Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Where are the Canary Islands?
See larger map | Fly there in Google EarthJust in case anyone is confused and, it would not be a surprise if you were.
There's a quiz - often entitled "The World's Easiest Quiz", that's been doing the rounds of the internet for at least a decade, first in email newsletters and, now being passed along on blogs.
Not a day goes past without one of these posts coming up on my radar - because I keep track of things that mention the islands.
Do a Google search on the exact phrase "The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?" and you'll see what I mean. Currently, there are over 2,200 sites listed in Google that use this exact phrase. There are actually 329,000 pages listed that include all the words "Canary Islands", "Pacific", "named" "after" and "animal". Some may be unrelated, but clearly, many are.
The quiz itself is meant as a joke, based on a number of "trick" questions, like "How long did the Hundred Years War last?", which, of course, wasn't 100 years.
We also know the accepted version (that is NOT to say that it is categorically and definitively proven) about how the islands were named. But the Canary Islands, as you can see from the map, are in the Atlantic Ocean, not the Pacific.
Clearly, a lot of people are going to get very lost trying to find us if this quiz, with it's long repeated error, keeps on being regurgitated and passed along.
When it's individuals, it's half understandable. When it's on blogs, where I can leave a comment, I often correct them. When it's being shown on education sites, I despair.
If you see one of these falsehoods, do me a favor and correct the webmaster!
