the boundaries of language

Earlier this evening, my younger brother was watching a documentary called 'Trawlermen' about fishermen from Peterhead in the north-east of Scotland, and I happened to catch the last 10 minutes of it. (For the record, I don't regularly read fishupdate.com; I googled for something about the show). They showed the progress of some of the fish caught by the Scottish fishermen to restaurants and markets down in London and other parts of England.

One market scene showed a man trying to convince a woman to buy one of the fish. She asked him where it was caught, and he told her Scotland. Her reply was absolutely extraordinary. She said (this isn't word for word, but it's close enough): 'Scotland? But they don't have any seas in Scotland. Just mountains.'

What? I'm all for a principle of charity, but I'm at a bit of a loss to interpret this in any way that gives this woman a reasonable belief.

Labels: Misc