CNN reporter thinks Copenhagen is the capital of the Netherlands

[Monique]

I thought CNN was a reputable broadcaster, but then a reporter standing on the Dam square in Amsterdam says "you have people from all over the Netherlands coming here, to Copenhagen, to have a great time" (to celebrate the new king). Really, CNN?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I thought CNN was a reputable broadcaster, but then a reporter standing on the Dam square in Amsterdam says "you have people from all over the Netherlands coming here, to Copenhagen, to have a great time". Really, CNN?

It's still one of the better American stations, but really most are just entertainment. I prefer Al Jazeera these days.

 

[SteamKing]

I can top that:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journa...Suspects-Were-Stereotypically-White-Americans

Erin Burnett acted surprised that white people can be found outside of the United States. Apparently does not realize that caucasians can be found in the Caucasus.

 

[Andre]

I thought CNN was a reputable broadcaster, but then a reporter standing on the Dam square in Amsterdam says "you have people from all over the Netherlands coming here, to Copenhagen, to have a great time" (to celebrate the new king). Really, CNN?

It's quite normal. The president of the USA once held a speech thanking the European countries for their support for some military action, not only the larger countries (UK, France, Italy) but also the smaller ones, Norway, Denmark, Belgium.

Although The Netherlands had contributed relatively the most, per number of capita, it was not mentioned. Maybe it's too hard to pronounce it.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Can't wait to see how Jon Stewart rips CNN apart this time. Yey Jon Stewart!

 

[SteamKing]

You've got Holland and the Netherlands, then who are the Dutch? It's all very confusing.

 

[edward]

I can top that:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journa...Suspects-Were-Stereotypically-White-Americans

Erin Burnett acted surprised that white people can be found outside of the United States. Apparently does not realize that caucasians can be found in the Caucasus.

Bold Mine. That is merely someone's opinion.

I hate to see an adult grasping at straws. It looks too much like the right wing comments in my local newspaper.

BTW this was only hours after the grainy pictures had been released by the FBI. That was in the link right?

 

[AlephZero]

It's too easy to get the impression from US TV and movies that the USA is more or less the same as Europe except they only speak English (or at least, something fairly close to English).

I remember a time we had some visitors from a US company including an apparently "normal" articulate intelligent college graduate on her first overseas trip. She was absolutely amazed that you could buy American products like Coca Cola in the UK, and there were even McDonalds and KFC.

We didn't dare let her see the local Walmart/ASDA supermarket - the shock might have been fatal

 

[Evo]

It's too easy to get the impression from US TV and movies that the USA is more or less the same as Europe except they only speak English (or at least, something fairly close to English).

I remember a time we had some visitors from a US company including an apparently "normal" articulate intelligent college graduate on her first overseas trip. She was absolutely amazed that you could buy American products like Coca Cola in the UK, and there were even McDonalds and KFC.

We didn't dare let her see the local Walmart/ASDA supermarket - the shock might have been fatal

That's sad that such an idiotic individual would reflect on all Americans. Surely you realized that this person was ignorant, even by American standards.

When I traveled abroad, I was aware of even little things like product names. I knew in Japan that diet coke was "Coke lite" because the seat of government in Japan was the "Diet", in English.

 

[Danger]

this person was a moron, even by American standards.

That's saying a lot.
Something used to happen when I lived back east. (Once is unbelievable enough, but I know of three instances and have heard of more.) We used to hang out in Windsor for our "cruising" days. This happened in the middle of July. It was 35° (95°F) with 99% humidity. A carload of Yanks came across the border with skis on the roof and asked where the snow was. We told them to turn around and go back in the direction that they had come from for about 900 miles. (Windsor is south of Detroit. )
Those directions would actually have plopped them into the middle of Hudson Bay, but anyone that stupid deserves to drown.
Then there was the guy that Customs caught with two mortars and an RPG in his trunk. He claimed that he was going hunting... (Yeah... for Brinks trucks...)

Evo: Remember that other problem that Coke had in Japan? They had to drop the "Coke adds life" campaign because the translation promised to bring one's ancestors back from the dead.

 

[Evo]

That's saying a lot.
Something used to happen when I lived back east. (Once is unbelievable enough, but I know of three instances and have heard of more.) We used to hang out in Windsor for our "cruising" days. This happened in the middle of July. It was 35° (95°F) with 99% humidity. A carload of Yanks came across the border with skis on the roof and asked where the snow was. We told them to turn around and go back in the direction that they had come from for about 900 miles. (Windsor is south of Detroit. )
Those directions would actually have plopped them into the middle of Hudson Bay, but anyone that stupid deserves to drown.
Then there was the guy that Customs caught with two mortars and an RPG in his trunk. He claimed that he was going hunting... (Yeah... for Brinks trucks...)

Evo: Remember that other problem that Coke had in Japan? They had to drop the "Coke adds life" campaign because the translation promised to bring one's ancestors back from the dead.

LOL. Well, we can't be held responsible for foreign translations, well, not too much, but the fact that Americans are *unaware* of the world outside of their own small neighborhood probably isn't that unusual. We would hope that Americans read the news and are "global citizens" when realistically, the average populace of other countries are just as ignorant. It just stings when someone that should know better turns out to be a complete ignoramus.

