There is a splendidly inane discussion going on here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Great_Fire_of_London

Someone has demanded that 'London' should be qualified as 'London, England' lest the intellectually challenged (Americans?) confuse it with the other place in Texas or Ontario or wherever. Then of course we should have to put 'Whitehall, Texas' or 'Westminster, New York' to avoid similar confusion.

There's nothing wrong with saying that London is in England, but what the Brits will object to is the phrase "London, England" which is such an American cliche. The reason for this is that the phrasing is reminiscent of the "Dallas, Texas -- Miami, Florida", "Moscow, Russia" coupling which people don't do outside the US. And the fact that American media often say "London, England". In the UK, if Brits want to mock Americans, they often use the phrase "London, England" or similar such as "Paris, France". It is a comedy staple that people have got laughs out of for years. Drawling a phoney high pitched American accent to hammer it home.

Perhaps the US editors on that talk page are unaware of that factor. Basically, it immediately sounds ridiculous and like a comedy spoof to the Brits. A joke.

Utterly ridiculous, they say they should point out that it is the London in England for the benefit of poor African children- most of them are not going to know any other London anyway!

I've heard jokes / anecdotes about visiting American academics in England purchasing railway tickets to Cambridge and going out of their way to specify to the counter clerk, "Cambridge, England", apparently so that they don't get mistakenly given tickets to Cambridge, Massachusetts instead.

Yes that's exactly where Giano is coming from - sounds like the Monty Python Bavarians sketch, except not Bavaria.

After posting this I realised that the issue was started by 1==2, who knows that Giano gets rapidly irritated by this sort of thing, and is likely to explode.

That's bloody ridiculous.

Then again, the whole argument is wrong. England isn't legally a country, so surely it should be London, United Kingdom.

Which, of course, would be no less ridiculous!

Edit: Though, of course, at the time of the Great Fire, London was indeed in the legal country of England.

The bottom line, as discussed above, is that couplings like "London, England" "Paris, France" "Tokyo, Japan" etc make people laugh, and are often used in comedies to parody Americans.

It is likely that this comedic footnote is not known in the US where city-state couplings are commonplace.

Agreed entirely, Kato, as it's not something that is done here at all.

But, on the other issue, if the location of London needs to be clarified, then why is the phrase "United States" only used once in the body of the American Airlines Flight 11 article, and there only when mentioning the United States Air Force?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_11

Let's go on a grand tour of London, Ontario; Paris, Texas; and Rome, New York!

The two that cause most controversy are Birmingham, which is a large UK city and a small-mediumish US city. And Boston, which is a smallish UK city but a large US city.

Brummies (people from Birmingham in the UK) are not known for their polite deference, and would probably tear Wikipedia to shreds if their city name got tampered with in any form whatsover, and hence they retain dominance of the name on WP.

It looks like Boston in Lincolnshire fought and lost to keep hold of their name. It now sits in a disambiguation page - brooding, but insisting on the tagline "Boston, Lincolnshire - the town after which Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. was named". I doubt we'll see the end of it, and they'll make repeated bids to reclaim their name.

That conflict actually erupts on Mensa mailing lists too... somebody will refer to the "Birmingham annual gathering", and somebody else will point out that this label is ambiguous, since both Birmingham, Alabama, USA and Birmingham, England have hosted annual gatherings of their respective national Mensa groups.

You mean Birmingham, Alabama and Birmingham in the UK.

They probably did that deliberately, just to confuse themselves.

Confusion is the first step toward enlightenment.

Boston has made me think...while we wouldn't say "Boston, England" we would probably say "Boston, Lincolnshire". And with trains we would have "Gillingham (Kent)" or "Gillingham (Dorset)".

I suppose the first example is due to postal addresses. If you read one out it will end in "Boston, Lincolnshire, PE20 1AA.

And the Boston Wikipedia situation is about right - 34,000 or so people in the UK and more than 500,000 in the USA.

Or "Boston, Mass., 02134", as they sang in the popular kids' TV show ZOOM in the 1970s.

I honestly didn't realize this. Thanks. (Although I agree this was trolling by until 1==2--no need to disambiguate the Great Fire of freaking London.)

Canadians refer to their city comma province like U.S. states though, right?

Smallish UK town!

After London, Ontario you have to go to Ontario, California. With a nice world map index we might be able to do "six degress of separation" to make it between any two major places on Earth.

Those of us who live in New England have to put up with a lot of name duality, including New York, New Jersey, New London, New Bedford, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

One of the weirdest conversations I ever had was with a woman who protests outside the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was shot (I've since found her on google). When she learned that we were from the UK, she started calling other folks over and they excitedly surrounded us

The first thing one guy said was "do you know Nova Scotia? I went there once and it was real cold."

I've often wondered about New Paltz.

Is there really an Old Paltz somewhere across the Atlantic?

Plymouth is a very popular name world-wide. Oh, and Washington is in the North-East of England (or the East of the United Kingdom).

Yes, Paltz is an island near Heenamaagalaa.

The amazing things one can learn from a good encyclopedia.

British geography has always bugged me. I've heard of East Anglia and Northumbria, but is there a West Anglia and Southumbria?

(I think I've read that the "North" in Northumbria is based on the word "Norse" as the Vikings and Scandinavians were taking over around that time.)

Is there an East Virginia? Is there a North Hampton on Long Island near the East, South and West ones? Is there a Deep North?

My favourite "New" place is New Square, a delightful town in upstate New York. The founders wanted to call it "New Skvir", but the county clerk thought that they were funny foreigners who couldn't speak English and they meant New Square.

No, there is no West Anglia or Southumbria, sadly.

Basically goes back to the days of the Heptarchy pre-Norman invasion.

* Northumbria was in the north, meaning land to the north of the River Humber estuary
* Sussex in the south, meaning South Saxons
* Wessex in the west, meaning West Saxons
* Essex and East Anglia in the east, meaning East Saxons and East Angles respectively
* Mercia in the middle, meaning "border people"
* Kent stuck in the south-east, named after the Cantiaci tribe

Though that's only a very simple explanation and there is further breakdown - for example the East Angles were made up of a southern and northern group, where modern-day Suffolk and Norfolk get their name from

And don't forget Middlesex, situated (appropriately) between Wessex and Essex.

And to make things even more confusing, Boston MA is in Suffolk County, while Cambridge MA and the towns north and northwest of Boston are in Middlesex County.

You have to say Suffolk, MA to avoid confusion with Suffolk, NY or indeed Suffolk, England.

Oh, and there are two places called Kansas City. The better-known one is no more in Kansas than Washington, DC is in Washington state.

In the US, there's an East St. Louis and a St. Louis, but no West St. Louis.

There's an East Los Angeles, but if there were a West Los Angeles, it would be under water.

You have to be very careful of whom you say "mensa" to where I live. "Mensa" is Mexican Spanish for "stupid bitch".

No it would be that nice area between central LA and Santa Monica (which is on the waterfront). Parts of Culver City, Palms, and especially Westwood (where UCLA is), and Brentwood. I watched the Rodney King riot smoke from a roof-top in that area once, and felt perfectly safe where I was. I wasn't in Santa Monica or Venice, and I certainly was not underwater. Smoke from it rose almost directly East.

You mean Venice, Italy?

Jonny "Yee-Haw" Cache

That is because we want nothing to do with that 3rd world hell hole to our east, but we're quite happy to claim the nice, polite Indian immigrants on the west side as our own.

And then there's India, Indiana, and the East Indies, each with their own race of indigenous people.