Re: OT: Notice of Revocation of Independence

On Sun, Dec 12, 2004 at 06:44:05PM -0500, # 1 wrote:
> Two oceans?
> Arctic, Atlantic, Indian and Pacific it makes four.
Yes, of course.  Five, if you count the Antarctic separately.  And
some would further divide the Atlantic and Pacific into North and South,
which makes seven and may be the origin of the "Seven Seas"
phrase.  But then again, there's physically only one ocean, as they all
connect . . .


> and there are thousands of seas!
In reality, sure - at least potentially; I'm not sure about "thousands",
but certainly hundreds.  At any rate, I was referring to "the Seven
Seas", which is a set phrase in English referring to all the seas and
oceans of the world.    You can learn more about the phrase's history
here, if you're curious:

        http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/m7sea.html

But my goal was just to point out how arbitrary all these designations
and enumerations are.

-Marcos

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