America and Americans / Europeans

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Thursday, February 21, 2002 10:16 pm -0600 Donald M Lance
<lancedm at MISSOURI.EDU> wrote:


> 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

Hmm.  I grew up thinking Britain wasn't in Europe because continents are
land masses, and Britain's a separate island.  (I'm now aware of
definitions of continents based on sub-ground geological boundaries--plates
or whatever.)

In Britain, there are plenty of people who think of themselves as European
(although not 'continental').  When making comparisons to Americans,
they'll say "well, since we're European...".  But largely
Euro-identification here is a political thing.  If you're in favor of the
EU (and, more than likely, adoption of the Euro) you consider yourself
European as well as British (and/or English, Scottish, etc.).  If you're
more of an isolationist, you're British but not European.

Lynne

Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320