In the case cited by AlephZero, no American employee should be sent to a foreign country without a thorough briefing on the country to which they are going. That is negligence on the part of the employer and stupidity on the part of the employee.

 

[Monique]

You've got Holland and the Netherlands, then who are the Dutch? It's all very confusing.

The English speakers have made it difficult, in the native language it's easy: I live in "Nederland", I am a "Nederlander", and I speak "Nederlands". Couldn't be simper. Holland are two provinces of the Netherlands (North and South), they became famous in the 17th century (Golden Age) when sailors from the sea-bordering provinces set out to discover the planet. Dutch comes from the meaning "nation", in old Dutch this was called "dietsc", in old German "diutsch" (where the German word Deutsch comes from).

Many times I have encountered people who think Amsterdam is in Denmark and that the Danish speak Dutch. I'd expect a CNN reporter to be more educated or at least less confused.

I can top that:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journa...Suspects-Were-Stereotypically-White-Americans

Erin Burnett acted surprised that white people can be found outside of the United States. Apparently does not realize that caucasians can be found in the Caucasus.

That's incredible..

 

[Danger]

we can't be held responsible for foreign translations

Agreed, and I mentioned the Coke incident only as a minor point of amusement. My favourite instance was back in the 70's (or possibly early 80's) when they were first trying to automate translation. A hugely powerful computer (for the era; probably less processing power than my Blackberry) was given the phrase "out of sight, out of mind" and told to translate it into Russian. The Russian response then created a feedback loop by being reintroduced to the machine for translation into English. The resultant printout was "The man is blind. He is also insane." If it hadn't been so early, I would have blamed that on Windows.

edit: Hi, Monique;
You sneaked in while I was composing.
I must admit to one particular (out of thousands) point of ignorance regarding your country. Until I looked it up about a week ago, I thought that Dutch was just an informal term for Flemish. It never occurred to me that you are in a bilingual country like ours.

 

[Borek]

The English speakers have made it difficult, in the native language it's easy: I live in "Nederland", I am a "Nederlander", and I speak "Nederlands". Couldn't be simper. Holland are two provinces of the Netherlands

In Polish Netherlands is "Holandia", but thank you for blaming others

 

[Danger]

And to this day, when I think of the Netherlands I get a bit of a tingle in my nethers because of The Happy Hooker.

 

[Monique]

I must admit to one particular (out of thousands) point of ignorance regarding your country. Until I looked it up about a week ago, I thought that Dutch was just an informal term for Flemish. It never occurred to me that you are in a bilingual country like ours.

Where did you look up that information? The time that Flemish was spoken in the Netherlands is several centuries ago in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. You're confused with Belgium.

 

[Danger]

Where did you look up that information?

Well, now I'm just completely baffled. The first time that the issue arose was when I was in the hospital this past November. I recovered consciousness hocking up phlegm like you wouldn't believe. Because of the way my mind works (when it works at all), it immediately went from recognizing phlegm to remembering the term "Flemish". I knew that it was a language, but couldn't figure out where the hell it belonged. There's no Flemland or Flemistan or Uncle Bernie's Flem Arcade. I asked one of my nurses if she knew where it's used and she didn't know. About half an hour later, though, she came back and said that she'd scammed some internet time on the work computer and looked it up. She told me that Flemish was the language of Holland.
When I looked it up myself last week, in preparation to responding to one of Andre's posts, the source said that Dutch is spoken in the southern part of you country, and Flemish in the north. I thought that it was Wikipedia, but they show nothing of the sort now. Either it was changed or I have no idea of what I was actually logging onto.

 

[jobyts]

United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

I'm confused now.

 

[Danger]

I'm confused now.

It's like Ikea, but with better food.

 

[micromass]

Well, now I'm just completely baffled. The first time that the issue arose was when I was in the hospital this past November. I recovered consciousness hocking up phlegm like you wouldn't believe. Because of the way my mind works (when it works at all), it immediately went from recognizing phlegm to remembering the term "Flemish". I knew that it was a language, but couldn't figure out where the hell it belonged. There's no Flemland or Flemistan or Uncle Bernie's Flem Arcade. I asked one of my nurses if she knew where it's used and she didn't know. About half an hour later, though, she came back and said that she'd scammed some internet time on the work computer and looked it up. She told me that Flemish was the language of Holland.
When I looked it up myself last week, in preparation to responding to one of Andre's posts, the source said that Dutch is spoken in the southern part of you country, and Flemish in the north. I thought that it was Wikipedia, but they show nothing of the sort now. Either it was changed or I have no idea of what I was actually logging onto.

That's pretty weird. The official language of the Netherlands is dutch (although there are many amuzing dialects). Flemish is spoken in Flanders, which is a part of Belgium. Of course, flemish is pretty close to dutch anyway, so officially there is no distinction.
The country that is split up in two parts is Belgium. The north speaks flemish/dutch and the south speaks French. And there's also a German part.

