I just got back from 2 weeks in London.

 

When people asked where I was from the U.S., I said, "Ohio".  Mosst of them just had a puzzled look on their faces.  Probably hadn't heard of it before.

 

I felt compelled to say something about the state, but I really wasn't sure what I could say, due to the lack of defining characteristics.

 

Here in America, even the most clueless rube knows somoething about Ohio, typically the large American football stadium in Columbus.  But overseas, no one cares about American football, the "Shoe" or the Ohio state Buckeyes football squad and their 2002 National Championship.

 

I was at a loss for words.  :?

 

"Well, there were some aviation pioneers from our state, but none of their famous work was actually in the state."

 

"We're not the home of the auto industry, but we have the most plants after Michigan and Ontario."

 

"One of the smaller Great Lakes borders some of the Northern parts of the state."

 

"People are really into American football.  They watch games at the local high school on Friday, then college games on Saturday, then professional games on Sunday.  It's a way of life."  (This may impress Americans, but carries little weight overseas)

 

"There's lots of Amish people."  (Tends to add to the already unfortunate impression that the state is backwards and agriculturally oriented)

How about "it has a little bit of everything from quaint countryside (Amish countryside) to larger cities. It used to have a primarily industrial base, especially in the north but the economy is diversifying, albeit at a slower pace than other parts of the States." Same thing for climate/topography "It sits next to Lake Erie where there are some lakefront beaches and boating, and in the southern portion of the state the Appalachian foothills make for nice scenery".

 

Then again, that might require you to look at your surroundings with a little less disdain.

Here are some interesting things about Ohio that you would want to mention:

 

1. Where rock n roll was named and where white DJs made it acceptable to play black music (thus opening the door for rock to become popularized).

 

2. The state which has produced the most amount of presidents.

 

3. Home to one of the best symphony orchestras in the world

 

4. Home to one of the best art museums in the world

 

5. Hmm..

 

Locutus, good question.  To a foreigner, there are not many things about Ohio that would stand out.  But, that could be said about many states in the US.   

"Well, there were some aviation pioneers from our state, but none of their famous work was actually in the state."

Don't look at it that way!  Arguably some of the Wright Brothers' most important work occurred here, though granted it was not the famous work.  Remember that the Flyer they flew in 1903 in North Carolina was a pretty useless machine, and it was here that they developed and flew the first practical airplane.

 

But that's still not a good way to explain Ohio to outsiders.  I'm not sure what you could say, either.  I guess I'd just give a description of where the state is and what's in it without worrying about whether it really distinguishes Ohio from any place else.  After all, most states are not particularly remarkable, at least to people who haven't been to them.

A quick and simple answer would be, a beautiful state with lots variety, from countryside to cosmopolitan cities...

Ignore this fool.  He is at it again. 

 

I have never been anywhere in the world, including my visits to Korea, Okinawa, Tokyo and Toronto where people didn't know of Cincinnati. 

 

We know you don't like it here, you have proven that.  There was a city that i didn't like once, but I did something about it and moved.

Having been in a similar situation many times before, it seems people are satisfied with a rough geographical description.

 

When I get the confused look after saying I'm from Ohio, I say it's in between Chicago and New York, and the person(s) I'm speaking with are generally satisfied. By in large though, many people I've come in contact with are aware of Cleveland's existance, so that makes things easier. As far as what's IN Ohio, I don't think I've ever gotten that far except for with friends and relatives in Puerto Rico. Given their respective geographical positions, climate is always the main topic. I tell them it gets to 35F and people are just wearing heavy sweaters, which usually gets a few gasps, since the lowest temperature ever recorded on the island is in the low 50s. Population statistics come next, and most people, both in Puerto Rico and also when I've visited Europe, are pretty impressed that Ohio has several cities with metro populations of 1 million and over.

We are the state that decides who is going to be president

:evil:

 

When I am in London, I just tell them I live in the city Winston Churchhill coined , "The most beautiful inland city in America" and people are like O' you live in Cincinnati...

 

 

i always say i'm from cincinnati.  never had a problem (other than people mentioning 'ah, cincinnati bengals' since i'm not a sports fan.)

