Re: Father/Motherland

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.

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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