Were you taught to read a map?

I am on a Facebook group for a favourite holiday destination. Often people will ask where a hotel is or some other such place. People are usually happy to receive directions - I usually send a link to the Google Map and get a bollocking as "not everyone can understand maps!". It is only a picture from up above - what is hard about it? I wouldn't dream of booking a hotels without exploring the area on Google Street View and Satellite View.

US stuff is *more* salted. We call it "salt beef". (Is that in kosher delis?) US call our corned beef "bully beef" (I thought only the army called it that). (From Wikipedia)

The Swallows and Amazons called corned beef "pemmican", but that's really dried meat and the description in Wikipedia sounds disgusting.

yes, but it was only called that in fun as part of the whole play acting thing - that's not what it would have been called at home.

In message snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk>, Max Demian <max snipped-for-privacy@bigfoot.com writes

My (English) father used to call it that. It may be relevant that he was in the army in wW2.

Is bully beef better or worse than "Sweet Fanny Adams", in the *original* meaning of the nickname that the Forces gave its meat rations, as a sick allusion to the body of a murdered girl that had recently been found? Obviously since then, the name and its initial letters "FA" have come to mean something else (!).

I've often wondered if the word 'cwm' is the origin of the local sland word for a vagina: quim.

Bill

I think you may be onto something there.

I'd actually never heard that word until all the fuss a decade or so about unfortunate word spacing in a new issue of the UK passport which bears the motto "Honi soit qui mal y pense".

The Portuguese version of the Spanish name, Joaquin is Joaquim, often abbreviated to Quim, presumably pronounced "Keem".

I thought you might like to know that.

I've shopped in many US supermarkets, and NEVER seen anything labelled 'bully beef'. I have seen tins labelled 'corned beef', though.

This is fascinating. A useful ice breaker at the next meeting of the Parochial Church Council.

Bill

Yes, we leant how to read an OS map in the early 70s (72 or so I think). Exam questions were quite involved, including a "you can see these things, show where you are on the map".

Though I had actually learnt myself much earlier, as I would often navigate on family holidays.

I rarely use the satnav for instruction; even then I check its suggested route on a map before I set out.

Usually, if I get lost, I use the satnav to tell me where I am, and then find it on the map.

In the '60s, I used to get involved in "photographic motor rallies". These involed a photograph giving enough information for you identify the site from an OS Map. eg a row of pylons crossing a railway line and a church with a tower in the background.

When I was about 9 or 10 I first started going out for rides on my bike, navigating by my dad's old 7th Series OS map which showed things like old railways that were no longer there (as well as some lines that were still used) and I used to look out for signs of cut-back embankments either side of bridges that were no longer there. I've always like poring over old maps looking for details like disused railways, or roads that have been diverted to remove some of the wiggles and right-angled bends.

Thanks, that's an interesting site.

I was always told that the house I grew up in was the "show house" for the development - probably some time in the 1890s. As such the woodwork was a little more ornate, the plaster coving a bit more elaborate etc.

Interestingly I just found the house I grew up and its semi detached partner sat all alone in the corner of an estate obviously yet to be built. Nothing but a big block of empty space and quite a number of soon to be roads missing.

My dad was in the TA, later the OC of a local unit, and there were always OS maps in the house, the old 1 inch to 1 mile. I taught myself to read them at an early age, and I still have them in the loft.

I learnt nothing new about them when they were the subject in Geography lessons at school!

It's a shame that the side-by-side comparison can't use a modern-day 1:25K or 1:50K OS map (as opposed to Bing or OpenStreetMap) for comparison against a historical map, so as to compare maps which are more similar in cartographic style and detail. However that would probably mean paying royalties to OS, as I presume sites like Streetmap.co.uk and Bing.com/maps do.

That pretty well mirrors my experience.

My dad was in the Royal Marine Reserve, and also OC of the local detachment (which he founded). I was also in Cubs and Scouts until old enough to join Marine Cadets, and again the geography bit at school was a doddle.

Nearly. They used their tiny hands for the hours, and their bigger hands for the minutes.