Brits appear are just as ignorant as Americans
Posted on February 8th, 2008 by bile Categories and Tags: Uncategorized, Arthur Conan Doyle, Britain, Charles Dickens, education, Entertainment, Florence Nightingale, India, Mahatma Gandhi, Richard, schooling, UK, United Kingdom, Wellington, Winston ChurchillBritons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.
And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.
Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain’s most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.
Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.
Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns’ fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.
UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people.
Many people like to poke fun at polls like this taken which show >50% of people believe in angels, confuse the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto with our founding documents, or think the Bill of Rights is extreme, or don’t know the who, what and whys of our history. Well it looks like the average Brit isn’t all that different.
6 Responses to “Brits appear are just as ignorant as Americans”
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February 8th, 2008 at 8:06 am
I walked by a history classroom the other day and heard a kid telling the teacher that Otto Von Bismark was the current prime minister of England.
February 8th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I’ll give the angel believers a half pass (it’s religious, so 99% of the time it’s not worth the bother arguing), but these people are real dolts. I love the "worldly" Brit who "holidays" on a Spanish beach or French countryside, but could really care less about world affairs, let alone those on the continent. I think Americans get short changed in this respect since our country is relatively huge in comparison to our European cousins. After regularly reading this, I’m convinced they’re equally as ignorant and racist.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I’ve never thought about America being shortchanged in that respect due to our geographical size. Interesting.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Really? It’s the first thing I bring up. Europeans have countries the size of our states and then criticize us for not leaving the country. We have just about everything here…. we don’t need to leave.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
The English can deride us all they want, but do they know what’s going on in Estonia or Moldova, which are perhaps as away from London as San Francisco is from New York? I cherry picked the locations, but I think there’s a better chance of me hearing about interesting news in say Idaho than the Brit about Moldova.
February 9th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Yup really. I don’t argue with people from other countries that much. I do however tend to knock Americans quite a bit for not seeing other parts of the world. I would do the same to a person from England who’s never seen places with fundamentally different ways of thinking. On the subject of travel I’ve adopted my dads view of, "I’d rather see a thousand places than read a thousand books". That being said I may be going to africa two summers from now, if anyone is interested in such a venture. Also, I’ve always wanted to see Israel if anyone is interested in taking a trip there.