Places and their Images
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
What do you associate with your home town? Better still, what do you associate with somewhere you've heard of but never been to? Like this, if someone says Moscow I think of cold streets with murky characters but magnificent buildings just down the road. And vodka. If someone says New York, I think of rudeness but a great sense of humour and infinite energy. If someone says Sheffield, I think of steel and Yorkshire grit. Some of these ideas are wrong, or out of date but they tend to persist. Think of somewhere you've been that was nothing like its image.
I've never been to the USA but some American humour revolves around places and their associations. I'm getting the hang of it, like Wisconsin and cheese jokes. And is there something about not importing fruit accross some state borders? There was a joke in Frasier about Niles not crossing into Oregon because be had an apple in his car.
If I said Newark to a Virginian, what would he/she think of? If I said Portland to a Californian, what would spring to mind? If I said Bismark to a Kansas resident, would anything spring to mind?
A few examples from England. Norfolk tends to be a county which the rest of England might think of as very-out-in-the woods and unsophisticated. If they had made 'Deliverance' in England it might have been set in Norfolk. Liverpool has the unfortunate image of a city full of rogues, rascals and thieves. Grimsby is a town thought of as the last place anyone would want to live except perhaps for Birmingham. And London,well,most of the rest of England think of London as somwhere to visit but would never want to live there, too much traffic and noise and far too many people per square foot.
Any accurate or false associations from other countries?
I've never been to the USA but some American humour revolves around places and their associations. I'm getting the hang of it, like Wisconsin and cheese jokes. And is there something about not importing fruit accross some state borders? There was a joke in Frasier about Niles not crossing into Oregon because be had an apple in his car.
If I said Newark to a Virginian, what would he/she think of? If I said Portland to a Californian, what would spring to mind? If I said Bismark to a Kansas resident, would anything spring to mind?
A few examples from England. Norfolk tends to be a county which the rest of England might think of as very-out-in-the woods and unsophisticated. If they had made 'Deliverance' in England it might have been set in Norfolk. Liverpool has the unfortunate image of a city full of rogues, rascals and thieves. Grimsby is a town thought of as the last place anyone would want to live except perhaps for Birmingham. And London,well,most of the rest of England think of London as somwhere to visit but would never want to live there, too much traffic and noise and far too many people per square foot.
Any accurate or false associations from other countries?
