Talk:2394: Contiguous 41 States

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Missing contiguous states: Delaware, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota 172.69.42.92 23:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I knew something was off, but I couldn't pinpoint anything until reading the explanation. That's so weird. 172.69.22.66 07:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
I know. This is really well done! I actually came here expecting how the gag was somehow that it was just a regular map. 162.158.75.218 08:06, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
I'm from Denmark, but played a game when I was a kid where you should name the states just by seeing the contour and location. It was a very early computer with only limited graphics. Like really early! But I could manage to get all 50, and I'm proud that it has stuck, so I could actually find the 7 states my self. And now that I'm thus better at naming states than most Americans ;-) --Kynde (talk) 08:57, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Contiguous has more specific meaning that "share borders" - it means that you can travel (on land in the case of map) from any point to any point, and there would be no breaks and spaces in the territory. --JakubNarebski (talk) 09:56, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I know acting like descriptivism is the objectively correct approach to language is all the rage these days, but I don't think you can describe a linguistic event (a word catching on) as "descriptivist" or "prescriptivist", as the page proposed for "conterguous". That's like referring to an economic occurrence as "normative" or "positive". It's not either of those, it just happens. Descriptivism refers to a quality of linguistics itself, not to language; it means, well, describing language. It doesn't stand for organic growth (or the explicit endorsement thereof, which would actually be prescriptive, and there's nothing wrong with that). So I nixed the reference to it; I think the supplied top-down and bottom-up are apt enough to stand on their own for that tangent. 172.68.206.92 12:37, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I wondered. "Prescriptive" and "descriptive" identify, I reckon, 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' processes, both are required to allow a language to grow while remaining comprehensible to all its speakers, and, at the time, the idea of linking an absurd "rage" with an absurd word seemed too good to pass on. Thanks for the correction. 172.68.129.132 16:18, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

This is like a puzzle with almost fitting pieces, so by carefully removing some states, it results in a fake border, as shown here: https://imgur.com/a/W8RMKMF . 162.158.134.40 15:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand. There are borders throughout the map, and a lot of them appear to be messed up, not just that area of the map. Why does this particular vertical line in particular matter to you? Educate me! 162.158.166.207 23:27, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Living in Rhode Island, the smallest state, I thought it was humorous that RI was *not* omitted! Guess that would have been too easy... Davidhbrown (talk) 20:32, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Also those small states around there would be the first place people would look. Only Delaware, maybe one of the lesser mentioned states, is missing. But PA missing is huge. --Kynde (talk) 08:57, 6 December 2020 (UTC)