I've been to London a few times and everyone seemed to know about Ohio or at least Cincinnati or Cleveland.

Please refrain from being a representative of our state, Locutus.  Tell them you're from Nebraska.

Well, Locutus, tell them Ohio is Americas answer to Lancashire or the Midlands.

 

Billy Bragg is sining  about this area in his song "Northern Industrial Town", and it could describe Ohio at times....

 

It's just a northern industrial town

The front doors of the houses open into the street

There's no room for front gardens, just two-up two-down

In a northern industrial town

 

And you can see the green hills 'cross the rooftops

And a fresher wind blows past the end of our block

In the evenings the mist come rolling on down

Into a northern industrial town

 

And there's only two teams in this town

And you must follow one or the other

Let us win, let them lose, not the other way round

In a northern industrial town

 

And the street lights look pretty and bright

From the tops of the hills they rise dark in the night

If it weren't for the rain you might never come down

To your northern industrial town

 

And on payday they tear the place down

With a pint in your hand and a bash'em out band

Sure they'd dance to the rhythm of the rain falling down

In a northern industrial town

 

And there's plenty of artists around

Painters steal cars, poets nick guitars

Cos we're out of the black and into the red

So give us this day our daily bread

In a northern industrial town

 

But it's not Leeds or Manchester

Liverpool, Sheffield, nor Glasgow

It's not Newcastle-on-Tyne. It's Belfast

It's just a northern industrial town

 

Merry Christmas, war is over

In a northern industrial town

I think if the situation comes up, I'll tell people they might have heard of Dayton as the place where those Bosnian peace accords were made.  That should make it sound important. :-)

Please refrain from being a representative of our state, Locutus.  Tell them you're from Nebraska.

 

That won't fool anyone who knows anything about Nebraska. The Nebraskans I've met tend to be polite and congenial.

^ OK, Pittsburgh.

Well, I've never claimed to be representative of the state.  I just live here.  :-)

I have been in Europe for 6 months now, and a lot of people I tell I'm from Ohio seem to confuse it with either Iowa or Idaho.  I never thought that they would sound so similar to non-native English speakers.  And when they know I'm talking about Ohio, they almost always think it is somewhere in the western part of the Midwest.

 

I think telling people that it has about 11-12 million people is pretty impressive considering it is not a state that everyone is familiar with, yet that is a bigger population than a lot of countries have themselves. 

^ Hehe...I got the same "Iowa" thing from people IN CHICAGO!  And when I told this one guy I was from Cincinnati and my friend was from Columbus, he referred to us as the "Cincinnati boys" for the rest of the evening.

As someone that works with the general public, I can tell you that I meet A LOT of traveler's, especially from Europe. Most are here for business from P&G, and others are here passing through. I met a couple from Czechoslovakia last week and they were traveling the US from east to west visiting the US's "largest cities...

 

And then I met a lady from Paris a couple of weeks ago. She told me that when almost anyone flies into the US from France by Delta airlines, they either arrive in Cincinnati or Atlanta. It just seems hard to believe that, especially Europeans, haven't heard of Cincinnati. One of the biggest reasons to me is the fact that one of Delta's largest hub is in Cincinnati (NK technically). 

When my friend and I spent the summer in Philadelphia, this guy at a pizza restaurant wanted to know where we were from, and when we said Ohio he asked if we lived on a farm.  That was my first experience with people outside the state's perception of Ohio.  But I think most people have at least heard of Cleveland.

 

I wouldn't worry about people overseas not knowing much about Ohio - how much do we really know about their little counties or areas, without having traveled extensively or studied a lot of geography?

i tell 'em it is high in the middle, and round on both ends.

 

 

I also will generally tell people (foreigners) that we're halfway between NYC and Chicago.  If they've been to the U.S., chances are that they've been to one or the other.

 

Interestingly, when I was in Brazil about 6 years ago, most everyone I met would say something to the effect of, "A good place to have a heart attack!" which was their way of referencing the Cleveland Clinic's reknown as a world-class heart center.

