Clueless about Geography
Jun 1st, 2009 by Bjørn
The British once ruled large parts of the world, yet a majority of them don’t have a clue about geography and their nation-state neighbours. They are especially clue-less about Denmark and the Netherlands (Holland). They frequently confuse those two countries and the languages spoken (Danish in Denmark and Dutch in the Netherlands). So I frequently get comments about Dutch being my language if I tell people I’m from Denmark. Or I get comments about being from the Netherlands if I tell them I’m Danish.
In reality, the Netherlands is much closer to the UK than to Denmark. Denmark doesn’t even share a border with the Netherlands. Look at the map and notice the two lines going from London to Copenhagen (the capital of Denmark) and from London to Amsterdam (the capital of the Netherlands). While we are dealing with this particular set of misconceptions, Denmark, Norway and Sweden are the countries most often associated with Scandinavia. Some other countries are sometimes included, but the Netherlands never are, unless you are Anglo-Saxon. Yes, the Americans are also clueless in this regard, but as the British are so much closer to each country they have less of an excuse.
I have found that I’m not the first one to comment on this issue, one of my compatriots has her own blog entry about it here.
But most of the relevant websites I have found show how Anglo-Saxons mess it up. So here is another blog welcoming a Dutch Danish company to Toronto. Here’s a person asking for a reference to a Scandinavian (though preferably Danish or Dutch) restaurant. The people behind the Simpsons got it wrong (Little Orphan Millie) though it is of course difficult to know whether that was part of the pun or not). But then there is a person asking (based on the Simpsons episode) what the difference between Danes and the Dutch are. Should I laugh or cry about the person answering that they are both beer drinkers, cheese eaters and (wait for it) Scandinavians?