 

[Monique]

Video evidence:

Max,

Why would all of The Netherlands travel to Copenhagen, Denmark to view the new Dutch King & Queen? Oh... you mean Amsterdam.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

You've got Holland and the Netherlands, then who are the Dutch? It's all very confusing.

I must admit to one particular (out of thousands) point of ignorance regarding your country. Until I looked it up about a week ago, I thought that Dutch was just an informal term for Flemish. It never occurred to me that you are in a bilingual country like ours.

I'm confused now.

Hopefully this will help with the confusion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc

 

[micromass]

I also consider it part of flemish dialect to say holland instead of netherlands...

I'm not helping, am I?

 

[Andre]

To add more to the confusion. The Netherlands is bilangual indeed but the second language is West Frisian.

 

[AlephZero]

That's sad that such an idiotic individual would reflect on all Americans. Surely you realized that this person was a moron, even by American standards.

That depends how you define "moron". She was a top quality technical writer working for a well known internatioual computer manufacturer. But obviously she was clueless about the world beyond her own back yard - and that DOES reflect on a non-negligible proportion of Americans, from my experience.

 

[micromass]

I really fail to see why not knowing that coca cola is popular outside america makes somebody a moron.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

That depends how you define "moron". She was a top quality technical writer working for a well known internatioual computer manufacturer. But obviously she was clueless about the world beyond her own back yard - and that DOES reflect on a non-negligible proportion of Americans, from my experience.

This is how stereotypes perpetuate: confirmation bias. A certain group gains a reputation for X (usually for poor or outdated reasons) and any subsequent member displaying X is used to prove the stereotype.

 

[FlexGunship]

Hopefully this will help with the confusion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc

Dang... I just went to go get this link before realizing it had been posted... That video (http://youtu.be/eE_IUPInEuc) should be required viewing material for, uh, well... anyone who wants to see it.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I find this thread to be rather amazing. Firstly, if the reporter was standing in Amsterdam, then she surely knew what country she was in but slipped. I think the airline ticket and customs would be her first clues.

She had probably been traveling and forgot where she was. Back when I traveled a lot, there were many times I woke up and couldn't remember what State I was in.

As for Americans not understanding Europe, how many Europeans can tell me the capital of Missouri or Alabama without looking it up? Missouri has a higher GDP than some countries, and that's one of our little states in economic terms.

And someone fresh out of college who apparently had never traveled abroad didn't know what the rest of the world was like? Really? Forgive me for not being shocked.

 

[micromass]

As for Americans not understanding Europe, how many Europeans can tell me the capital of Missouri or Alabama without looking it up?

Missouri and Alabame aren't independent countries. If you expect us to know that, then you should also know the separate provinces of Belgium.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Missouri and Alabame aren't independent countries. If you expect us to know that, then you should also know the separate provinces of Belgium.

That's like asking if you know the counties in California. The USA is a big country, and many of our States qualify as countries in terms of population and GDP.

For the record, I think Erin Burnett is an idiot and I never watch CNN anymore. But I think many Europeans and other abroad fail to grasp the size of this country. I was once struck by this by a young Israeli man who was sitting next to me on a flight from NY to Portland. He just kept shaking his head and saying this country is too big. What? You didn't know how big the USA is, really?

 

[edward]

I just watch The View. There is nothing better than seeing and hearing five women all talking at the same time.

 

[micromass]

That's like asking if you know the counties in California. The USA is a big country, and many of our States qualify as countries in terms of population and GDP.

They might have the population of an actual country, but they're not an actual country. The USA is the country, not the individual states. So if I want to know all countries in the world and all the capitals, then I don't need to know the capital of Alabama.

Obviously, I understand that individual states are important to you, as an american. But to a foreigner, they're really not more important than the provinces of any other country.

 

[MarneMath]

They might have the population of an actual country, but they're not an actual country. The USA is the country, not the individual states. So if I want to know all countries in the world and all the capitals, then I don't need to know the capital of Alabama.

Obviously, I understand that individual states are important to you, as an american. But to a foreigner, they're really not more important than the provinces of any other country.

Yet, I think that's his point. People tend to focus and know what's locally important to them. I'm sure very few of us can go to Africa and name all their countries and capitals. To an American, it isn't locally important to know that Bucharest is the capital to Romania or where exactly Luxembourg is. That's all just for intellectual gloat. Just as I am sure Europeans can hardly care where Lincoln Nebraska or St Louis Missouri are located, but for someone in the Midwest those are clearly locally more important. I'm nearly positive it takes the same amount of geographical awareness for an American to generally know all 50 states and capital as it takes a European to know the countries and capitals of Europe. I'm sure the intersection of the two groups is much smaller in similar proportionality.

 

[ModusPwnd]

Clearly knowing the names and capitals of European countries is much harder than knowing the name and capital of the US... I am not sure why the comparison is made, but it does get made a lot. Comparing the EU at large to the US is comparing apples to apples. It easy to expect the rest of the world to know and care about one's particular region, but that is just not feasible.

Personally, I don't know the capitals of all the states in the US nor do I know the capitals of all the sovereign states in the EU. I am not bothered in the least.