ‘culture’ and news if we want to or not.
Shooting here, train derailed there, flooding…
Saying half of us would think Navajo sounded rather insulting IMO.
As American politics and decisions have a big influence on what is happening in the world, the chance that someone from outside the US knows something about the US are bigger, way bigger than the other way round. We speak your mother tongue, but you probably don’t speak any of ours…
That said, it would be rather interesting to see Navajo as a state. It would probably located in the Utah/Arizona/New Mexico area. If it existed.
As American politics and decisions have a big influence on what is happening in the world, the chance that someone from outside the US knows something about the US are bigger, way bigger than the other way round.
I do understand that, but that’s part of the reason I listed those 6 states as in general I feel those are the most influential, noteworthy, and/or easily identifiable states. Even as an American I don’t know the last time I heard about news happening in Arkansas much less something that should be worthy of international news.
We speak your mother tongue, but you probably don’t speak any of ours…
You might be surprised by this. I haven’t done much digging to find scholarly sources since I have things going on this weekend, but I did find one (non scholarly) source claiming that the percentage of bilingual people in the US (as defined by people who use multiple languages on a daily basis, not just able to speak it) was 23% which was just below their claimed EU average of 25%.
I know you’re use of “you/your” was likely more meant as me as an American rather than as a specific individual however as for myself as an individual, I took 3 years of German which I’m rather rusty with now considering that was over a decade ago at this point, and I’ve been studying Japanese with a tutor for the last 1.5 years now.
Congratulations for speaking more than just American. Bilinguality in the US is an odd thing, and often caused by people who have English as their second language.
This American obsession with those awful abbreviations is exhausting. Foreigners should not have to remember if AL is Alabama or Alaska or MI is Mississippi or Michigan, especially when lacking any context clue as to which one it is. “ME” for Maine is straight up evil. Can you name the TLD of Peru of the top of your head?
There are places where abbreviations make sense: where there will be extreme repetition (TLDs, letters) or where space and readability are under tight constraint (license plates, next to the points counter on a football broadcast). An already extremely sparse infographic with no hard layout restriction is decidedly not either of those things and should therefore just use the full goddamn name instead of trying to signal “hey look this is made by an American for an American, fuck everyone else”.
Waaaah, this other country has standards I don’t like, and it’s easier to whine online than to expand my knowledge, later on I’ll be crying about someone not using metric
Interesting graph. One thing I noticed that might make the graph easier to read: there are official post office abbreviations for states. OK for Oklahoma, AK for Alaska, ME for Maine, etc. Most people looking for their state will recognize the two-letter abbreviations easier.
A few of the abbreviations are already on there, just written wrong. They got “La., Ga., and Pa.”
People not from the US will prefer names, not some (for most of the world) meaningless abbreviations.
In my experience, many people outside of the states can only really name a few specific states. Often it’s New York, California, Hawaii, Texas, Florida, and/or Alaska.
I’d wager quite a bit of money that less than 50% of people outside of the US would be able to identify which name in the following list is not one of the 50 states: Navajo, Idaho, Utah, and Montana.
I’d wager quite a bit of money that I (EU) can name as many as the average US banana republic dweller.
I mean if you want to argue anecdotal evidence with anecdotal evidence, then you’d have to match my knowing all 50 states alphabetically. You’d also have to account for my friend in Norway who, when asked what states they could name (specifically in regard to this thread, but wasn’t originally in reference to your reply), gave me 12 names. 10 of them were US states (5 of them were in my list of 6 commonly named states) and the other 2 were US cities. That being said I will also state that they did get my question right despite my expectations.
But more broadly, I’m not saying that there aren’t people in places outside of the US who know many/all of the states or who know much more about the US than myself/most US residents. I am saying that in my personal experience talking with friends I’ve made over the Internet who do not live in the US, those friends generally know only a few states and the 6 I’ve listed are by and large the most common ones I’ve seen them list.
I probably can’t name all 50 but 40+ is a safe bet.
The 10 you mentioned is really low and not representative. On average there will not be much difference between EU and US.
So I believe it’s you who made the mistake of going on anecdotals of your Norwegian friend. Even if it’s useless information to us we get a lot of it trough ‘culture’ and news if we want to or not.
Shooting here, train derailed there, flooding…
Saying half of us would think Navajo sounded rather insulting IMO.
As American politics and decisions have a big influence on what is happening in the world, the chance that someone from outside the US knows something about the US are bigger, way bigger than the other way round. We speak your mother tongue, but you probably don’t speak any of ours…
That said, it would be rather interesting to see Navajo as a state. It would probably located in the Utah/Arizona/New Mexico area. If it existed.
I do understand that, but that’s part of the reason I listed those 6 states as in general I feel those are the most influential, noteworthy, and/or easily identifiable states. Even as an American I don’t know the last time I heard about news happening in Arkansas much less something that should be worthy of international news.
You might be surprised by this. I haven’t done much digging to find scholarly sources since I have things going on this weekend, but I did find one (non scholarly) source claiming that the percentage of bilingual people in the US (as defined by people who use multiple languages on a daily basis, not just able to speak it) was 23% which was just below their claimed EU average of 25%.
I know you’re use of “you/your” was likely more meant as me as an American rather than as a specific individual however as for myself as an individual, I took 3 years of German which I’m rather rusty with now considering that was over a decade ago at this point, and I’ve been studying Japanese with a tutor for the last 1.5 years now.
Congratulations for speaking more than just American. Bilinguality in the US is an odd thing, and often caused by people who have English as their second language.
Or just use full names.
This American obsession with those awful abbreviations is exhausting. Foreigners should not have to remember if AL is Alabama or Alaska or MI is Mississippi or Michigan, especially when lacking any context clue as to which one it is. “ME” for Maine is straight up evil. Can you name the TLD of Peru of the top of your head?
There are places where abbreviations make sense: where there will be extreme repetition (TLDs, letters) or where space and readability are under tight constraint (license plates, next to the points counter on a football broadcast). An already extremely sparse infographic with no hard layout restriction is decidedly not either of those things and should therefore just use the full goddamn name instead of trying to signal “hey look this is made by an American for an American, fuck everyone else”.