"London, England" Syndrome: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

There are a great deal of American cities and towns named after places from Europe: mostly British places, but French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch names crop up across the USA, not to mention numerous variations and simplifications of Native American spellings. This reflects the USA's origins as being colonized by people from across the world. Interestingly enough, lots of major American cities are far bigger than their European counterparts ever were ([[Cleveland Rocks|Cleveland]], Boston, Stockton, Rochester and Portland are the most obvious examples, and the only two major exceptions are Birmingham and Manchester).

Unfortunately, this results in some confusion and frustration for many Americans. Since the USA is big and absolutely full of cities, and many of these cities have similar if not identical names (for instance, there are nine states that have a city named "Dallas"), Americans often describe an American location as "''City Name''", ''State''", and describe a foreign location as "''City Name'', ''Country''" to parallel that. This works well in the USA, but becomes rather jarring and annoying for foreigners, who find it annoying that after being shown Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament, and St Paul's Cathedral [[The Mummy Trilogy|all in one shot]], they still need to say "London, England."

 

 

The Japanese equivalent is to rename a town or city that shares its name with a more famous counterpart so that it also includes the name of the ancient province. Nagano City in Osaka had the same name as that ''other'' Nagano (the one with all the skiing), so they changed it to ''Kawachi''-Nagano. Happens a lot with similarly-named train stations, too.

Gets used in the [[Title In]] a lot. An example of [[Creator Provincialism]]. Often mocked, although it's still a popular trope. Named by Bill Bryson. [[wikipedia:List of the most common U.S. place names|The Other Wiki]] has a list of the most commonly used city names.

 

{{examples}}

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* Parodied in ''[[Team America: World Police]]'': Every time the location changed, there would be a subtitle that stated the place's name and its distance in miles from AMERICA!.

{{quote|'''Joe''': Cairo... [[Captain Obvious|that's in Egypt]]."}}

* Subverted in the movie ''[[Paris Texas]].'' A man is going around with a photograph telling people it is of Paris, even though it is clear that the photo shows a desert landscape.

** Incidentally, the real Paris, Texas looks nothing like what is shown in the photo. ''Paris, Texas'' the movie is shot in the deserts of West Texas, which is all rugged desert, while [[wikipedia:Paris, Texas|Paris, Texas]] the city is in East Texas, which is mostly grass plains and forest.

** That may be more of an assumption that [[Viewers are Morons]] than any other issue.

** Combined perhaps with Creators Are Morons, since the same movie also gives us the caption "[[The Pentagon]], [[Did Not Do the Research|Washington D.C.]]"<ref>The Pentagon is actually located in Arlington County, Virginia--over the Potomac river from D.C.</ref>

** However, possibly because there's no other Hamunaptra and possibly because it's such a pivotal location, no labels tell us that Hamunaptra is in Egypt.

* Parodied in John Cleese's made-for-TV film ''The Strange Case of the End of Civilization As We Know It'', in which a dim-witted US President (a [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]] version of Gerald Ford) orders a secret service agent to catch "the first plane to London, France."

* Deliberately averted in the title of the movie ''The Cars That Ate Paris'', which is set in Paris, Australia.

* ''[[Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny|J.B.]]'' travels to Hollywoods all across America before he gets to Hollywood, California.

* The gays-and-Italians comedy ''Mambo Italiano'' plays with this trope as part of its Old World in the New World theme.

{{quote|'''Angelo''' ''[on the phone to a customer of the travel agency he works for]'' Yes, I apologize, but... I know your client is in the U.K. But you didn't say Glasgow, you insisted on New Glasgow. That's north of Montreal. So I chartered a bus. I say New Glasgow. You misunderstood. I don't mean to be confrontational, but there is no New Glasgow in Scotland. Well, no, they don't need a new one, they have the old one. It's actually quite simple. You see, many years ago people from Glasgow, Glasconians, left the old Glasgow and they came here. And they built a new Glasgow. And they called it New Glasgow because it was new. According to theoretical physics, eventually we'll be able to fold space so that the new Glasgow will overlap the old Glasgow. But until then, let me assure you that they are quite different places. Did I mention that New Glasgow just got waterslides? Those are fun.}}

== [[Literature]] ==

* ''[[The Bourne Series (novel)|The Bourne Ultimatum]]'': Conklin has to point out he wants Vienna, Virginia instead of Vienna, Austria.

* Most of those "solve-the-mystery" books (including ''[[Encyclopedia Brown]]'', of course) have at least one where the key to solving the mystery is knowing that there are apparently cities named Athens, Jerusalem, Palestine or Paris in Texas. It's always one of those four, and more importantly, ''it's always in Texas.''

** To be more general, the discovery that [[There Is Another]] place where something happens is a staple of [[No Man of Woman Born]] stories.

