It never ceases to amaze me how little nationalists know about their own countries.I keep seeing them referring to Great Britain in a manner which shows that they believe the Great in Great Britain has something to do with greatness, rather than it being a geographical designation for the largest land mass of the British Isles, which excludes Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Hebrides, the Orkneys and several hundred other islands.
They witter on about Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory, yet know not a single word of these songs beyond the eponymous, opening refrain. They're apoplectic about the erosion of their culture - a culture they're almost entirely, demonstrably and lamentably ignorant of.
None of them could Morris Dance to save their lives and invariably prefer a bottle of filthy, foreign lager to a nice, warm pint of British beer. They will steadfastly refuse to speak French in France, ignorant of the fact that every word in English that ends in 'able' is French.
For God's sake - their royal house is primarily German.
None of them could Morris Dance to save their lives and invariably prefer a bottle of filthy, foreign lager to a nice, warm pint of British beer. They will steadfastly refuse to speak French in France, ignorant of the fact that every word in English that ends in 'able' is French.
For God's sake - their royal house is primarily German.
Britain's culture is a melange created by a number of waves of immigration by refugees and invaders from continental Europe - Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Heuguenots, Jews, etc. The place names themselves show settlements to have continental origins - any town or village ending with 'by', for example, was originally a Danish settlement; any ending in 'ton' was Saxon and any ending in 'caster', or one of its variants, was Roman. Our different words for animals and their cooked meat demonstrate the Norman-French influence at the high table. Many surnames bear the trace of continental origin.
Don't tell them though - they'll explode.
Yesterday I was listening the Radio 4's The Long View, where people come together to analyse past events from 1st hand experience. The subject under discussion was British Leyland and British volume car manufacturing. The final analysis showed that its demise was due to an unwillingness to change its culture in the face of changing times. Ironic for a culture that's a mix of other cultures.
The culture that doesn't evolve simply stultifies and dies.
Don't tell them though - they'll explode.
Yesterday I was listening the Radio 4's The Long View, where people come together to analyse past events from 1st hand experience. The subject under discussion was British Leyland and British volume car manufacturing. The final analysis showed that its demise was due to an unwillingness to change its culture in the face of changing times. Ironic for a culture that's a mix of other cultures.
The culture that doesn't evolve simply stultifies and dies.
2 comments:
Two thirds of English words are the same in French, only difference is the accent.. (not rocket science)
Great Britain is called that to distinguish it from Little Britain, which is Brittany in France.
There's also a street called Little Britain in the City. It's where Barts Hospital is located. I don't know the origin of the street name. Do you?
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