 

When I lived in northern California, and told people I was from Ohio, their response always seemed to be either:

 

1. Is your father a farmer?

2. Gosh, the humidity there must be awful!

 

I found both these responses bizarre.  To #1, I'd say, no, we have highways and skyscrapers and pro sports teams and orchestras ... The #2 thing was just so strange.  Yeah, we're not exactly a desert, but if there were places in the U.S. I'd relate to high humidity, they'd be, oh, I dunno, Houston, Atlanta, etc...  :-D

 

 

Uhhh... i say im from Cleveland, i havent met a single person outside of ohio who doesnt know that Cleveland is on the great lakes like Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto...

 

FARMS? jeez i get irritated when someone asks if i seen drew carey around or 'hang out' at the rock and roll hall of fame...

 

i did however have a friend who went to nyc and she said shes from ohio rather than cleveland and the people she stayed with kept pointing out "buses" and "skyscrapers" to her as if she never seen em before.  when she finally explained she lives in a burb of cleveland they kinda had an "ohh.. well thats totally different!"  reaction to her. 

I never say that I'm from Ohio.  I've actually had this pointed out to me as being odd.  I just identify with Cleveland a lot more.  Do we really have a state identity that says something about where we come from?  It seems to me that coming from Cleveland is a different ballgame than coming from Cincinnati or Columbus or the Appalachian foothills.  More so than saying you're from Dallas or Houston or SA- their identity is identified around a strong state identity.  The parts of Ohio are just too different to consider "Ohioan" to be really descriptive of a particular place or group identity.

X, I wouldn't lump Cincinnati with Columbus.  Cincy has a much stronger history.  If you talk with people from NYC they know about Cincinnati.  In fact, they give us a good deal of respect from my experience. 

Exactly what I am saying SSSCincy.  All these parts of Ohio are different geographically, culturally, etc.

In general conversation down here around LSU, I'll use Ohio, unless I'm refering to a specific location. Otherwise, I'll say I'm from Columbus if asked.

^ LOL because if you say Columbus at LSU they think you are from Georgia ;)

^ LOL because if you say Columbus at LSU they think you are from Georgia ;)

 

Or Mississippi.

Usually the response I get when I tell people I'm from Ohio is "Oh yeah...Cleveland rocks!"

 

Of course, the typical person to give that kind of response is the same type of person who balks when they have to leave Orange County for anything except vacation time in San Diego...

i say cleveland and everyone, foreign or domestic, is fine with that.

 

if they ask me further to explain ohio i say it is the most representative state in the union of what the usa is all about. if you have to pick one state to explain the whole shebang of the usa, it's ohio and only ohio because ohio has equal examples of everything (industry, farming, waterfront and riverfront, smalltown, medium sized and large cities and 'burbia, etc.). they usually go oh wow.

 

When I explain to people why I came to Ohio, I have to tell them that it is because I wanted to escape the stench the eminates from Michigan

^funny, that's why i left ohio in the first place......oh wait, i'm back again......damn

i havent met a single person outside of ohio who doesnt know that Cleveland is on the great lakes like Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto...

 

 

Well, I went to school in Atlanta, and all those Georgia people couldn't get the concept of the Great Lakes.  If I said something about how nice it was to have our city on Lake Erie, they'd comment, "Oh, yeah, we have a lot of lakes around northern Georgia."  I'd try to explain that Erie is really more of an inland sea, and point out that one couldn't even see the opposite shore.  They still never seemed to get it.  Whenever a friend from college would visit, they'd be astonished at seeing Lake Erie.  The universal response was, "This looks just like the ocean!"  Well, duh, that's what I'd been trying to tell ya ...  :-D

 

I've had that experience with alot of people too.  The concept of "Lake" seems for many people to equal what we would often consider a very large pond.

true, a relative of mine from nj visited for the first time and when she saw the lake she said, "ooooh, it just like atlantic ciiiity!" heh.

 

Heh heh, and the first time I took my Philadelphia-native fiance to Lake Erie, he was amazed that he couldn't see the other side.

 

"It's just like the ocean!" he said. Good grief. Yeah, just like the ocean, except that your skin doesn't get all salty and sticky when you hop out of the water.

