this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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[–] Bach37strad@lemmy.world 46 points 3 months ago (12 children)

Fun fact. John Denver was writing about West-Virginia as in the western part of Virginia.

Less fun fact, explaining this to people is one of the reasons I will die on the hill that Cardinal directions shouldn't be part of a proper noun like a state name. Looking at you too Dakotas....

[–] tyler@programming.dev 13 points 3 months ago (7 children)

I will die on the hill that “the midwest USA” means Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, etc. rather than fucking Illinois. Nobody knows the internal or historical politics of another country. When you refer to Midwest on the Internet, people from other countries automatically assume it’s an actual direction. There’s zero reason in this day and age to refer to a region by an outdated, historical term that has no basis in reality, especially when that term is absolutely harmful to understanding.

Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

[–] Rato@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Midwest comes from when the East Coast was the only heavily populated part of the US, and the rest of it was just called "The West."

[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

I understand where it came from. It has been incorrect for over a hundred years. It was actually called the North Central Region up until 1984, so we've literally regressed from the 80s. https://web.archive.org/web/20240926043523/https://www.census.gov/history/www/programs/geography/regions_and_divisions.html

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