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Quiz about American Regional Stereotypes
Quiz about American Regional Stereotypes

American Regional Stereotypes Trivia Quiz


The rest of the world calls us "Yanks" (or rather worse things), but amongst ourselves, we can be remarkably DISunited. Non-Yanks and even quasi-Yanks up in the provinces are cordially invited to the airing of some of our dirty laundry!

A multiple-choice quiz by coolupway. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
coolupway
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
99,258
Updated
Apr 02 23
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
8 / 10
Plays
13384
Awards
Top 20% Quiz
Last 3 plays: debray2001 (10/10), Guest 129 (7/10), mensa58 (8/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. These crusty, thorny, laconic individualists are said to wear their fingers to the bone attempting to farm the worst soil this side of the Sahara. The (probably apocryphal) story about them has a grizzled old local telling a passing motorist, "Nope, you can't get thayah from heah." Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. One midwestern state is considered almost synonymous with the term "hick", and is famous for its love of basketball, a certain great Catholic university,and a VP who couldn't spell "potato". What are its residents known as? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. This major natural resource of at least the southern part of this state appears to be "noir" films, usually involving detectives, femme fatales and/or murders. Residents of this part of the state are thought to walk around speaking into cell phones in an odd local patois revolving around the phrases "net points" and "turnaround"; many snooty east-coasters view these people as New Age navel-gazers who sit around channeling Julius Caesar with Shirley MacLaine. The northern part of the state is thought by some to be inhabited largely by tree-huggers, Croatian winemakers and campus radicals. Which state is this? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. A notorious movie made in the early 70s rather unsubtly reinforced stereotypes of this US region as a backward place inhabited by dangerous, bestial inbred cousin-marriers proficient only at banjo-strumming. To what part of the US are these unfortunate stereotypes linked? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. This venerable Eastern city, in which one who pronounces any "r" sound in the middle of a word is immediately marked as a dangerous foreigner, was long known for its WASP "brahmin" aristocracy, and later for its "upstart" (at least to the WASPS) Irish politicos and businessman, of which Joseph P. Kennedy was probably the most famous, wealthy and reviled. Where is it that the "Cabots talk only to Lowells/and the Lowells talk only to God"? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. A large town in the eastern part of this state is famous for Quakers, cheese steaks, mustard on pretzels, and people who pronounce "y'know"
as "y'kneau". The central part of the state is believed by some to be inhabited entirely by Mennonites and chocolate-related amusement parks where one can get "roasted". Which state is this?
Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. This region of Manhattan is said by some, especially those at the reactionary end, to have a political orientation somewhat to the left of North Korea's. Many believe that its residents are all sandal-wearing ex-beatniks who take bean-sprouty courses at avant-garde schools and colleges, sit around drinking espresso, and didn't vote for Nader in 2000 because he was "too establishment". What is the name of this oft-vilified neighborhood? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. A major poet once characterized this city as "Hog butcher for the world... Player with railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler," and further deposed that the city was "wicked... for I have seen (her) painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys." Of which city doth the poet speak? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. Amazing as it may seem, many people from this state -- the legendary "Home of the Delta Blues" -- did not know how to play slide guitar, are not alleged to have sold their souls to the devil at the crossroads of highways 49 and 61, do not have a guitar named "Lucille" and indeed have manifested no particular talent for blues-playing on any instrument whatever. What is the name of this state, such an important piece of America's musical heritage? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. This state, known for its parishes, colorful politicians and spicy cuisine, is believed by some to be a constitutional monarchy, run by Chef Paul Prud'homme. Its people are largely of French extraction, it is said that just about every resident's name ends in "eaux", and it has been noted that squirrel is here considered not a nuisance but a delicacy. The people speak a rather odd if beguiling patois. By what name are they known? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. These crusty, thorny, laconic individualists are said to wear their fingers to the bone attempting to farm the worst soil this side of the Sahara. The (probably apocryphal) story about them has a grizzled old local telling a passing motorist, "Nope, you can't get thayah from heah."

Answer: New Englanders

New Hampshire's famous license plate has for many years borne the legend, "Live Free or Die." Vermont's Cal Coolidge, perhaps the quintessential New Englander, was famous for his taciturn ways and his stirring utterances, such as "yep" and "I do not choose to run".
When told that Coolidge had died, Dorothy Parker famously quipped, "how could they tell?"
2. One midwestern state is considered almost synonymous with the term "hick", and is famous for its love of basketball, a certain great Catholic university,and a VP who couldn't spell "potato". What are its residents known as?

Answer: Hoosiers

Also famous as the ancestral home of beloved writer Kurt Vonnegut,
fictional "Cheers" employee Woody Boyd, and non-fictional hoopster Larry Bird, Indiana is a state from which many well-beloved ditties OTHER than the Notre Dame fight song have emanated... John Cougar Mellencamp, or whatever he calls himself now, was "born in a small town" there, as we've all heard on FM radio 22,000 times.
3. This major natural resource of at least the southern part of this state appears to be "noir" films, usually involving detectives, femme fatales and/or murders. Residents of this part of the state are thought to walk around speaking into cell phones in an odd local patois revolving around the phrases "net points" and "turnaround"; many snooty east-coasters view these people as New Age navel-gazers who sit around channeling Julius Caesar with Shirley MacLaine. The northern part of the state is thought by some to be inhabited largely by tree-huggers, Croatian winemakers and campus radicals. Which state is this?

