u.k. and rest of europe

[identity]

people,
i have often read/heard brits saying "i had been on the Continent for a week" or sentences to that effect. why do they refer to the rest of europe as 'The Continent" when brtain itself is surely part of it?

[Don]

people,
i have often read/heard brits saying "i had been on the Continent for a week" or sentences to that effect. why do they refer to the rest of europe as 'The Continent" when brtain itself is surely part of it?

Island.

La mancha channel.

http://www.expansys.es/j/6c/images/generic/group/europe_map_02.png

[Aviane]

The U.K is a Island even though its apart of Europe but still is only slightly out of the continent so this is why they refer to other Euros as Continental Europeans.

[Graham]

People here can say they're going to Europe, when leaving the UK for the mainland aswell :P. There was a newspaper that once used this headline "Fog in Channel; Continent Cut Off".

[Raikaswinþs]

Because the British Isles are a little world of their own. Their way of life is strikingly different from continental europeans.

Spaniards,French-men and Poles are much more alike between themselves than they are with Brits (in terms of how British society works)

You can say that the UK is "the northern Babylon"

[Comte Arnau]

Because the British Isles are a little world of their own. Their way of life is strikingly different from continental europeans.

Spaniards,French-men and Poles are much more alike between themselves than they are with Brits (in terms of how British society works)

You can say that the UK is "the northern Babylon"

Hmmm, as if Iberia was not a world of its own, lol. It's thousands of times you hear Spaniards say 'the Europeans', as if it was something out there, somewhere beyond the Pyrenees...

I guess it's due to the peripherical position, that's all. That's actually why France and Germany are seen as the core (called by some Old Europe), simply because their central position have made them central too at any event that's taken place in Europe with a relevance in the whole continent. Outside the core, the peripheral areas (the southern peninsulas, the British Isles, Scandinavia or the Eastern lands -geographically speaking) are all, in one way or another, a world of their own.

[antonio]

I agree. Although British position seem to include a certain high-bred sense of proud and superiority, whilst Spanish uneducated typical one is a kind of "we're different, we had nothing in common with them, they're richer than us, but we're better, don't ask me why, but we're better than them", "guiris", etc... it's more of an inferiority sense, like f.e. the subjacent in Latin-kings cultural artifacts vs Spaniards. But, on Amerindians case is a comprehensible one, but former it's nasty for its falseness, a sort of projection from the moronic individual into the worthy community (cree el ladrón que todos son de su condición).

[Osweo]

Britons, Russians, Iberians, and Scandinavians all say 'Europe' as though it were another place. Maybe the Balkans do too? Peninsular Italy? :p

[Electronic God-Man]

Britons, Russians, Iberians, and Scandinavians all say 'Europe' as though it were another place. Maybe the Balkans do too? Peninsular Italy? :p

Yes, it appears the only ones who can't get out of it are the French and Germans.

I suppose they just don't like to think of themselves lumped up with everyone else.

[poiuytrewq0987]

Because the British Isles are a little world of their own. Their way of life is strikingly different from continental europeans.

Spaniards,French-men and Poles are much more alike between themselves than they are with Brits (in terms of how British society works)

You can say that the UK is "the northern Babylon"

Hmm I think Britain is more like Little America thus the reason why Britain feels so different from continental Europe.

[Germanicus]

Hmm I think Britain is more like Little America thus the reason why Britain feels so different from continental Europe.

Britain does'nt feel anything at all like continental Europe because we are an island race, the population on the whole does'nt need to learn European languages because the rest of the world has to learn English to be able to keep up with the English speakers of the world...like you yourself Lbre, a mexican/spaniard/portugese. on an English speaking forum?

[identity]

thanks for the replies people.

[Hussar]

Britons, Russians, Iberians, and Scandinavians all say 'Europe' as though it were another place. Maybe the Balkans do too? Peninsular Italy? :p


Brief note : an effective description of difference between northern and central-southern Italy is just based on the them of this thread : northern Italy consider itself as a fringe of "continental Europe". The reast of the country thanks its peninsular nature, is perceived as part of "mediterranean Europe".

