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Re: Father/Motherland

From:Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
Date:Thursday, May 25, 2000, 23:33
Padraic Brown wrote:

> On Thu, 25 May 2000, Nik Taylor wrote: > > >Christophe Grandsire wrote: > >> One of the > >> symbols of France is the cock (the animal of course :)) ) which is clearly > >> male, while the second (more related to the Republic but still very > >> important) is Marianne, a woman. > > > >We have the Statue of Liberty, a woman, but also Uncle Sam, a man, and > >the Bald Eagle, which, at least to me, seems masculine. > > We also have (plain) Liberty, an anthropomorphic personification, > who used to show up on our money. Only one version was a fellow, > while all the rest were (generally scantily clad) women. > > One thing I've been pondering while this thread has gone on: > I can't _ever_ recall referring to the USA or ever hearing it > referred to as either Motherland or Fatherland. Though both > are clearly part of the lexicon. The only times I've ever come > across the term (in the US) is in relation to Britain.
Perhaps because for almost everyone here it was not historically the motherland/fatherland? Even today, a good 7% or so of the population was not born here. I'd imagine "motherland" or "fatherland" would be rare in Canada for the same reasons. =========================================== Tom Wier <artabanos@...> "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero." ===========================================