People in SW Connecticut are sure to be NY fans (Jets, Giants, Mets, Yankees, etc...) because that is what they get on tv. You don't get the CT standard stations (Nh/Hartford) on cable unless you live in New Haven county or North. That is not at all a definitive evaluation of what is and is not New England; )

Thanks for the clarification.

The school that comes to mind is not the snowflake school but one based on an expansive definition of "New England". In any event, the OP's claim is, as many have noted, inaccurate.

Last year a kid from Mass and I had a competition with our floormates in our dorm to see what six states they thought comprised New England...apparently Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware are all New England states! I was so frustrated I wanted to throw clam chowder at someone (but that would be a waste of perfectly good clam chowder).

Also, my aunt in Maine once bought an educational toy that cheerily chirped "Delaware is the smallest state!" whenever you played with it. I was NOT HAPPY about that. /rhode island-sized rant

LOL. So true. As long as it's the New England kind, of course..

And here's a fun trivia fact: While Rhode Island is the smallest, it has the longest official state name.

If anyone can tell me how/why, you get a cookie!

Unfortunately, you don't get to select it from a cookie table.

Pretty much this. As I understand it, NU uses RFM and quota additions are allowed (which use to include – or maybe still does – the “free” Lincoln girls, but not limited to just Lincoln girls now). The bottom line is that while each chapter has a say in their own quota (based on the number of beds), if a PNM “plays the game” (attends all the parties she is invited to, list all preference chapters etc.) she should be extended a bid.

Because the full, official name is The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

I want my cookie.

I tried to get New England clam chowder from Panera today and they were ALL OUT. A cranky New Englander was I.

Man, you take a nap and you miss a chance at a cookie! Can I add that a few years ago the question was put on a ballot to drop the "Providence Plantations" part of the name but it was voted down? It was a big deal for a while.

http://anniescustomcookies.com/wp-co...9/bridge-6.jpg

I got myself cookies shaped like our most famous bridge! I'm hungry; don't judge.

Went I went to school in Maryland, people would always ask me where I was from, because I didn't have the same accent. It became a fun game to ask them to guess. They ALWAYS guessed Boston. I never got how a Michigander sounds like a Bostonian (which is why I kept asking...it became an experiment).

Haha awesome.

You need at least one more though! Pell, Newport, but we need a Mount Hope Bridge!

And a toll booth on it! I once got lost on the Mount Hope Bridge...very pretty!

Love all this Rhode Island talk! It's where I went to college--and where I'm running a half-marathon next weekend.

Apparently I live only about 10 miles from Rhode Island (recent discovery, and it isn't very accessible).... yet I've been there less than 10 times in my life

Thank you very much! :)

I love it! Lived there since I was two and a half. When Miss Rhode Island was introduced on the Miss America pageant she said something about Del's and Awful Awfuls and I freaked out. Good luck on the half-marathon!

As a general rule of thumb if you live in Massachusetts you're near Rhode Island...but it's wicked fah, so why bother going? :p

Grew up in CT, and now in MA.... I'm surrounding RI.

Why bother going? DUH - to go to Watch Hill after junior prom with your entire grade.... cause like, if you go over state lines, then the CT police can't get you for drinking on the beach at 16 years old... and cause like if you go to Misquamicut, it's like... public and you have to pay to park and it's crowded, but if you go to Watch Hill you can park on the road and walk down the totally not so secret secret path.....

My DH & I were headed for a convention in Boston, and decided to spend a few days in Rhode Island first. He had spent several summers there as a child, and I had spent more than a couple genealogical trips there (my gggrandparents got married at Fort Adams). We wanted to see so many places.

I asked him where he wanted to stay, and he said, "the whole state's less than 40 miles across, so we can stay just about anywhere." For some reason, I still find that terribly amusing.

As an undergrad, when we were bored, we would roll two dice and see how many states we could hit in that # of hours that we rolled. I think within 8 hours we hit MA (started and ended), NH, ME, VT, NY, NJ, PA, CT, RI, and back to MA.

I have family that lives in VA. When I was younger and lived in NH, it was a 9 hour drive to their house. In those 9 hours, we hit NH, MA, CT, NY, NJ, DE, MD, and VA. I just moved to TX and it blows my mind that depending on which way I go, I could drive for 9 hours here and not even make it out of the state!

When driving here from Jersey, there were parts that dragged on forever. I never thought I would make it out of Tennessee!

It may sound weird, but to me, it just feels like you're actually making progress when you're constantly crossing into other states. It feels like such an accomplishment when you see a "Welcome to..." sign.