[Hussar]

Britain does'nt feel anything at all like continental Europe because we are an island race, the population on the whole does'nt need to learn European languages because the rest of the world has to learn English to be able to keep up with the English speakers of the world...like you yourself Lbre, a mexican/spaniard/portugese. on an English speaking forum?


Right. And the fact they joined European Union is the most strikingly example of opportunistic policy of Great Britain. They joined U.E. ......not because they believe in it, but because they don't want to be OUT of it (out of the business called "Europe"). The right punishment would be to loose gradually everything : the currency, the armed forces the hymn and the Union Jack in favour of an hipothetical correspective under the pan European blue flag.

[Don]

Right. And the fact they joined European Union is the most strikingly example of opportunistic policy of Great Britain. They joined U.E. ......not because they believe in it, but because they don't want to be OUT of it (out of the business called "Europe"). The right punishment would be to loose gradually everything : the currency, the armed forces the hymn and the Union Jack in favour of an hipothetical correspective under the pan European blue flag.


English is spoken nowadays, even by us (to my personal and intellectual enrichment), not because of England, but because of USA.

[Eins Zwei Polizei]

Britons, Russians, Iberians, and Scandinavians all say 'Europe' as though it were another place. Maybe the Balkans do too? Peninsular Italy? :p

A proposal found among a collection of more or less facetious documents circulated in some military staff which stirred up a controversy:

"Northern Italy" (North of Po River)
"Southern Italy" (South of Po River)

-- Europe Channel --

"Black Continent"

http://www.repubblica.it/misc/zibaldone/78/imma.jpg

[Peyrol]

Peninsular Italy? :p

Also Sicilian and Sardininan people say "The Continent", "the mainland" or also "the boot" to refer to Italian peninsula.

[Aviane]

The U.K as someone has just said is a island so it's for definite that Britons don't feel like being apart of Europe, even when supposed to be closely related to some populations in Northwestern Europe like Northwestern France (Brittany and perhaps Normandy-Channel Islands) which is more part of Continental Europe like all rest of the other countries.

Continental Europeans are atleast more kint together than what the U.K is in that sense, plus Britons are very much picked buy most of these Continentals (except maybe some certain Northwestern Europeans).

[identity]

appreciate your posting cleemont

[Joe McCarthy]

gThe answer to this question is rather simple, though it isn't something that those apt to indulge in wishful thinking wish to here. Historically, Britain's national existence has revolved around suspicion and fear emanating from events on the Continent, and its policy has been one of keeping any one power on the Continent from getting too strong. It also has much stronger historical ties with certain non-European states than it does with literally all of the Continent, other than perhaps Portugal, and to this day public opinion in those non-European countries is almost uniformly more pro-British than in Continental nations.

[The Lawspeaker]

You clearly don't know what you're talking about (as always). Things did change a bit since Nelson got his leg blown off at Trafalgar.

Right.. first of all: the English are (for a large part) of Germanic descent and for most of the Middle Ages were the English (the Scots even more - the Scots were very pro-French and very anti-English) much involved with the Continent. Let's just use the Hundred Year's war as an example when England also claimed (and perhaps rightfully so) Aquitaine and Normandy.. after all it had been the Normans that had conquered England in 1066 and the English saw it as part of their Kingdom) .

The English were also very much involved indeed in the Hook and Cod wars in what would later become the Netherlands and in the Eighty Year's War and it would be fair to say that we won that war thanks to their interventions. And also the during the 1600's and 1700's did the English/British and the Spanish and the British and the Dutch go muscle to muscle very often - mostly over sea-lanes and when it came to the Spanish over religion. The Dutch and the English being two of the same kind usually were interested in the very same colonies and the sea-lanes and that of course led to fierce competition and war.

Also in the 1700s the British fought several wars mainly against France and Spain - aided by Prussia and in the early 1700s the Netherlands.

The idea of "splended isolation" came up in the mid-19th century and is entirely artificial and evolved because the British became a world power and got thoroughly sick with the usual trouble on the Continent but the Continental Europeans themselves usually consider the British nation as one of their own.

The fact that you are trying to divide European nations is rather pathetic (divide et impera, I suppose). And it would be best for all of us if you, being American, and not at all related (other then maybe some cousin fifteen times removed) to Europe, should stay out of European affairs altogether.

