Talk:United States

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Current population (est.): 337,790,000 as of May 22, 2024

What The...?

I was looking at the article of the USA, and it said that the states' leading cash crop was marajuana. What the heck! Is this spam or something?

As far as I know that's true.. not sure why you'd be suprised given it can sell for 10$ a gram Somatosis (talk) 01:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Basketball

Is the ethnicity of a sport defined by where it was first played or by who invented it? Baskeball was invented by a Canadian, James Naismith, who happened to be working in the States at the time. The sport was played and developed in both the US and Canada, so it's not an exclusively American invention. Dallan007 (talk) 06:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The first flight was done in North Carolina by Ohioans. Both states claim ownership of being the first in flight. (Ohio claims "birthplace of aviation"). Basketball is just another instance of this, I'd say. --Golbez (talk) 16:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Economy

The lead needs to be edited. As of March 17th the US became the worlds second largest economy. When the Euro hit $US1.56, the EU officially became the largest economy in the world. Wayne (talk) 10:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The EU is a national economy? --Golbez (talk) 15:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

According to some measurements the EU has actually had a larger GDP than the U.S. for a couple of years now. But as Golbez pointed out, the EU, though included in the CIA factbook and the such along w/ other countries, is not ranked as it is not a country. Thus, the U.S. retains bragging rights to the world's largest national economy :). Regards, Signature^brendel 23:52, 20 March 2008 (UTC)your all ass holes

The Hollywood sign

The word sign in the phrase "Hollywood sign" has been properly lowercased in the article for a long time; after attempts to incorrectly render it as "Hollywood Sign," the proper orthography has been restored.

In general, the specific wording of signs is capitalized like a title ("there was a No Smoking sign"), but the word sign is not, just as, say, the word flag is not in the phrase "American flag." See The Chicago Manual of Style/"Names and Terms" for more. For confirmation from a leading source, see the results of a simple search on the string "the Hollywood sign" in The New York Times. Every single instance shows sign lowercased (yes, the results are identical if the search string is "The Hollywood Sign"—without exception the Times lowercases sign). Examinations of recent article from The Washington Post/Associated Press and USA Today show exactly the same thing—sign is lowercased.—DCGeist (talk) 22:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Oddly enough, a simple google search shows that "Hollywood Sign" (sic) is quite common. (The Times has its own amusing biases, with which most readers are familiar). Tedickey (talk) 22:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The familiar "amusing biases" of the Times are those of ideology, not orthography--it is recognized as one of the touchstones of contemporary American English style. I have also adduced evidence from two other leading sources for the proper orthography of "Hollywood sign." As for the value in this matter of a Google search--most readers are familiar with the wealth of errors and incompetent writing accessible thereby.—DCGeist (talk) 22:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way - when you say to 'see the talk page', it's sort of expected that the content is there before you refer to it Tedickey (talk) 01:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

So true!—DCGeist (talk) 06:44, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

What factors contribute to whether the US or China is the third largest country by total area?

I made a change to the article stating that the dispositive factor was the size of the US, as the CIA World factbook number for the US is larger than any area for China (regardless of China's territorial disputes) and the Encyclopedia Britannica number for the the US is smaller than any area for China (also regardless of China's territorial disputes). The article now reads that both China's territorial disputes and the different ways of accounting for the US size are reasons for the dispute. I am just wondering what the argument is for the inclusion of China's territorial disputes in an article about the US where the outcome of the disputes is irrelevent to the subject? Of course, perhaps I am mistaken and China's disputes do matter, but if that is the case can someone please explain to me how they matter? Thanks in advance. LedRush (talk) 20:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The China/India territorial disputes do matter to the ranking if the reference for the size of the United States is the UN Statistics Division's figure, which I've just added to the article. Those interested can turn to List of countries and outlying territories by total area for all the relevant details.—DCGeist (talk) 20:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I noticed your addition and was just typing your answer at the same time you were. Now I have a new question: why do the estimates for the US vary so widely while the China ones are largely the same (assuming either side of the territorial dispute)?LedRush (talk) 20:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

And thanks for bringing in this significant data disparity to the article in the first place. I'd noticed it just a few days ago while researching something else, and have yet to determine exactly what the source of the different calculations is. My guess at the moment: different definitions of territorial waters.—DCGeist (talk) 20:53, 25 March 2008

Isn't it just the inclusion of enclosed water surface? From the CIA factbook in km²:

country	land area	total area
China	9 326 410	9 596 960
U.S.A.	9 161 923	9 826 630

So China's land is bigger, but adding in lakes and rivers, the U.S.A. is bigger. −Woodstone (talk) 21:21, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Woodstone, the difference is more problematic than that. In calculating total area (land and water) China is always bigger than the US if we use Encyclopedia Britannica numbers, the US is always bigger than China if we use CIA Factbook numbers, and if we use UN numbers, which country is larger is determined based on your view of China's territorial disputes. The article now succintly addresses this problem, but I wonder why the calculations for China don't vary nearly as widely as those for the US (some 300,000 km2 difference between the CIA Factbook and Britannica numbers). DCGeist suspects territorial water definitions, and that could be correct.LedRush (talk) 21:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, shouldn't we change the land area and world ranking (based on total area) in the info box on the right?LedRush (talk) 21:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The infobox, like the second paragraph of the article's summary lead section, uses the CIA World Factbook figure, which I think is appropriate as it passes for the country's official calculation of its own size. My inclination would be to add a sentence to the existing infobox note when we determine the basis for the varying numbers. Something like "Sources provide varying calculations of U.S. size based on different definitions of territorial waters"--or whatever the case may be.—DCGeist (talk) 22:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

That seems fair, but the infobox indicates that the US is the 3rd largest country. While true if we assume the validity of the CIA Factbook number, I would think that some sort of explanation is warranted. What do you think of keeping the CIA Factbook number, adding the explanation you suggested, and changing the "3rd" to "3rd/4th disputed" like the infobox for China does? (on that note, China includes both numbers in its info box and the template seems to work ok)LedRush (talk) 22:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Infobox edited per your suggestion. Will add explanation of number variance if and when we can establish what it is.—DCGeist (talk) 22:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Second sentence revision?

"The country is situated mostly..." neglects the fact that the United States isn't a unified unit of land. "Most of the country is situated" allows for the possibility that there are nonbordering units. I also highly doubt that someone would dispute whether the continental states are exactly in central North America. - Somatosis (talk) 01:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

There's no difference in meaning between the two locutions. The former is preferred simply to prioritize the phrase "The country"--a few editors felt some time back that the phrase needed to be in the first sentence. While the consensus was that this was unnecessary, it was agreed that the second sentence should begin with it.—DCGeist (talk) 00:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)