Re: CHAT: The [+foreign] attribute

Quoting Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>:

> Thomas Wier wrote:
> >Seriously, though, it depends on what you mean by "world", and what
> >you mean by "Europe".  I'd say that if you count Eastern Europeans,
> >that'd be hard to maintain. Also, Europeans live in a physically
> >smaller space, and like everyone else on the planet are more likely
> >to know about the geography of smaller spaces.
>
> I assume you mean Western Europeans here? Europe is, by most definitions of
> the Europe-Asia border, a bit bigger than the US.
Actually, depending on context, "Europe" is quite frequently
in English language publications meant to refer to the major centers
of production and wealth, namely, most countries in Western Europe.
It also subsequently often means something like "the E.U.".  I was
simply pointing out that by the textbook definition that you have
just now brought up, Europe is considerably less educated as a whole
than you'd expect if all you studied was Paris and London.  (The
Communists, to be sure, did stress education, but this tended to
affect only the city-dwellers.  Peasants, which never went entirely
extinct in Eastern Europe, continued to have far lower levels of
education.)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637