At 08:20 PM 10/25/2000 -0500, Jerry Liles (responding to Gregg Iverson) wrote:
>Gregg Iverson wrote:
>>
>> Last I heard Canada was still in (North) America! But somehow we folks
>> from the USA have acquired the name "Americans".
>>
>> Gregg
>
>I guess that's because United Statesians is just too awkward. Maybe
>Colombians would be better? Naw, already taken. As a true son of the
>South I refuse to be called a Yankee. Guess we're stuck with American,
>with apologies to all the other "Americans" north and south of the USA.
Heh.
As a Canuck, I don't normally care about these issues, but I had an amusing
couple of encounters in Europe last year -- one with a German, one with an
Aussie, and one with a group of Brits in Cambridge. All of them called me an
"American," and when I politely corrected them and told them I was a Canadian,
they said, in effect, "So what's the difference? Aren't you all Americans?"
To the German I replied, "Yeah, you're right, all German-speaking people in
Europe are just Austrians, really," and to the Aussie I said, "Yeah, you're
right, you're all just Kiwis, right Sheila?"
And the Brits? "Yeah, you're right, you're all just Welshmen."
All of them immediately "got it" and apologized. 8^>
Regional differences may be so subtle as to be almost undetectable to
"outsiders" (however defined), but they're still *real*.
Garth
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