[krisoft]

> "Man, I went to NYC once and got stuck in traffic on that stupid highway that goes up and down the coast of Brooklyn, what was the name of that thing?"

I lived in NYC for a year and I have no clue. My answer would be probably something along the line of "Haha! Yeah. Traffic is terrible in the city... or so do my friends with cars say. I for one take the subway everywhere, so no clue what you are talking about. But sounds like a pain! Hope you were not delayed too long."

> It's just like the bar scene in Inglorious Bastards, with the fingers.

The problem is that's a work of fiction. These shibboleth tests work great in fiction where the author has full control over the whole universe. Work less well in reality where "universal" signals turn out to be a lot less universal. You will have a ton of false positives and a ton of false negatives.

[AlexeyBelov]

You would presumably be able to answer questions about the subway then.

[krisoft]

I could answer questions about the lines I used, yes. Doesn’t mean that I studied the subway maps.

But my point is that the “everyone in X calls Y Z” kind of trivia is not reliable way to say if someone is in X. For example because not everyone in X is native to X. Also because many would use the proper and official name of the landmark in an interview setting.