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Comment by ColinWright | Hacker News Reader

The difference between America and England is that the Americans think 100 years is a long time, whereas the English think 100 miles is a long way.

Just for reference ...

My house was built in 1903. The college I went to was founded in 1352. The city my wife grew up in was occupied by the Romans sometime between 70 and 80 AD.

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Maybe it's a little different because I grew up in New Mexico next to the Navajo reservation, right smack in the middle of tons of pueblos, but you have a very euro-centric view of the world if you think everybody in America thinks 100 years ago was a long time ago.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoma_Pueblo

Nor does everybody in England think 100 miles is a long way. It's possible to talk about majority views and refer to 90% of people without ignoring and trivialising the knowledge and experience of the minority.

Are you suggesting that the majority of people in America think 100 years is a comparatively short time span? Probably not.

I freely acknowledge and agree that there are Americans who think 100 years is a short time, and Englanders who think 100 miles is a short distance.

> The difference between America and England is that the Americans think 100 years is a long time, whereas the English think 100 miles is a long way.

Having lived in both countries I think that's a good way of thinking about it (for the average person.)

(Obviously individuals will differ; 100 miles is a half day cycle ride for me so I don't think of it as that long a way.)

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