I Asked AI What Europeans Think Americans From Every State Look Like And The Results Are Just Mean

[DFW]

55. Those Americans that can find Europe on a map, you mean?

This evening, in Provincetown, Massachusetts, not a place known for its overflow of ignorants, the cashier at the local supermarket had a Slavic name tag and an Eastern European accent, so I asked her where she was from. She said, "Montenegro." I said, "you mean Crna Gora." The "C" in that part of the Balkans is pronounced like the Russian Ц or the English "ts." So, "Tsrna Gora." Her face brightened up, and I spoke to her in what little I know of her language (with minimal variation, pretty much Serbo-Croatian). I explained that not only did I know how to pronounce her country's name, but that I had been there. She said I was the first American she had met since she had been here that knew that, and had been to her country. She also said it was the first time she had gotten to speak her language since she had gotten here. Made her day for a few minutes, anyway, and she can report home that we're not ALL totally unaware of the world. I came close earlier in the week. I met a cashier from Trinidad, and tried my BIWI (stands for "British West Indies" ) dialect on her. She laughed and said nice try, but she could tell I was from Jamaica the moment I started talking. Oh, well. Can't win 'em all. Since I've never been to Jamaica in my life, most people can't tell that at all.

Cape Cod is a place where many eastern European, Caribbean and Middle Eastern students come to work menial summer jobs. If they prove their English is good enough, they get to come here for the summer, and are allowed to stay on for a month to travel around (and blow what meager money they have saved, no doubt).