America and Americans / Europeans

[Dennis R. Preston]

Just another student who never heard of Zeno.

dInIs

>I have a student from Arkansas, who insists that Arkansas is in the
>Midwest.  Her logic--Arkansas is next to Missouri and Missouri is in
>the Midwest.
>Fritz
>
>>>>  "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU> 02/22/02 04:31AM >>>
>My regards to Don for bringing this question back to the only area of
>interest (at least for this list) - namely, the empirical one of what
>people think rather than "official" one (whatever that might be,
>although the relations between the two are often interesting). Carmen
>Fought (Pitzer College) has reported to me recently that she has had
>no success in convincing some of her undergraduates that there is no
>"real" answer to the question "Where is the Midwest?"
>
>dInIs
>
>>on 2/21/02 9:13 PM, Laurence Horn at laurence.horn at YALE.EDU wrote:
>>
>>>   At 7:29 PM -0500 2/21/02, David Bergdahl wrote:
>>>>   "Are Finns Europeans?"
>>>>
>>>>   I'd say yes: the dividing line in the north is the Urals.
>>>>   ___________________
>>>   Whether or not they're Scandinavians is a bit trickier.  I'm told
>>>   (that is, I was told by Finns when I was in Helsinki) that
>>>   technically they aren't, although most non-Finns consider them to be.
>>>   (It's a geographical, rather than cultural or linguistic, parameter
>>>   that's crucial.)
>>>
>>>   larry
>>>
>>The intention of my question was "What would an American think or say?"  For
>>many Americans, Mexico would be in Central America and England would be in
>>Europe.
>>DMLance
>
>--
>Dennis R. Preston
>Department of Linguistics and Languages
>Michigan State University
>East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
>preston at pilot.msu.edu
>Office: (517)353-0740
>Fax: (517)432-2736