[Joe McCarthy]

Civis, perhaps you'd care to humor us by chronicling the number of wars Britain has had with Canada and Australia compared to the Netherlands. While you're at it, add the US to the list.

[The Lawspeaker]

Let me make it very clear, Joe: visit Britain or shut up. I have been there a couple of times in my life and apart from the language the people remind me of the people in Holland of what would they would have been like some 30 years ago. Same kind of humour, same complete and utter lack of style, albeit less direct and in some cases more polite. English culture, in general, seems to be me very much like a prolongation of Germanic culture - yes Dutch culture even.

To stamp it even in harder: before World War II America didn't matter to us in any way. It was Britain that was influential.

Ms. Bouquet or should we say Bucket, is no longer there and was an artificial creation. The common Englishman is very different from what you think he is and let me make it even more clear to you: Europeans in general, in particularly those in the West, would feel more connected with the people of Britain then they do with the United States. Britain, all in all, reminds me very much of my own country some 30 years ago.


Civis, perhaps you'd care to humor us by chronicling the number of wars Britain has had with Canada and Australia compared to the Netherlands. While you're at it, add the US to the list.

These were wars of competition not of strive between peoples. The Canadians and the Brits never found themselves in the same sealanes fighting over the same colonies.

Let's look at the differences between the Continent and Britain: good.. the British use miles. So did we until Boney marched in and it dates back to the Romans. The British use Fahrenheit, we use Celsius. Exactly the same thing. The British use Imperial and we use metric. Well.. metric only appeared in the late 19th century for us. Until well in the 19th century we used a system very similar to Imperial and each city, province or sometimes even community had it's own system of measurement (although usually based on the same principles) and as a matter of fact: where do you think the Pound comes from ? It comes from the Germanic Franks, my "dear friend". And the decimal system that is now in use on the Continent as well as in Britain (since I think 1971) is an artificial system that was introduced here by the French.

It's a traditional European system that was preserved in Britain - for a part at least. British tea culture vs Continental coffee culture is also very recent - 19th century recent before that the poor drank beer and the rich drank Portuguese port or French wine and of course coffee was rather popular and coffee houses dotted London.

On to left-hand traffic versus right-hand traffic. Napoleon came up with the ridiculous idea of sending those countries he occupied to the right-hand side of the road. Guess where we were before that ?

Exactly.

So it would be very fair to say that Britain - or at least England- is more European then the rest of Europe itself as it preserved some of our oldest traditions and ways of life.

[Joe McCarthy]

I'm inclined to think that the Dutch have more in common with Britain than most any Continental country, which is sort of why I mentioned it. Even so, they've fought more wars with Britain than the US has, and while we're at it, I'm trying to remember all of those wars between Holland and the US that you act as if we had. Though now that I think of it, it was a Dutch slave ship that first brought niggers into my country...

[The Lawspeaker]

I'm inclined to think that the Dutch have more in common with Britain than most any Continental country, which is sort of why I mentioned it. Even so, they've fought more wars with Britain than the US has, and while we're at it, I'm trying to remember all of those wars between Holland and the US that you act as if we had. Though now that I think of it, it was a Dutch slave ship that first brought niggers into my country...
Ah did Savant tell you that ? Actually that wasn't the case either as we didn't bring slaves to the United States. We took them to the Antilles and Suriname. But if you claim otherwise you will hand over the ships name and the date of arrival and the name of the captain and trader involved right away lest you'd being laughed in the face.

On to the next point: America was irrelevant to us.. and should be today.

[The Lawspeaker]

Was there anything else ?

No ? Good.

[Albion]

Island.

La mancha channel.

http://www.expansys.es/j/6c/images/generic/group/europe_map_02.png

You seem to have made a slight spelling mistake, it's spelt "E N G L I S H.... C H A N N E L".


Right. And the fact they joined European Union is the most strikingly example of opportunistic policy of Great Britain. They joined U.E. ......not because they believe in it, but because they don't want to be OUT of it (out of the business called "Europe").

Because it was originally a trading block. The EU working towards being a federal entity was not part of the deal and the sooner people realise that the better.


The right punishment would be to loose gradually everything : the currency, the armed forces the hymn and the Union Jack in favour of an hipothetical correspective under the pan European blue flag.

What? Like Savoy you mean?


