Oklahoma’s 12-Dish Official Meal vs the 11 States With No Official Food One state has an official meal with twelve dishes. Eleven states have no official food at all. Between those two extremes sits the whole strange system of American state foods — a list written by legislatures over fifty years, one fruit and one…
The Famous Foods That Were Never Official: Chimichanga, SPAM, Jell-O and the Cheesesteak Ask anyone to name Arizona’s food and they will say the chimichanga. Ask about Hawaii and they will say SPAM. Ask about Utah and they will say Jell-O. Ask about Pennsylvania and they will say the Philly cheesesteak. All four answers are…
Two States With No Official Song — and the One With Ten Forty-eight American states have an official song. Two do not. One state has nine or ten. And one state spent eighteen years with no song at all, then got two in a single day. The edges of the state-songs list are where the…
The State Songs That Fool Everyone: Official vs Famous Ask anyone to name Alabama’s state song and they will sing you the answer: “Sweet Home Alabama”. It is one of the most famous songs in American history, and it is not Alabama’s state song. The real one is called “Alabama”, it was adopted in 1931,…
AP Style vs USPS State Abbreviations: When to Spell It Out Write “I live in Austin, TX” in a news story and an editor will correct you. Write “Austin, Tex.” on an envelope and the post office will not care — but it will not help your letter either. America has two different systems for…
Why US State Abbreviations Are 2 Letters: The 1963 ZIP Code Story Every American address ends the same way: a city, two capital letters, and five numbers. Los Angeles, CA 90001. Austin, TX 78701. But those two letters were not always there — and they were not chosen because somebody liked the way they looked….
Most people try to learn the fifty states as a list, and most people fail. The list has no order that means anything: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas — four states that have nothing to do with each other except the letter A. A route is different. A route has an order that means something, because…
A road trip is the best way to learn the map of the United States, but only if you know where you are going before the engine starts. Most travellers can name the states on their route — California, Arizona, Nevada — and then go blank on the small ones in between. The fix is…
British learners are good at American geography, and that is exactly the problem. The names sound familiar, the map looks familiar, and the confidence is high — right up until the quizmaster asks a question that exposes the gap. America is not Britain with bigger roads. Its regions, its colonies, its cities and its states…
Walk into any pub quiz in Britain and, sooner or later, the quizmaster will ask about America. The fifty states are a favourite round because everybody thinks they know them, and almost everybody gets at least one wrong. The questions are not random either. The same famous questions come up again and again, in pubs…