* A plot point in one of [[Agatha Christie]]'s [[Tommy and Tuppence]] stories is that there are two towns in England called Maldon; one in Surrey and one in Sussex. The characters know of Maldon, Surrey, so don't bother reading the "Maldon, Su..." address on a telegram properly, Only later does Tuppence realize that the telegraph office only give the county if they need to specify between two places with the same name. (The ''real'' town of Maldon is in Essex, however.)

** But thanks to [[Lou Reed]], to a lot of people it's always going to be "Miami, F-L-A".

* In [[Piers Anthony]]'s THE MACROSCOPE, an amateur astrologer, on being told that the subject was born in Philadelphia, feels the need to ask "Pennsylvania or Mississippi?"

 

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

'''Big Giant Head''': Not ''that'' Mars!

'''Dick''': [[Big No|Nooo!]] }}

* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000|MST3K]]'' mocked this once when a caption said "Illinois, USA". As opposed to Illinois, Mongolia.

* Played with in ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' in the Cycling Tour episode when any time a city is mentioned it cuts away to Eric Idle in a military uniform standing in front of a map and pointing out the city's distance from 3 unrelated cities around Europe. By the third or fourth time he's eventually told to shut up by the characters in the sketch.

{{quote|'''Maj. Winchester:''' Yes, Massachusetts, you geographic whiz.

'''Maj. Winchester:''' ''(through gritted teeth)'' ''No!'' It's spending the weekend in ''Florida!'' }}

* Averted in ''[[The Man from U.N.C.L.E.]]'', which regularly used scene-setting "Somewhere In (Insert Place Here") captions.

* [[Picket Fences]] had an episode that dealt with [[The Pope]] going to Rome. Not Rome in Italy but Rome, Wisconsin (the setting for the show).

* In one episode of ''[[The Lucy Show]]'', Lucy takes the trope even further by specifying that she's taking a trip to "London, England, In Europe."

 

== [[Music]] ==

 

== Theater ==

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* Played with [[Stealth Pun|subtly]] in the [[Homestar Runner]] flash game ''"Where's An Egg?"''. Although most of the details in the game suggest that it takes place in Soviet-era Moscow, the [[All There in the Manual|manual]] states that the protagonist is actually part of the Boise police. That might seem odd, since Boise is the capital of Idaho, but it is actually a [[Genius Bonus|sly reference]] to the city of ''Moscow'', Idaho.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In one episode of ''[[Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?]]?'', the detectives figure out they need to head to a river that's between Cairo and Memphis. When they arrive at the Nile, they find out they should have gone to the Mississippi.

 

*** In Taiwan, here's also New Taipei City, formerly known as Taipei County, not to be confused with the capital of the Republic of China, Taipei, one of two enclaves of New Taipei.

** There's also Quebec City, Quebec.

* Someone in Vancouver, Washington has printed T-shirts reading "Vancouver (not B.C.), Washington (not D.C.), Clark County (not Nevada), next to Portland, Oregon (not Maine)".

** Speaking of Washington, do you mean the state on the west coast, or the nation's capital in the District of Columbia on the East Coast? For further confusion, before it was made a state, Washington was known as Columbia Territory.

* When [[George Bush]] met Charlotte Church, he allegedly asked her what state [[Land of My Fathers and Their Sheep|Wales]] is in.

** Then there's the deliberate version around twenty years ago in which a Winnipeg radio station had a contest, the prize being a trip to Miami. This being the middle of a frigid Manitoba winter, there was a massive response. The winners were told to show up at the radio station to board a bus, which they presumably thought would take them to the airport. However, it took them to the small community of Miami, Manitoba. They were not amused.

** Before computerisation, it was not at all uncommon for luggage, and sometimes passengers, for Melbourne, Florida to wind up in Melbourne, Australia. It still happens, but nowhere near as often.

** Likewise Nogales, Sonora, Mexico and Nogales, Arizona, USA. Note, however that as described above Vancouver, Washington is on the Oregon state line, ''opposite'' the [[Stargate City|Canadian border]].

** There's also Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas. Again, they border each other.

* Most places in Vermont that appear to be named after places in England, are in fact named after places in Connecticut that were named after places in England.

* Until late 2007, [[The Other Wiki]] was headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. There have apparently been cases of stuff intended for them ending up in St. Petersburg, Russia.

** There is also an [[wikipedia:Ontario, Oregon|Ontario, Oregon]].

* There is ''a lot'' of cities named Warsaw, mostly in the US, but also in Canada, all named after the capital of Poland. Being mostly settled by Polish immigrants might have had something to do with it.

* There's a [[wikipedia:Washington, Virginia|Washington, Virginia]] not far west from the more well known D.C., and signs that lead there say "Washington, Va." The denizens there call it "Little Washington."

** Justified as according to [[That Other Wiki]], G.W. himself surveyed the area, and the town was incorporated before his death. Also, it's the oldest town of Washington in the U.S.A.

* There's half a dozen Californias in England, and there used to be an annual Washington to California cycle race.

* The tiny island of Kiritimati has a London, a Paris and a Poland.

[[Category:Exposition]]

[[Category:Meta Concepts]]