Artistic License Geography: Difference between revisions
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** 'American' is normally used as a referent for 'resident of the United States of America', not 'resident of a country part of the North American continent'. The term used to refer to the entire group of continents is not "America" but "the Americas", to avert confusion with one peculiarly generically-named country (indeed there are lots of countries in the Americas which use or have used generic terms like "United" or "State" in their name, the United Mexican States being the most obvious example). By the original trope entry's reasoning, a citizen of Costa Rica would be an 'American'.
* There's also the common misconception that [[Canada|Canadians]] all reside north of the 49th parallel. That line actually refers to just one piece of the international boundary, extending west from Lake of the Woods to the BC Lower Mainland.
** The International Boundary itself is an error-ridden travesty of geography. Article 2 of the ''Treaty of Paris (1783)'', by which the Great Britannic Empire rid of a certain traitorous Thirteen Colonies, states "And that all disputes which might arise in future on the subject of the boundaries of the said United States may be prevented, it is hereby agreed and declared, that the following are and shall be their boundaries..." and proceeds to draw a line through Lake Superior and the middle of Long Lake "...to the said Lake of the Woods; thence through the said lake to the most northwesternmost point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi; thence by a line to be drawn along the middle of the said river Mississippi until it shall intersect the northernmost part of the thirty-first degree of north latitude." At that point, the whole effort goes haywire due to a topographical error: the Mississippi River does not reach north to the Lake of the Woods. The head of the Mississippi, Lake Itasca, is in Minnesota – where it lies to the south of Lake of the Woods, rather than northwest of it.
* One of the most notorious examples is the co-opting of the word ''Aryan'' by [[Those Wacky Nazis]]. Uh, Adolf, there's some [[Kipling's Finest|Rajputs, Punjabis, and Parsis]] that might wish to discuss the point. ▼
** To add insult to injury, an 1818 attempt to fix the mess lops off a peninsula, the [[wikipedia:Northwest Angle|Northwest Angle]], from mainland Manitoba and places it geopolitically as the northernmost point in Minnesota (where it remains today). It's north of 49°N and the only way in by land is through [[Canada, Eh?]]
▲* One of the most notorious examples is the co-opting of the word ''Aryan'' by [[Those Wacky Nazis]]. Uh, Adolf, there's some [[Kipling's Finest|Rajputs, Punjabis, and Parsis]] that might wish to discuss the point.
** And then there's "Hun"gary, named in the mistaken belief that the people there were Huns. Nope... the Huns were a Germanic people, the inhabitants of what is named "Hungary" in English and some other Western languages are actually Magyar.
** Or Turkey, but in that case the bird was named for the country in a mistaken belief that it originated there. Much like the "guinea pig" is neither from Guinea nor a pig...
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[[Category:Did Not Do the Research]]
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