 

I moved to Philadlephia from Cincinnati earlier this year, and very few people around here know anything about Ohio, other than it's "far away." They believe it's culturally deprived, ignorant, and stuck somewhere in the 50s. The 1850s.

They believe it's culturally deprived, ignorant, and stuck somewhere in the 50s. The 1850s.

Well, that is downright offensive... we've got to be at least in the 1870s!

Heh heh, and the first time I took my Philadelphia-native fiance to Lake Erie, he was amazed that he couldn't see the other side.

 

"It's just like the ocean!" he said. Good grief. Yeah, just like the ocean, except that your skin doesn't get all salty and sticky when you hop out of the water.

 

I moved to Philadlephia from Cincinnati earlier this year, and very few people around here know anything about Ohio, other than it's "far away." They believe it's culturally deprived, ignorant, and stuck somewhere in the 50s. The 1850s.

 

They used to send their sons and daughters to Liberal Arts schools here in Ohio.

That's how my mom (Main Line girl) met my dad (NE Ohio/Detroit/Vermont radical). 

While I was in Italy with my family a few summers ago, I distinctly remember this one conversation we had with a guy in a pizza place (I know, it's pretty stereotypical  :-D).  He asked what state we were from and when we said Ohio, he asked "Is that by 'na chersey' (new jersey)?"  :-)

 

And when I mention to other people from the United States (including Ohio) that I am from Norwalk, Ohio, they always ask "where is that?"  I'm used to saying "by Cedar Point Amusement Park" or "in between Cleveland and Toledo"  and that usually helps.  But one time when I told someone that I was from Norwalk, Ohio, they said "oh yeah, by that big raceway" I about had a heart attack!!!  And I was in either 'tucky or Pennsylvania (I can't remember)!!!!

 

Oh yeah (more randonmness)!  While on a class trip to New York City, a few of us were talking to an older couple from Oregon state, and they were amazed that it took us about 8 hours to get from our town in Ohio to NYC; they thought it was only about a 4 hour drive!

here's my fav random ohio thing. i was walking around in san francisco with my red star cafe tee shirt one day a few yrs ago  (late great clev coffeehouse). a group of con ed or whatev electric company worker guys were walking toward us cracking up. they stop and two of the guys lift up their tool vests and bingo they have the red star tee shirts on too! "we just came back from hangin out at my sisters" one of them sez. startled the hell out of me. pretty funny.

 

my fav story was not me it was this very old lady i knew. she went to visit the michigan soo locks at sault ste-marie. she was standing there watching a navy ship slowly go past. what do you know her young next door neighbor yelled hello down to her from the ship which he was stationed on.

 

i always thought what a small world about stuff like that.

 

I'd say it can't really be explained. You just have to experience it.

I usually describe Ohio as boring until you get to Dayton LOL... a lot of people here in Michigan have perceptions of Ohio from driving down 75.

 

And can I tell you how many times I've had to explain to these Michiganders that Cincinnati is nowhere near Cleveland!  Geez, you'd think we weren't neighboring states.  I guess its because they learned their geography by using the palm of their hand.  LOL

you can kinda make ohio with a fist of your left hand, with your thumb sticking out a bit higher......

geez how could we forget this one?

 

hi in the middle and round on both ends

 

baa-dummp!

 

I find I spend a lot of time referring people to the county by county election result maps ("see that dark blue spot on the lake...") and the atlas so they don't think I'm a homophobic jesus freak who lives near the Mississippi.

true, a relative of mine from nj visited for the first time and when she saw the lake she said, "ooooh, it just like atlantic ciiiity!" heh.

 

 

I was in Atlantic City last year and I was sitting at the 3-card poker table when I was telling this couple from Philly about Cedar Point and Put-in-Bay.  I told them that you could take a boat from the "Ohio mainland" to the island and the pit boss started cracking up..."Ohio mainland, yeah right" he laughed.

 

Why are New Yorkers so depressed?

 

Because the light at the end of the tunnel is New Jersey.  Fahgeh'bah it!

geez how could we forget this one?

 

hi in the middle and round on both ends

 

baa-dummp!

 

 

page 1 gets no love...

This thread reminds me of how happy I am that Locutus is banned from the forum.