Re: OT: the euro & 01.01.02 (was NATLANG/FONT:)

Quoting Anton Sherwood <bronto@...>:

> Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > PS I would much have prefered if the EU currency had got called
> _écu_
> > (homophonous pl _écus_) as earlier planned. Sounds good (if you can
> > pronunce that [y]!), have historical justification, is nice Abbrev,
> > and avoids that omnipresent "euro".
>
> Yeah, I liked <ecu> too (for awhile it was an acronym for European
> Currency Unit).  Apparently some saw it as French imperialism.
And such a charge would not be entirely unfounded.  The
French have for decades seen the goal of European integration
as a long-term means to thwart American hegemony, and until
very recently, tried to foist French-style statism onto the
rest of the European Community.  In doing so, they have both
profited monetarily (as the largest recipient of EU agricultural
subsidies) and been able to have a strong say in the internal
affairs of their neighbors through such institutions as the
European Court of Justice and the European Commission. It has
only been after the recent summit at Nice, when it was decided
that France and Germany were not, after all, going to maintain
electoral parity in the Parliament that you started hearing
mumbling about national autonomy and States'-Rights from
the French press.

It will be interesting to see what this phrase "Europe of
nation-states" (of which Herr Schröder is so fond) turns out
to mean in substance vis-a-vis "federal state".

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>

             "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
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