Re: OT: Notice of Revocation of Independence

On 13 Dec 2004, at 10.44 am, # 1 wrote:

> Two oceans?
> Arctic, Atlantic, Indian and Pacific it makes four.
I count four too, but a different four: Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and
Southern. I imagine the Arctic is beneath a lot of ice? Funny how I
forget a major ocean in the northern hemisphere and you a major one in
the southern.

> Are English oceans different of the frensh ones?
> It makes too much things different
No, the two oceans, seven seas thing is a really old division that has
no bearing on reality as I know it apart from in old literature from
England.

> and there are thousands of seas!
> Any salted water that is not an ocean is a sea, no?
No. There are plenty of salt-water lakes that aren't seas. I believe
Lake Eyre in South Australia is an example. On the other hand, there's
also freshwater seas such as the Sea of Galilee. Harbors aren't seas,
though generally they're saltwater bodies that aren't oceans (but if I
go down that track, I'll eventually get to the pot of boiling water you
plan on putting pasta into, which is obviously not what you meant).

> About America, if we say North-America, South America, and
> Central-America, it's because they are the North and the South
> of something: America.
Well, in Holland there's North Brabant, but you'll be hard pressed to
locate the rest of Brabant on a map of Holland (or at least, I couldn't
find it when I looked yesterday). I believe the reason I say 'North
America' is because if I say that, people know what I mean, whereas if
I said 'Cachimic', no-one would know what I was talking about. A
similar logic applies to describing the two continents as 'the
Americas' or 'North and South America' when one needs to discuss them
together, while reserving the word 'America' to what it conventionally
means i.e. the US.

I seem to recall you recently, like in the very same post, observing
that 'there are so much definitions that are diferent in languages'. I
don't demand that you use it, just that you accept it.

> When Colomb disovered America it was in the region of Cuba and in
> South-America...
He's called 'Columbus' in English (and Latin).

--
Tristan.