Do you pronounce "pin" and "pen" the same?

If you pronounce pin and pen the same you are almost certainly from the south... or Bakersfield, CA. So many people seemed interested in ye...

Say "Don." Say "Dawn." Now I know where you live.

How we pronounce words can predict where we live—very precisely. Some of our pronunciation differences are fairly obvious, but most are not....

The ultimate royal wedding: USA and UK

With so many Americans interested in the upcoming royal wedding, maybe it's time to re-propose another kind of marriage—the U.K. joining...

New movie: man wouldn't ask for directions, people died

The next time your husband gets lost and won't ask for directions, don't be too hard on him. At least you aren't likely to die...

NFL creates dumbest maps ever

Please help me understand the point of a series of bizarre maps on the NFL web site. Hey, I'll find any excuse to like a map, but does a...

Where did they get the lions?

Easter weekend is the perfect time to ask this question: Knowing they'd get likely eaten by lions, why didn't the early Christians a...

Morgan Spurlock should look at a New Mexico map

Supersize Me filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is making news because he persuaded Altoona, Pennsylvania to change it's name. His new film is a...

Divide Libya - and return to the borders of antiquity

Should Libya be partitioned into two (or three?) separate nations to solve the conflict there? Many major players in the conflict are sugge...

The age-old bear puzzle

One morning I went for a walk. Starting at point x, I walked 1 mile due south to point A. Then I walked one mile due west to point B. Then I...

Fond du Lac, Rachel Maddow, and Appleton

I spent yesterday giving a talk at the fun Fox Cities Book Festival . One of the cities of Wisconsin's Fox Valley is Fond du Lac... rece...

85 mph now legal in Texas

West Texas is so flat and featureless, you can kind of see why the state legislature voted to raise the speed limit to 85mph (It's alr...

This is why we need more geography teachers...

I don't know were to begin with this stupefying exchange from Yahoo Answers. I didn't make this up. This is real.  "Nick" ...

The forgotten Union state in the Confederate south

With the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War this week—and the premiere of a new Lincoln movie The Conspirator, it makes sense ...

A county in Idaho named for three lost Hawaiians

Why in the world would there be a county in Idaho named in honor of three lost Hawaiians? It's true. And the story is rather unexpected....

The birthers of 1881

After 100 years of obscurity, President Chester Arthur is back in the news—and you need a map to really get this story. Arthur was the cente...

Map of the government shutdown

So if a government shuts down, what does that mean? A real "shutdown" would mean a new map of North America, wouldn't it? So t...

51st state needs a name. Got any ideas?

There is growing movement in southern Arizona to create the 51st state, but they have a problem: they can't come up with a good name. I...

Trump: Iraq should be the 51st state

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Critics of the war like to call Iraq the "51st State"as a way of pointing out the amou...

DC Statehood = an end to civilization?

Well, that's not exactly what the National Review wrote , but it's close. According to Julia Shaw, making the District of Columbia t...

Rep. Tom Marino's map mess—& we break his next scandal!

US Rep. Tom Marino took a lot of heat last week when it appeared he didn't know Libya was in Africa. But was this really a major gaffe? ...

Puerto Rican statehood - and a bizarro interviewer

Puerto Rico's secretary of commerce José R. Pérez-Riera was interviewed by Jim Varney on Fox News about the possibility of becoming the ...

KAY-row, trih-POLE-ee & more

Just finished new additions to our "cities not pronounced like their namesake" list. Keep your contributions coming.... Map here ...

Curious pronunciations - now mapped

Here's a map of places pronounced funny. OK, "funny" is a relative term. Yesterday, lots of you made contributions to my list ...