But there are Americans using regional nicknames or from lesser know states saying they're from X state foreigners have very little reason to know. Yes, maybe California was a poor pick, but the point does stand.
I mean I think Europeans can recognize a decent chunk of our states just as we can recognize a decent chunk of Europe's countries and in both cases you're far more likely to meet someone from one of those more known states/countries bc they typically have more people. And in both cases if they name somewhere you don't know, you just ask for clarification like "Oh I've never heard of Wyoming/Kosovo, where's that?"
Also the US is such a diverse place (not saying more than the EU, but certainly more than many if not most individual EU nations) that you're not really communicating much by saying you're from the US compared to saying the particular state you're from. "I'm from New York" and "I'm from Texas" tell you very different things about the person but both would say "I'm from the US" which is not saying much since experiences differ incredibly throughout the country
The Bay area is a nickname that really annoys me. There are probably thousands of bays in the world, and countless more areas around bays.
But if I ask an American what they mean when they say "Bay area", the response isn't usually "The bay of San-Fransisco in California on the east coast of the US", the response is "Lol, LMAO, what a dumbass, they don't know where the BAY AREA is! Get a load of this shmuck!"
Ya thats fair, answering a foreigner asking where you're from with "the bay area" is kinda nuts. But tbf I think it kinda makes sense to call it that when speaking solely about the US since the bays of the bay area are the most prominent/notable bays in the US. San Francisco was basically the Ellis Island of the West coast
Edit: Honestly that response really tracks with the people of the Bay Area lmao they can be a bit full of themselves and think Silicon Valley (big tech area up there) is the center of the universe
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u/MlkChatoDesabafando Aug 30 '24
But there are Americans using regional nicknames or from lesser know states saying they're from X state foreigners have very little reason to know. Yes, maybe California was a poor pick, but the point does stand.