Great Fire of London, Texas, Awesomely silly discussion Options

[Peter Damian]

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.

Quite right [...] it can only be a matter of time though before I have to describe myself as a resident of "Italy, Europe" lest anyone should begin to think I have defected to Italy, Texas. Giano (talk) 11:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Great_Fire_of_London"

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Mon 24th March 2008, 2:27pm

[Kato]

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.

[Peter Damian]

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.

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.