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Comment by oellegaard | Hacker News Reader

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oellegaard·

> "who are smart enough to pay attention to the accomplishments of this small island on the North Sea."

We're not an island* :-(

* We do have 1419 islands, though.

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That is breathtakingly poor journalism/general knowledge

'murica

Ah yes, because most people in Denmark know whether Rhode Island is actually an island or not, and they know all about Oregon (or Oklahoma, or New Mexico or Nebraska or Ohio).

I don't see how one journalist's mistake leads to that comment.

Yeah, it is unfair to say all Americans know nothing about geography just because one journalist knew little geography and was too lazy to look it up.

By the way Rhode Island makes a poor comparison since that is a trick question, it is called "Island" but isn't one. Denmark does not have "Island" in its name.

Because it's considered poor form (if not racist or sexist) to attribute someone's mistakes on a whole population group... unless the population group in question is "American".

It's probably a better problem to have than some of the other problems we might have though.

I'm totally down with attributing the worst things about America to America as a whole, even if they show up in other countries. We could use a little deflation.

well, probability of american news being wrong about geography is significantly higher than any other news source.

Interesting error, since it's more common to get confused in the other direction. Many people think the peninsula of Jutland is Denmark, even though the center of business/power/economy is in Copenhagen, on the island of Zealand, which is closer to Sweden than to the Jutland peninsula.

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