English is spoken nowadays, even by us (to my personal and intellectual enrichment), not because of England, but because of USA.

And I'm sure the British Empire played no part whatsoever in making it the language of international trade and commerce as well as the language of many former colonies eh?


Historically, Britain's national existence has revolved around suspicion and fear emanating from events on the Continent, and its policy has been one of keeping any one power on the Continent from getting too strong.

Basically because we had to be on guard because Europe was in constant flux, with the stronger countries trying to control the others at the expense of everybody else.


It also has much stronger historical ties with certain non-European states than it does with literally all of the Continent, other than perhaps Portugal, and to this day public opinion in those non-European countries is almost uniformly more pro-British than in Continental nations.

Australia, Canada, America, NZ, Chile, and the former colonies. Not all views are positive though, but strong relations exist.


Right.. first of all: the English are (for a large part) of Germanic descent and for most of the Middle Ages were the English (the Scots even more - the Scots were very pro-French and very anti-English) much involved with the Continent. Let's just use the Hundred Year's war as an example when England also claimed (and perhaps rightfully so) Aquitaine and Normandy.. after all it had been the Normans that had conquered England in 1066 and the English saw it as part of their Kingdom) .

A very good point. This interaction is why I don't see us as totally apart because we've never been totally apart from the continent.

However, once we lost that war we basically retreated to the island with our tail between our legs.
After the attempts to win France failed we turned to controlling the British Isles and expanding overseas more effectively and came to have a sort of siege mentality when threatened by the more powerful states on the continent.

England and France fell behind to the Hold Roman Empire during the 100 years war. Once we were practically defeated we had wasted a lot of money and resources on that conflict whilst other nations had surpassed us.
Our nearest neighbour, France hated our guts because of it and Spain and the Catholic powers weren't much better.

The Hanse exploited trade with Britain and we weren't in much of a position to argue with anyone. So England became a small, regional power in the Isles and expanded across the seas when it got the chance.
This overseas expansion is what revived England and made it able to challenge the powers of the continent and even intervene.


The English were also very much involved indeed in the Hook and Cod wars in what would later become the Netherlands and in the Eighty Year's War and it would be fair to say that we won that war thanks to their interventions. And also the during the 1600's and 1700's did the English/British and the Spanish and the British and the Dutch go muscle to muscle very often - mostly over sea-lanes and when it came to the Spanish over religion. The Dutch and the English being two of the same kind usually were interested in the very same colonies and the sea-lanes and that of course led to fierce competition and war.

Also in the 1700s the British fought several wars mainly against France and Spain - aided by Prussia and in the early 1700s the Netherlands.

Indeed, and it was the threat of the larger nations of Europe which led the English to develop these traits - a independent stance regarding England and a policy of supporting allies for the greater good on the continent.


The idea of "splended isolation" came up in the mid-19th century and is entirely artificial and evolved because the British became a world power and got thoroughly sick with the usual trouble on the Continent but the Continental Europeans themselves usually consider the British nation as one of their own.

Not entirely artificial, but this period in history did see the country grow weary of the conflicts on the continent as you've suggested.
The continent is so often in strife that you cannot really blame us. When we do get involved it is to maintain a balance between states.


The fact that you are trying to divide European nations is rather pathetic (divide et impera, I suppose). And it would be best for all of us if you, being American, and not at all related (other then maybe some cousin fifteen times removed) to Europe, should stay out of European affairs altogether.

Britain balances relations between Europe and the Anglosphere and has good ties to both. I don't think it wise to play one off against the other.
Ultimately which side we'd take if it ever came down to it is up for debate, but not a matter for this thread really.

[Albion]

Civis, perhaps you'd care to humor us by chronicling the number of wars Britain has had with Canada and Australia compared to the Netherlands. While you're at it, add the US to the list.

Canada and Australia haven't had chance for a war with Britain yet. There were a few minor rebellions, usually shit-stirring Irish and nothing else though.


Let me make it very clear, Joe: visit Britain or shut up. I have been there a couple of times in my life and apart from the language the people remind me of the people in Holland of what would they would have been like some 30 years ago.

Crap. We're backwards? :eek:


To stamp it even in harder: before World War II America didn't matter to us in any way. It was Britain that was influential.

