this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
117 points (91.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

40950 readers
1061 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

As a non-American, I'm very confused by this. If it's a town, it's not rural by definition. Because, you-know, it's urban.

Also, could we get a definition of town vs small town. Do you not have the concept of a village? (Village in the UK would be a settlement with a population of a couple of thousand, with usually a pub, local shop, maybe a post office and primary school if you're lucky).

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] leadore@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

As a non-American, I’m very confused by this. If it’s a town, it’s not rural by definition. Because, you-know, it’s urban.

A rural town is a very small town or populated area within a large rural area. The US is a huge country, with very large swaths of rural areas throughout, especially west of the Mississippi. In these large rural areas are scattered small towns of various sizes (say, less than a hundred to less than a thousand or so people), with long stretches of unpopulated (or very sparsely populated) areas between them. That's why they're called rural towns--no one would call them "urban" by any stretch of the imagination. They may have the things you mentioned (a post office and bar/pub/eatery) but not much more. But even if you're technically in a town, you are still effectively rural, since you're nowhere near a significant population center with anything like hospitals/doctors, shopping, services, etc., and a car is required to reach them (no public transit and much too far to walk or bike). Look at online maps to get the idea.

As for the word "village", that's mostly used in the NE part of the country and tends to have a bit more specific definition. Elsewhere, most of us would just say "town".

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

(edit: I was unaware of how prevalent legal village usage is in NY, but here's my original comment)
I don't think anyone really uses the term "village" in the NE unless it already exists as the specific name of the municipality or neighborhood (or they're being cheeky). Maybe I'm too far into the metro-area suburbs, but not one village I know would classify as a village by OP's definition. I don't think Americans believe they have villages because they picture 3rd world huts, medieval towns, or eastern European towns with dirt roads.

[–] halowpeano@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I don't know about other states, but in upstate New York a village is a legal entity that is a defined area within a town. A town is a subdivision of a county.

In other states, I think they don't fully subdivide counties. So every person in one of those states either lives in an unincorporated part of a county, or a town/city. Those who live unincorporated are only governed by the county, while those in towns/cities are governed by both town and county.

So in New York there are no unincorporated parts of counties. Everyone lives in a town, which is part of a county. Some people may also live in villages, which are areas in towns.

Edit: for example, the village of Seneca Falls is in the town of Seneca Falls, which is in the county of Romulus.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Alright, I'm fascinated. Ironically, all the villages I know are in NY, but more so NYC/Long Island and the immediate area. I don't read many signs north of there because the trees look too damn pretty when I visit. I assumed they were legacy names but I'm probably standing corrected

[–] leadore@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I only know about the existence of villages in NY state because my brother lives in one and had to explain to me what constitutes a village vs. a town--I still don't really get it! - which is why I said the term may have a more specific definition. So yeah, it may not be a commonly used or understood term even in the NE. In any case, I'm sure it's used differently here than in the UK, like many things.

[–] bitchkat@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

We have cities named "Village of St Anthony". I guess it's to be quaint