h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Iraq is the same size as Canada"?

What? Like Corsica is the same size as Australia? London is the same size as England? An oyster is the same size as the whole world?

This needs to be repaired quickly!

It's geographically incorrect and Canadians don't ever say anything of the sort.

and the whole sentence is very awkward:

'The Canadians naturally use Canada itself as a measurement, as in "Iraq is the same size as Canada", and also parts of the USA.'


What's this "and also parts of the USA" doing hanging off the end?

This Canadian section has been troublesome from the beginning, as you'll see in the Peer Review thread.

I don't mean to be picky.... However:

A few comments on the Canadian section....

The Canadians naturally use Canada itself as a measurement, as in "Iraq is the same size as Canada", and also parts of the USA. ????

1 Russian Federation 17,075,400,00 km (sq)

2 Canada 9,976,140,00 km (sq)

3 China 9,326,410 km (sq)

4 United States 9,166,600 km (sq)
>
>
>
58 Iraq 437,072 km (sq)

Canada is 22.82 times that of Iraq in total area (from http://www.your-nation.com/)

"Baffin Island - an island, part of Nunavus, a territory": the Territory is Nunavut ( http://www.gov.nu.ca/Nunavut/ )

"Manitoulin Island - the largest freshwater island in the world, part of the province of Ontario": Yes, I know... several websites say "largest freshwater island". However, it is the lake that is freshwater, not the island. It is officially, the "world's largest lake-island" or lacustrine island (meaning "pertaining to lakes")

(see: http://users.erols.com/jcalder/LAKEV1.htm or http://users.erols.com/jcalder/SUPERLATIVESV2.html )

"The Queen Charlottes Islands": are actually the "Queen Charlotte Islands" (Islands are plural, the Queen was not)

"Newfoundland - a major island portion of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, a former independent British Colony": Newfoundland is THE major island portion of Newfoundland and Labrador. In fact, it is the ONLY island portion, and the Newfoundland portion of Newfoundland and Labrador (Labrador being entirely confined to the mainland....). Newfoundland was the last of the provinces to come into Confederation, finally joining in 1949, 82 years after the rest of the provinces. (Dear old Joey Smallwood, God bless his cotton socks...).

Hi Anhaga and Mudhooks

Thanks for pointing out these mistakes - it's a shame that none of these points were spotted while the entry was in Peer Review. I'm also sorry that I didn't spot these myself; I'm not at all familiar with the geography of the US and Canada.

These are the changes that I've made:

- 'Iraq is the same size as Canada' > 'Iraq is about 23 times smaller than Canada'

- I've restructured the sentence beginning 'The Canadians naturally...'

- Nunavus > Nunavut

- the largest freshwater island in the world > the world's largest lake island

- Queen Charlottes Islands > Queen Charlotte Islands

- a major island portion > the only island portion



RhoMuNuQ

these were all pointed out in Peer Review. I provided pretty much the whole Canada section (there should be a link to the edited entry on Canada). The last time I saw the entry in Peer Review it said "Iraq is the same size as France". I don't know when all the differences slipped in.

Well, it doesn't help when websites have errors posted on them.

One thing abour measuring. In Canada, we went metric in the late 60's. By then, I was not quite fluent in non-metric measurment. The result? I don't know if the temperature in Celcius os warm or cold. The only temperature I know for sure is -40.... -40 is -40 whether in Farenheit or in Celcius. Either way, it is friking cold.

In regards to size measurement. It really burns my butt when the newspaper reports on something and say that the wave 20.736 centimetres hit the beach... Why not say what that was in feet.... Like I am going to go and find a metre-stick and check the size out. I know I am 5' 4" tall... If the wave was 20 feet tall, I know that the wave was more than 4 times my height. All I care about was that this was either a very big wave, or a very small one. (I have NO idea the relative difference in size between a centimetre and a foot, so if the comparison is way off, it just goes to show how non-metric I am...).

Good gravy, there were a LOT of typos in what I just wrote....

I've added the link to A53443.

RhoMuNuQ

'Iraq is about 23 times smaller than Canada'?

This is becoming ridiculous. The Iraq example I provided was a real one used in a Canadian news cast: "Iraq is about the same size as France." No one would ever say "Iraq is about 23 times smaller than Canada" when they could say "Iraq is the size of France." Please compare the Canada and USA sections as they stand now and compare them to my original PR post (which I will paste after the colon) about the Canadian point of view:

"I don't think we have standardized geographical units in Canada; we seem to use different units every time. The last one I heard was the
France (in reference to Ir*q). I think I've heard the Belgium used here, but not the Wales. Also the Vancouver Island, the Prince Edward
Island (also known as the P. E. I.), the Contiguous United States, the Manhattan Island (usually of asteroids), the Texas, among others. Is
this an indication that greater geographic knowledge is expected of the Canadian public?"

