[Freeciv-Dev] Re: U.S.A

[Ben Webb <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(snipped for brevity)
On Mon, 4 Jun 2001, martin.mcmahon wrote:

> On 04-Jun-01, Trent Piepho wrote:
> > I think the name for England is wrong. It should be United Kingdom +
> > Ireland. The people name is wrong too, is should be limey. limey = arrogant
> > twit from the UK who thinks that they should tell people what they call
> > their country or themselves.
> Just a few points that need to be cleared up,
> 1. United Kingdom is the countries England and Scotland and Wales and northern
> Ireland,the republic of Ireland is not part of the uk.

Clarification 1: the OP said "United Kingdom + Ireland". That does not
imply that the UK includes the Republic of Ireland.

Clarification 2: FreeCiv covers civilisations throughout history. The Act
of Union (forming the UK) was signed in 1801, encompassing England,
Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The Republic of Ireland was formed in 1922.
Thus, while it is true that Ireland is not part of the UK _today_, it has
been for longer than it hasn't, taking known history as a whole. (No
flames, please - this is a factual, not political, statement. I fully
support Ireland's independence, and devolution for Scotland and Wales for
that matter.)

> 2. the meaning  yankee is not my personal comment on this just what the world
> standard dictionary says not me.If its wrong to use yankee then we we wont
> use it  no need for the above.

        I'm not sure what you mean by "World standard" dictionary. For a
"UK standard" what about the Oxford dictionary? That says:-

Yankee,n.  1. (informal) an American.
           2. (Amer.) an inhabitant of the northern States of the USA,
              especially New England.

        "Informal" is the polite Oxford way of saying "rude". So I don't
think it's appropriate to use the British English meaning of Yankee,
particularly when the American English definition is so different. (See
http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=yankee for Webster's
theories on the origins of "Yankee".)

BTW, the definition for "American" (in British English) is:-

American,n. 1. a native of America.
            2. a citizen of the USA.

        Welcome to the ambiguity that is the English language. However, in
my experience, the British invariably mean definition 2 when they say
"American". (If we wanted to talk about some other inhabitant of the
Americas, we'd say "Canadian" or "Mexican" etc.)

Er, so I support leaving the ruleset the way it is. ;)

P.S. I doubt that the definition given for "Limey" is the correct one!

        Ben
-- 
ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx           http://bellatrix.pcl.ox.ac.uk/~ben/
"'In a sense,' he said, 'you're alone here, so if jump you best jump far'"