On Mon, 30 May 2011 23:04:41 +0200, Rikishi42 wrote: > On 2011-05-28, Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> wrote: >> I think it's geographic. This list covers a lot of geography; I'm in >> Australia, there are quite a few Brits, and probably the bulk of posts >> come from either the US or Europe. (And yes, I did deliberately fold >> all of Europe down to one entity, and I did also deliberately leave >> Great Britain out of that entity.) > > I allways found that odd. Especially if you're talking geography, not > politics. I can understand they want to be seen as independant, even > they are in it enough to allways opose anything someone else suggests. > :-) > > To me, saying the UK isn't part of Europe, is like saying Japan isn't > part of Asia. Oh by the way, I'm Belgian.
In my experience, the Japanese have the same attitude towards Asia as the British have towards Europe: they will claim membership, or deny it, depending on whichever suits their mood at the time. >> Most things work out that way. A thing gets a name based either on its >> implementation or on the brand name of the first/most popular one. If >> the only microwave oven ever produced had been made by Foobar Corp, and >> that company were not known for anything else, then quite possibly >> everyone would call them "foobar ovens". > > Yeah, when I was a kid a photo camera was called a Kodak. Sometimes brand names do become generic. "Personal Computer" once was a specific IBM model, not just a description. Elevator and escalator were once brandnames. In some parts of the southern USA, "coke" is used as a word for any softdrink, not just Coca Cola. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