No mention of Canada itself as a standard measure. You will also note that Manhattan Island as an asteroid is a Canadian measure using a foreign unit as was "the contiguous United States" (which measure I had to explain in a later post) and "the Texas".

Many of the other Canadian examples are taken from another post of mine where I take issue with the suggestion that Canada is "Wales-less":

"And Canada is hardly Wales-less: We have New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Baffin Island,
Manitoulin Island, The Queen Charlottes, Newfoundland, etc. We are not forced to use other countries; we're just knowledgeable about
other countries." (post 47. You should read the whole post.) I did not suggest that we used these measures, just that if we felt a need for a geographical area the size of Wales, we could certainly find a domestic one.

So, as so often seems to happen, the world has misunderstood us and the Americans have appropriated us.

Sorry, my point in posting all that is that this has all been discussed at length in Peer Review but it just became more and more comfused, leading me to finally suggest:

"Maybe you should just change the Canada part to something like: "Canadians are sufficiently familiar with the geography of the world that
they don't need units such as 'the Wales' and 'the Belgium'; For example, for Canadians the DRC is 'the Democratic Republic of Congo, that
country that used to be Zaire, you know, Mountain Gorillas, Ebola, Leopold's rubber empire.' Canadians don't need simple geographic
comparisons.""

i notice now that somehow Atlantic Cable ended up with the impression that Canada was the same size as Iraq. ???? I think at one point in PR I also suggested that Canada just be left out of the whole thing. I honestly do regret ever posting to the PR thread for this entry; it has been a wholy frustrating experience far beyond anything I've experienced on H2G2.

Okay, last post on this subject, and I'll try to keep it brief. My posts in the PR thread were simple and clear: "Canadians say:" and I offered some examples. the examples then were either called American examples or scrambled up to be meaningless.

Perhaps the most immediately important point: don't suggest that Canadians would say Iraq is about 23 times smaller than Canada. Iraq is about the size of France -- we would say "Iraq is about the size of France" (if we felt the need to make a comparison at all).

Anhaga,

The Peer Review thread is 73 posts long. I simply don't have the time to compare the contents of *every* post in the thread with the entry I'm given to subedit, looking for factual errors. I assumed that, if there were any significant errors remaining in the entry after it was picked, somebody would have posted to the PR thread saying 'Please can the subeditor look at post #, making all relevant changes'. Nevertheless, being the subeditor, I can of course make changes to the factual content of an entry, as I am now, but, knowing nothing about how comparisons are made in Canada, I mistakenly assumed that the section about Canada was accurate when nobody posted in the last few posts in the Peer Review thread to say otherwise. I apologise for that. I'm also sorry that this has been frustrating for you, but I am doing my best to make all the required corrections to the entry at this late stage in the editorial process.

I've decided to remove the comparison of Iraq to another landmass from the entry. Aditionally, I've rewritten the section about Canada to the best of my abilities. Please do tell me if I've misinterpreted anything that you've said, and I'll correct the mistake as soon as I can.


RhoMuNuQ

I certainly wasn't blaming you.

I believe it's Jimster who posts a query to the PR thread after he gets a scout's recommendation. He asks if everything has been taken care of before he presses the button.


I've just looked at your changes and I'm going to shut up now.

Thanks again for pointing all of these things out. It's good that the mistakes in the entry didn't remain until it had appeared on the front page!

I'm glad that you like the changes made.

Thanks again
RhoMuNuQ

Is everybody happy with the factual content of the entry? I'm going to return it to the Editors tomorrow.

RhoMuNuQ

Despite the fact that a goodly portion of the list of what Americans use was actually offered as a list of what Canadians use (to paraphrase the well-known Canadian poet Leonard Cohen [from Montreal, Canada]: first they take Manhattan, then they take Berlin) I grow weary of the fight on this anniversary of the American declaration of war in 1812. I console myself with the fact that we occupied Maine and Detroit and burned the White House in that little dust up.

Send it on ahead.

Do people here work for Ministary of Defence - There line of well we can't find anything cause Iraq is the same size (or sometimes bigger) than France (must be expantion due to heat). It isn't

It is about 3/4 to 2/3s the size. Much more resonable is Iraq is about the same size a Sweden.

PS we also use the London, and the Wembley Stadium as units of area (plus a football pitch - handy as it is around 1 hectare)

The size of Iraq issue has been put to bed. The originator of the guided enrty to which this is a thread, had made a blanket statement with a bad analogy in which he used the off-handed statement about the size of Iraq in comaprison to the size of Canada.... this was corrected.

I'm quite happy with that, its all the people dimuning france that is bugging me

France is a lovely place... we would never make her less than she is. .