Geographical literacy (was crosswords)

[Amy Z]

Wotan wrote:

> You could probably do most of it - there's a couple (in Friday's 
> puzzle) where being English would help and that's probably true of 
> most days. Oddly enough there were no references to American states 
- 
> there's usually one or two. It helps to know all the states and 
their 
> two-letter abbreviations!

In that case, it would be much easier for English than for American 
solvers.  Americans are notoriously ignorant of geography.  I don't 
know what percentage of us can name all 50 states, but I'm sure it's 
low.  A frighteningly large proportion of Americans don't know that 
New Mexico is a U.S. state, not a country, that Iowa and Ohio and 
Idaho are three different states, or that Rhode Island is not an 
island (don't ask me how it got that name).  My 7th grade students in 
California thought that when I said I was from New England, it meant I 
was from another country ("how come you don't have an accent?"). 

As for the two-letter abbreviations, you have to be a bit of a buff to 
learn them all.  They get difficult when you get into the long list of 
M's.

Amy Z, who loves geography, maps, and trivia of all kinds