steepholm: (Default)
steepholm ([personal profile] steepholm) wrote2012-07-20 09:02 pm
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O my Canada, O my Newfoundland!

Isn't it disconcerting when you find, at an advanced age, that you've been ignorant of a really basic fact in a subject about which you're supposedly reasonably well informed? I like geography and history, and if North America isn't exactly my area of special knowledge I'd still have expected to have heard that Newfoundland was, within living memory, an independent country. But until I happened to read it today, I had no idea.

Was I alone?

[Poll #1855055]

Have you had any similar ignorance depth-charges go off recently?
ext_6322: (Jarriere)

[identity profile] kalypso-v.livejournal.com 2012-07-20 08:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I wanted a plain "No", which I think falls somewhere between "I don't think so, but it doesn't exactly surprise me" and "You're kidding me!"; I'm fairly sure I didn't know, but it doesn't surprise me. If that messes up the results, put me down as "I don't think so" (it's just possible someone mentioned it while telling me that the Canadian version of England's Irish jokes are Newfie jokes, and I was just too dismayed about the Newfie jokes to take in the historical background.

[identity profile] steepholm.livejournal.com 2012-07-20 08:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I was just too dismayed about the Newfie jokes to take in the historical background

No need for dismay, unless it be at the general wickedness of humanity. Everywhere has some version of those jokes, hence also Canada.

On the other hand, it may be the circles I move in, but I've not heard anyone tell an Irish joke for a long time. On the other hand, Norfolk jokes (which have a degree of overlap) are now common currency.