Re: America and Canada (was Re: Installing Panther on B/W G3)

[Jeff Blakeney <CUTjblakeney@sympatico.ca>]

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 07:51:41 -0500, Sheldon Simms
<sheldonsimms@yahoo.com> wrote:

>That's the point. You say that, but Germans commonly count North and
>South America as one continent and say that there are five continents:
>
> Europe
> Asia
> Afrika
> America
> Antarctica/Australia (take your pick)

Well, I lived in Germany for four years back in the 80's and back
then, we made sure everyone knew we were Canadian and not "American"
as there were quite a few people there that didn't much care for
people from the US but liked Canadians just fine.

>I don't think it's "wrong" to say that Canadians are Americans. In
>fact, it's obviously a true statement. The problem is just that it
>is just asking for trouble in English since "American" is so commonly
>used to mean "US-American".

I still contend that it is more correct to say that Canadians are
North Americans as opposed to just plain Americans.  Yes, Canada is
part of the Americas but most people get referred to by the continent
or country that they are from and not a collection of places.

Besides, what do you propose we call people from the US?  People from
Canada are Canadians, people from Mexico are Mexicans, people from
Brazil are Brazilians so what should we call people from the United
States of America?  United Statesians?  :-)

>And once we get that US/Canada postal union, we can all sit around
>the campfire, swap stamps and celebrate our Northamericanness.

I've never heard anything about this.  Are the Canadian and US postal
services trying to merge or something?

-- 
 Jeff Blakeney - Dean of the Apple II University in the
                 Apple II Community on Syndicomm.com
 CUT the obvious from my address if you want to e-mail me