xkcd.WTF!?

Explanation ➲

Many songs, particularly those written by Americans, contain the word "America." Randall has listed 6 such songs: "America the Beautiful", "God Bless America", Neil Diamond's "America", "America" from the Broadway musical West Side Story, the Guess Who's "American Woman" and Green Day's "American Idiot". These songs usually either praise the United States for its perceived virtues or mock it for its perceived flaws. Regardless of the content of the song, one could likely sing such songs replacing each usage of the word "America" or "American" with another four-syllable word or phrase with emphasis on the second syllable, without disrupting the cadence or meter of the song. Words and phrases like this are said to "scan" with the word "America," which means to conform to that metrical pattern.

The comic provides a list of such names, most of which are locations. While some share virtues or flaws with the United States, most would fit into songs about the United States poorly, and only some are prominent enough to justify a song praising or mocking them. So the substitution is humorous for most of the examples. Other examples include Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Liberia, Nigeria, Bolivia, Siberia, Somalia, Albania, Bulgaria, Colombia, Cambodia, Armenia, Australia, Estonia, Mongolia, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, South Africa, El Salvador, the Alamo, the Netherlands, and the Philippines.

Note that inhabitants of some real-world locations mentioned in this comic do not pronounce their names in a way that scans with "America". Also note that the adjective form of many of the places listed either does not exist or does not fit the same rhythmic structure as "American". (For instance, while "Antarctican Idiot" scans with "American Idiot", "St. Petersburgian Idiot" does not; meanwhile, "Canada" does not scan with "America", but "Canadian" does scan with "American" and was in fact used as such in Weird Al's parody, "Canadian Idiot".) In these cases, it would be necessary to use the noun form of the name to preserve the song's meter.

The title text provides an example: substituting "Jurassic Park" for "America" in the song "America the Beautiful".

A similar comparison in "scanning" was made in 1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Table of names matching the rythmic meter of America

Name	Description
Map
Sasketchewan	Spelled incorrectly, should be Saskatchewan. A province in Canada, whose capital is Regina and largest city is Saskatoon.
Ontario	The largest Canadian province by population and 2nd largest by total area. Includes the capital of Canada, Ottawa, and its largest city, Toronto.
Olympia	Capital of the state of Washington.
Yosemite	National park in the state of California. Pronounced "yoh-SEM-ih-tee" (/joʊ.'sɛ.mɪ.ˌti/).
Los Angeles	Largest city in the state of California, and 2nd largest city in the United States. There is another city under the same name in the state of Texas.
Lake Michigan	One of the five Great Lakes in the United States. Borders the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.
Peoria	The county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, and the largest city on the Illinois River. The oldest permanent European settlement in Illinois, according to the Illinois State Archaeological Survey.
Columbia (MO)	Fourth largest city in the state of Missouri. One of many cities in the US named after Columbia.
Montpelier	The capital of the state of Vermont, which is a three syllable word pronounced mont-PEEL-yur and thus is erroneously on this list.[citation needed] However, the demonym "Montpelierite" is in fact four syllables so it can be used for the "American" songs.
Schenectady	City in Schenectady County, New York. In the 19th century, nationally influential companies and industries developed in Schenectady, including General Electric and American Locomotive Company (ALCO).
Centralia	Near-ghost town in central Pennsylvania due to a long running mine fire burning beneath the town.
Annapolis	Capital city of the state of Maryland and home to the United States Naval Academy.
Columbia (SC)	Capital of the state of South Carolina. One of many cities in the US named after Columbia.
Vidalia	City in the state of Georgia, known for their Vidalia onions. Vidalia may not actually scan to "America", as it is pronounced "vy-DALE-yuh", not "vy-DALE-ee-ah" or "vee-DAHL-ee-ah".
Acadia	National park in the state of Maine.
Connecticut	US State, whose capital is Hartford and largest city is Bridgeport.
LaGuardia	One of the three major airports in New York City metropolitan area, named after former mayor Fiorello La Guardia. The West Side Story song in question was performed on February 29, 2020 on Saturday Night Live. The airport was described in 2014 by Joe Biden as being like a third-world country.
Virginia Beach	Most populous city in the state of Virginia. Name is pronounced with five syllables when speaking formally, Ver-gin-ee-a Beach, but speaking quickly can be squashed into Ver-gin-ya.
The Villages	An unincorporated senior living community in the state of Florida. Notable for its local newspaper, The Villages Daily Sun, which was the only top 25 American newspaper (by circulation) to show growth in 2022.[1]
St. Petersburg	The fifth largest city in the state of Florida. Part of the Tampa Bay metropolitan area.
Miami Beach	A coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, across the bay from the city of Miami.
Below the map
Algeria	A country in North Africa. The largest and the 9th most populated country on the continent of Africa. Bordered to the northeast by Tunisia; to the east by Libya; to the southeast by Niger; to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; to the west by Morocco; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea.
Armenia	A landlocked country located in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region. Singing "God bless Armenia" may anger some Calvinists who mishear the song.
Monrovia	The capital city of the West African country of Liberia.
Brasilia	The federal capital of the country of Brazil and Brazil's 3rd populous city. Actually spelled Brasília.
Australia	A country which comprises the mainland of the continent of Australia. The world's sixth largest country by area.
Valencia	The 3rd most populous city in the country of Spain.
Byzantium	An ancient Greek city and capital of the Byzantine Empire. Its name was changed to New Rome in 324, Constantinople in 330, and finally Istanbul in 1930.
Assyria	An major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state and then a territorial state and eventually an empire. The Assyrian Empire fell to the Babylonians and Medes in the late 7th century BC.
Beringia	A prehistoric land mass and region in the Bering Sea region. It is the most popular site of the hypothesized "land bridge" that early humans used to migrate to the Americas.
Antarctica	The earth's southernmost and least-populated continent, mostly covered by ice.
Sokovia	A fictional country in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Described to be in eastern Europe between Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Its capital city is destroyed during a battle between Ultron and the Avengers in the film Avengers: Age of Ultron, leading to the ratification of the Sokovia Accords.
Andromeda	Several things: a constellation in space, a galaxy within that constellation, or the Greek mythological character whom the constellation and galaxy are named after.
Lothlorien	A realm of the elves in Middle-earth in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Ruled by Galadriel and Celeborn. Actually spelled Lothlórien in the books.
Subnautica	Not a place, but an open-world survival action-adventure video game developed and published by Unknown Worlds Entertainment released in 2018.
The Metaverse	The online world of virtual reality. (To substitute into American Idiot, the singer could use "don't wanna be a Metaverse Idiot" or "The Metaverse idiot".)
EconoLodge	Actually spelled Econo Lodge, though their wordmark doesn't help. An economy motel chain in the US and Canada.
Jurassic Park (title text)	Jurassic Park is the titular theme park of cloned dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park franchise of books, films, and other media. Inevitably, the dinosaurs escape and attack humans.