I grew up in Central Illinois. When I moved to Charlotte, I accidentally ended up in South Carolina trying to get to the Carolina Place mall. I kinda panicked, since I was used to being REALLY lost if you ended up in another state. Turns out, I was about 5 minutes from where I was supposed to be.

Tennessee on an east-west journey is hella long. They told us in elementary school that the distance from the Tri Cities to Memphis if driven from Nashville would put us somewhere in Canada. No idea if that's actually true, but it's still crazy long.

Yea, I don't doubt that. I actually timed it... it was about 7 1/2 hours from one end of the state to the other.

I have to laugh at this distance discussion. When I first moved to Baltimore, people couldn't understand how much bigger Southern states were than Midatlantic and Northeastern states. When I would tell people I was from Louisiana, they would all gasp and ask how I got through Katrina (this was 2007). I'd respond that I lived in Shreveport at the time so I was fine since it was in the northern part of the state. They'd look funny at me, then I'd say, "That's 4 hours from New Orleans." No one could believe you could go 4 hours from New Orleans in Louisiana, but then again, most people think it's the only city in the state. ;)

It's so funny! And yet when I have to go more than 15 minutes anywhere I freak out about how far it is. I have such a small-state mentality. I would be incredibly happy if every state were Rhode Island-sized (even though there'd be two thousand of them)!

I tell people I've been to 27 states and their eyes bug out a little bit, then I remind them that you can do what you just described and blow through almost ten and they calm down a little bit.

Right after I graduated high school, my mom moved in with my stepdad in MA. When I was in college and would talk about going home to Massachusetts, EVERYONE asked me, "Are you from Boston?"

Apparently it's the only MA city that exists :)

I don't believe Western Massachusetts exists. It's like the North Dakota of New England. There's nothing past Worcester and I-495:p

Ha, this is true. I used to have to drive through western MA and upstate NY to get to school in PA. Longest. Drive. Ever.

We would get excited when we saw Oreo cows (that's what my mom would call the cows that are black with the white stripe around their stomachs). Every time it was my mom saying, "Oreo would be so smart to use those cows in their commercials.." LOL

Y'all are cracking me up but it reminded me of a college experience. I lived in the international dorm so there were these two guys from Germany on our floor. The first week of school, they were asking if anybody wanted to roadtrip to California for the weekend. We all just stared.. had to explain that was a 3-4 day drive. They couldn't believe it because they could drive through MANY countries in 3-4 days in Europe! They were so sad.

ETA: I'll be in Rhode Island the first weekend in November! College visit time for the boy!

Love RI! It's such a great place to go to school.. or to do just about anything. Tons of beaches! :)

Oreo cows! They have those near my grandma's house in southern Maine! We would always say hello to them as we drove by.

Hope he enjoys it! College Hill is a beautiful place at that time of year, but be prepared to hunt for parking. If you get the chance to pop through the Rhode Island School of Design art museum I'd highly recommend it, and the Providence Place Mall is also fun. My best friend goes to Brown and loves every minute of it:)

I'm from the Tri-Cities, and my mom would always say that if you flipped TN on the west end, we'd be in Crown Point, Indiana.

I loved Providence when I went there my D to visit Brown. We're flying into Providence, driving to Ithaca to see Cornell, then back to Providence to visit Brown and flying home. It sounds convoluted but it was the most economical way to see both in one trip.

Hey hey! NOT cool. I live outside 495 (by like.... 8 minutes) . Worcester is at least 15 minutes outside 495. The Pioneer Valley definitely exists. Oh how I miss the 413!

Having been born and raised in Berkshire County, I know full well that anything east of Springfield is "out near Boston".

You may be my fav GCer now, just for knowing Springfield exists. Everytime I told people I spent my summers in Tolland, they always assumed CT, not MA. Then they looked at me funny when I confirmed I was speaking of MA.

(Though I will add that I have to take a pile of students camping in Mt. Washington next weekend and have never heard of Mt. Washington, MA before.... I'm assuming super western MA?)

Any worthy New Englander knows about Springfield.. Only when they have tornadoes there do the Bruins win the Stanley Cup :p

I'm hoping for another one this year... which touches down in the middle of nowhere, causing no damage, injury, or fatalities, of course! ......

:) I feel like that was the year of screwy weather all together. Hurricanes leaving me without water or power for a week +, earthquake (seriously?!), freak October ice storm (also leaving me without heat, power, water for a week - but that was a good excuse to go to more Bruins games that week to stay warm), and tornado. Craziness.