Re: CHAT: postcodes

> Inquit I. Cowan:
>
> Stephen Mulraney scripsit:
>
> > There are also some odd UK postcodes for Islands and in-fact-dependant
> > "Independent" states:
> > ZE Shetland Islands
> > JE Jersey
> > IM Isle of Man
>
> Don't tell them they are "dependent" states.
Indeed. As I wrote this I was sure I would get into trouble for my
sloppiness, especially mixing ZE with IM, JE & GY. However since
my chiding came in the form of (1) a statement of what I already
know and should have uttered (the first sentence) and (2) a further
elaboration which is completely new to me and most interesting, I
think my laxity has nat gang awry. I'm not even sure what I meant by
"in-fact-dependent". It is true that they rely on the UK for defense and
to some extent, foreign policy, but that doesn't seem very important.
Perhaps if the land mass of Great Britain were to vanish, they would
be a little flustered; but their tax-haven status would protect them
economically anyhow.

Nonce spelling error noted too. I generally remember ambiguous sounding
unstressed vowels in latinate words by thinking of the Latin declension
they arise from, via their infinitive. It works suprisingly well:
it's obvious that "*[de]pendare" is wrong while "[de]pendere" is right.
For some reason I can't put my finger on.

>                                              I can't speak for the
> Shetlands, but Jersey (and Guernsey) and Man pay no U.K. taxes, have
> omnicompetent local legislatures, and (in the case of the Channel
> Islands) acknowledge no authority in Parliament, or even in the
> Crown as such.
> They answer only to the Duke of Normandy for the time being (viz.
> Elizabeth II) whose ducal will is expressed through her Privy Council,
> and their own States.
What are their own states? And in what way is their answering to the
Duke of Normandy provisional?

> county of Middlesex, as usual.  (In the formal words of an indictment,
> piracy was formerly committed "on the high seas in the county of Middlesex".)
What a wonderful formula!

s.

--
A billion saved is a billion earned.  -- Norman Augustine

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