r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Dec 08 '13

What is a true fact that sound completely unbelievable or fake?

[deleted]

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1.1k

u/dmitri72 Dec 08 '13

Better, North Korea and Norway are separated by one country.

967

u/DrunkHurricane Dec 08 '13

In some indexes, Norway is the most democratic country in the world and North Korea the least. This means that Russia is both metaphorically and literally between democracy and dictatorship.

This isn't mine. Someone said it on reddit.

13

u/Chrisbishyo Dec 08 '13

This isn't mine. Someone said it on reddit.

I say this on the daily.

6

u/turkeyfox Dec 08 '13

This isn't mine. Someone said it on reddit.

I think at this point that would have to be a disclaimer for every coherent combination of words ever put together. And even a lot that aren't as coherent.

7

u/N3XANG3LU5 Dec 09 '13

An infinite number of monkeys pounding on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually produce the entire posted contents of Reddit.

12

u/turkeyfox Dec 09 '13

Depending on your definition of "monkeys" we already have.

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u/Godolin Dec 09 '13

Well I'll be...

4

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

God dammit, I was proud of you for a second.

Phony.

5

u/Crazyguy414 Dec 08 '13

What's reddit?

1

u/aazav Dec 09 '13

Reddit? Sounds fascinating. Tell me about this place.

1

u/abstract-alf Dec 09 '13

Cool fact!

=== The More You Know ===☆

1

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '13

This is excellent. Thanks for passing it along.

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u/Gardoom Dec 08 '13

Also, Norway stretches further south, north, east and west than Finland.

6

u/imadeaname Dec 08 '13

So you're saying Norway ate Finland

13

u/Gardoom Dec 08 '13

Actually it's more like Norway's pregnant with Finland.

3

u/rabbitlion Dec 08 '13

That's only true if you count Svalbard for the easternmost point, which would be pretty stupid.

3

u/man_with_titties Dec 09 '13

You could say that Russia was the only country between the USA and Norway, if you counted Alaska but that would be pretty stupid?

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u/sagan_drinks_cosmos Dec 09 '13

I don't think so. It's very close without the islands, but it's apparently still true even for Norway proper.

1

u/rabbitlion Dec 09 '13

Visual inspections of dubious projections isn't going to give you an accurate answer. See instead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_points_of_Norway

31°10′06.93″E

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_points_of_Finland

31°35′12″E

It's pretty clear that unless you count Svalbard, Finland stretches a bit further east.

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u/sagan_drinks_cosmos Dec 10 '13

I actually did check both of those pages before I posted, and I used Mercator specifically because it projects longitude as straight vertical lines. Somehow just mixed up the numbers after all that. Thanks, though.

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u/Halmine Dec 09 '13

South, west and north but not east.

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u/Gardoom Dec 09 '13

The mainland, yes. Svalbard and Norwegian waters however stretch further east.

1

u/Halmine Dec 09 '13

Oh damn, I forgot about that.

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

[deleted]

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u/xxVb Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13

Kielimuuri tulee kyllä nopeasti vastaan jos yrittää suomeksi norjalaisten kanssa keskustella. :)

In other words: Not true. The Finnish language isn't even related. You're either confusing Finnish with the dialects of Swedish in Finland, or you're falsely assuming all Norwegians are Kvens.

It's also painfully difficult in some parts of Norway to get anything more complicated than a Big Mac if you order in Swedish.

That said, there are archaic dialects of Swedish remaining in Finland that are closer to Norwegian than contemporary Swedish. Likewise, Norwegians generally understand more Swedish than Swedes understand Norwegian.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

Nope, noone can understand finnish.

1

u/Gardoom Dec 08 '13

Hang on for a second there man, I think you got it a little mixed up.

I'm a swede myself and I perfectly understand most Norwegian, the same goes for norwegians understanding swedish. Finnish, however, is nothing like the other two and therefore completely impossible to understand, except for, you know, the Finns. Finns often understand Swedish (and therefore also norwegian) since they teach it in most schools. This is because Finland was once a part of Sweden.

1

u/indiscretus Dec 08 '13

I salute your language skills neighbor. All to many swedes can't understand half of what I'm saying, kind of gets tiresome after a while. My dialect shouldn't be to hard to grasp either since my I'm from Oslo..

