Drive in most of the world and the signs are pictures. A red triangle with a symbol in it warns you about something. A red circle with a line through…
Americans visiting Europe are startled to find that a bedroom has no closet and that storing clothes is the occupant's problem. Europeans in America are startled by the opposite: a…
It is a genuinely strange naming system once you look at it. Two of the five standard American bed sizes are named after monarchs, one is named after a state,…
There is a horizontal bar across almost every exit door in a public American building. You have pushed thousands of them without looking at one.
It is worth looking, because…
The American roadside mailbox is such a fixed feature of the landscape that it reads as a natural object. It is on a wooden post, it has a curved top…
Most Americans drive on these roads for a lifetime without discovering that the numbers mean something. They are treated as names - arbitrary labels that happen to be numerals.
They…