Answer: California

To be fair, some of the men in Los Angeles do not wear ponytails, and there are several people there who do not claim to be screenwriters. In the middle of California's coastline, there is San Francisco, a beautiful city and a beacon of tolerance; unfortunately no one has ever seen the place because of the fog. Still further north are Napa and Sonoma, heaven on earth for oenophiles.
4. A notorious movie made in the early 70s rather unsubtly reinforced stereotypes of this US region as a backward place inhabited by dangerous, bestial inbred cousin-marriers proficient only at banjo-strumming. To what part of the US are these unfortunate stereotypes linked?

Answer: The south

Bill Clinton, out of Hope, Arkansas, south of the benighted Ozarks, was a Rhodes Scholar with an IQ close to infinity (and certain other proclivities to match), but many snooty Northerners persist in believing that Southerners are, by and large, dumb. William Styron, perhaps the greatest living American writer, is a Virginian and a graduate of Duke U., the "Harvard of the South". (William Faulkner was another noted "dummy" from the South.) The movie "Deliverance", by the way, was made (faithfully) from a book by a very good southern writer and poet, James Dickey.

A scary, scary film.
5. This venerable Eastern city, in which one who pronounces any "r" sound in the middle of a word is immediately marked as a dangerous foreigner, was long known for its WASP "brahmin" aristocracy, and later for its "upstart" (at least to the WASPS) Irish politicos and businessman, of which Joseph P. Kennedy was probably the most famous, wealthy and reviled. Where is it that the "Cabots talk only to Lowells/and the Lowells talk only to God"?

Answer: Boston

Long a democratic stronghold (voted McGovern in '72!), possibly the greatest hospital and/or college town in the US, and now becoming massively gentrified. Houses in once-unfashionable "Southie" are selling for astronomical amounts. New Yorkers always feel particularly at home in Boston because of the wonderful traffic jams, perhaps exceeded in magnitude only by those in Lagos, Nigeria.
6. A large town in the eastern part of this state is famous for Quakers, cheese steaks, mustard on pretzels, and people who pronounce "y'know" as "y'kneau". The central part of the state is believed by some to be inhabited entirely by Mennonites and chocolate-related amusement parks where one can get "roasted". Which state is this?

Answer: Pennsylvania

The state's most famous (adoptive) son, Benjamin Franklin, now invariably portrayed as a rather fusty old gent holding a kite in a rainstorm, was a notorious rake and comic genius whose ribald essays (on intestinal gas and the virtues of older women, among other things) have been quite underpublicized.

The Amish have created a sort of agricultural paradise in and around Lancaster County, though if you go there you probably will NOT see Harrison Ford and/or Kelly McGillis.
7. This region of Manhattan is said by some, especially those at the reactionary end, to have a political orientation somewhat to the left of North Korea's. Many believe that its residents are all sandal-wearing ex-beatniks who take bean-sprouty courses at avant-garde schools and colleges, sit around drinking espresso, and didn't vote for Nader in 2000 because he was "too establishment". What is the name of this oft-vilified neighborhood?

Answer: The Upper West Side

What is funny (or not so funny, depending on your point of view) is that, given the skyrocketing real estate values of the 1990's, many of the Old Leftniks and beardos have been displaced by investment bankers and trust-funders who plunked down 800K and up for a couple of bedrooms on West End Ave. If real estate trends continue along these lines, presumably by the year 2050 the UWS could have the overall demographic and general outlook of Darien, Connecticut. Good God, RUSH LIMBAUGH had an apartment here in the late 90s!
8. A major poet once characterized this city as "Hog butcher for the world... Player with railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler," and further deposed that the city was "wicked... for I have seen (her) painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys." Of which city doth the poet speak?

Answer: Chicago

Carl Sandburg also wrote a great Lincoln biography; his famous poem about Chicago may be the second-most parodied bit of poesy in history next to Joyce Kilmer's "Trees". Chicago is known as the Windy City and the Second City, although the stars of the famed Second City TV were mostly Canadians. If Sandburg wrote the poem today he'd probably have to mention deep-dish pizza.
9. Amazing as it may seem, many people from this state -- the legendary "Home of the Delta Blues" -- did not know how to play slide guitar, are not alleged to have sold their souls to the devil at the crossroads of highways 49 and 61, do not have a guitar named "Lucille" and indeed have manifested no particular talent for blues-playing on any instrument whatever. What is the name of this state, such an important piece of America's musical heritage?

Answer: Mississippi

Slidemeisters such as the late Duane Allman, Eric Clapton, George Thorogood and Bonnie Raitt follow a venerable musical tradition nurtured in this state. The argument can be made that the legendary Robert Johnson (who is said to have made the Faustian bargain in return for his prodigious skill at the blues) is in fact the father or grandfather of rock and roll. All blues rockers (even Led Zep) have covered and paid homage to him. (Lucille, of course, is BB King's famous guitar.)
10. This state, known for its parishes, colorful politicians and spicy cuisine, is believed by some to be a constitutional monarchy, run by Chef Paul Prud'homme. Its people are largely of French extraction, it is said that just about every resident's name ends in "eaux", and it has been noted that squirrel is here considered not a nuisance but a delicacy. The people speak a rather odd if beguiling patois. By what name are they known?

Answer: Cajuns

An amazing state in many ways, Louisiana is to a great degree below sea level, a problem considering that the nation's greatest river, the Mississippi, runs through it. "Cajuns" (really 'Acadians'... descendants of displaced French-Canadians) have had a great influence on the American palate.

The state is also famous for guys in undershirts standing outside buildings and yelling "HEY STELLLAAAAAHHH!" and women who depend on the kindness of strangers.
Source: Author coolupway

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor minch before going online.
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