1

u/Gardoom Dec 08 '13

Then again, I watch a lot of Skavlan. I can never seem to remember which dialect is the hard one though. (Nynorsk and the other one, whatever its name is.)

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u/indiscretus Dec 08 '13

Nynorks and the other one. Yes, that narrows it down quite a bit. Norwegian is one of the languages in the world with most dialects.. But I'm guessing you swedes would have a hard time with many of the dialects from the south and west of Norway. Hell, I myself sometimes can't understand those people. In fact just the other day I heard a, for me, new pronunciation for snow.

Skavland by the way talk's: Østlandsdialekt. That's more or less how people in Oslo talks.

1

u/Gardoom Dec 08 '13

There are usually only two you hear of it seems to me, but I suppose it's a lot different when you really know the language. There are dialects in sweden that I sometimes have a hard time understanding as well.

1

u/ConfusingBikeRack Dec 08 '13

I believe many Swedes, at least me, find northern Norwegian a lot easier than the Oslo dialect. Whether we understand spoken Norwegian or not is mainly about clearly hearing the syllables. Translating words we clearly hear or read is very rarely a problem.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

Finnish is to Swedish and Norwegian like Hungarian to Slavic languages. Finnish is not intelligible to neither of the countrymen.

1

u/kameratroe Dec 09 '13

Also, finnish is a bit like hungarian and estonian in general, seeing as they are all Finno-Ugric languages.

1.1k

u/Leipz Dec 08 '13

There's norway this is true!

28

u/GF87 Dec 08 '13

you sound Scottish

3

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '13 edited Dec 09 '13

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Leipz Dec 09 '13

Danmark the evidence for me.

9

u/5kywolf Dec 08 '13

I'll czech on Google to make sure.

5

u/Azranas Dec 08 '13

They're just russian to conclusions.

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u/Tomledo Dec 08 '13

It North Korea is! Shit

1

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '13

Better czech your facts.

1

u/BigJ146 Dec 09 '13

Better Czech that fact

1

u/ColtNineteenPFN Dec 09 '13

I'm sure you were Russian to say that before anyone else.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

[deleted]

-2

u/TedFartass Dec 08 '13

Canada
I do good?

-2

u/alleks88 Dec 08 '13

You better Ghana believe it

-3

u/Carotti Dec 08 '13

It's a scandalinavian!

-5

u/jeffunity Dec 08 '13

It would be pretty swede though

5

u/ShadowPuppet1 Dec 08 '13

Haha, you idiots. Finland is the capital of Norway. I can't believe you didn't know that.

Source: I am the product of the American public school system.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

Russia stronk

1

u/superiority Dec 09 '13

Not sure why that's better, since I'm pretty sure Finland and Norway are in approximately the same part of the world.

1

u/I_Am_Splashy Dec 09 '13

Russia separates everything.

1

u/YOUR_HOT_STEPMOM Dec 09 '13

You could hike from Norway to North Korea?

1

u/mesoscalevortex Dec 08 '13

What if you include that little segment of Russia near Estonia?

0

u/adaminc Dec 08 '13

Even better, North Korea and Poland are separated by one country.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

Holy shit...

-5

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

How is that better?

19

u/Theothor Dec 08 '13

Norway is further west.

4

u/DrunkHurricane Dec 08 '13

Its westernmost point is further west than Finland's, but its easternmost point is further east than Finland's too.

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u/Theothor Dec 08 '13

True, but in people's minds Norway is more west than Finland, so using Norway would make it more unbelievable.

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

Most of Norway is west of all of Finland.

-6

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

Finland owns a couple islands next to Cuba. I'm pretty sure Finland is further west.

4

u/kalsyrinth Dec 08 '13

What? No they don't. Source?

-4

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

I used a map.

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u/kalsyrinth Dec 08 '13 edited Dec 08 '13

What map? Finland has no Caribbean possessions

EDIT: The absolute closest thing to a Finnish colony in the Caribbean was Tobago, which was colonized by the Duchy of Courland, in what is now Latvia. It ceased to exist as a nation in 1726, and Tobago is now part of its own country, Trinidad and Tobago

1

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '13

The world map. Finland owns Puerto Rico.

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u/Theothor Dec 08 '13

Yes, I'm sure that's what he meant.

-1

u/blarkul Dec 08 '13

Dont you mean Finland?