Well obviously. We controlled a heck of a lot of world trade back then.


The common Englishman is very different from what you think he is and let me make it even more clear to you: Europeans in general, in particularly those in the West, would feel more connected with the people of Britain then they do with the United States.

I think this is true for most people. As an Englishman I feel closest to other British Islanders, then Australians and New Zealanders, then the Low Countries, then Canada, America and finally Germany in that order.

America is related, but the place physically is just so unique and everything so big and different from our tiny countries over here.

The Aussies and Kiwis are still closer to the British having settled latter and still receiving massive British settlement even today.


These were wars of competition not of strive between peoples. The Canadians and the Brits never found themselves in the same sealanes fighting over the same colonies.


Agreed.


Let's look at the differences between the Continent and Britain: good.. the British use miles. So did we until Boney marched in and it dates back to the Romans. The British use Fahrenheit, we use Celsius. Exactly the same thing. The British use Imperial and we use metric.

We use a lot of metric now. Engineering is still in imperial because of all the trade with America though.
We still use miles and pints because they sound better really. But we use metric for things like temperature.

Metric was an English invention, the French were just early adopters.


It's a traditional European system that was preserved in Britain - for a part at least. British tea culture vs Continental coffee culture is also very recent - 19th century recent before that the poor drank beer and the rich drank Portuguese port or French wine and of course coffee was rather popular and coffee houses dotted London.

I don't know why tea took over, but cofee and tea are about equal today. I alternate between the two depending on how much caffeine I require at the time, you should try it. That's why when you get offered a drink in Britain it is always "tea or coffee?".


So it would be very fair to say that Britain - or at least England- is more European then the rest of Europe itself as it preserved some of our oldest traditions and ways of life.

Apart from the Civil war which happened centuries ago, the English have very few abrupt changes in their history.
We like things as they are, if they're not broke then we don't fix them.

Even the Civil war ended with us ditching the republic for a monarchy again after a few years.


I'm inclined to think that the Dutch have more in common with Britain than most any Continental country, which is sort of why I mentioned it.

Agreed

[Albion]

On to the next point: America was irrelevant to us.. and should be today.

America can never be irrelevant so long as Europeans are settled there. It's practically Europe version 2, the best habitable lands of a new continent.

[Joe McCarthy]

America can never be irrelevant so long as Europeans are settled there. It's practically Europe version 2, the best habitable lands of a new continent.

Even if it isn't full of European-Americans it can't be ignored, and it's a nutty delusion on the part of some fringers across the Atlantic who think we can be ignored.

[The Lawspeaker]

Even if it isn't full of European-Americans it can't be ignored, and it's a nutty delusion on the part of some fringers across the Atlantic who think we can be ignored.
We did pretty well for 150+ years.

[Joe McCarthy]

We did pretty well for 150+ years.

The US is the strongest power in the world, and unless it implodes and breaks up it may remain that way. The prudent policy is to maintain friendly relations with the US. Antagonizing history's greatest military power is sheer lunacy.

[Damião de Góis]

It also has much stronger historical ties with certain non-European states than it does with literally all of the Continent, other than perhaps Portugal, and to this day public opinion in those non-European countries is almost uniformly more pro-British than in Continental nations.

I think this is no longer true in modern times. Our relations are normal of two countries that are in NATO, EU, etc.

In medievel times there was a real alliance though.

[The Lawspeaker]

The US is the strongest power in the world, and unless it implodes and breaks up it may remain that way. The prudent policy is to maintain friendly relations with the US. Antagonizing history's greatest military power is sheer lunacy.
By simply ignoring it for the most part and just living life without her, other then maintaining normal relations with her as we did before World War II, would be antagonising ?

[Joe McCarthy]

By simply ignoring it for the most part and just living life without her, other then maintaining normal relations with her as we did before World War II, would be antagonising ?

It'd depend on the specifics. If the EU, for example, attempted to realign strategically with Russia or China that'd be viewed as a hostile act.

[The Lawspeaker]

It'd depend on the specifics. If the EU, for example, attempted to realign strategically with Russia or China that'd be viewed as a hostile act.
Well.. the EU will disintegrate sooner of later anyway. And what individual countries do individual countries do. I would be more in favour of the Dutch (together with Curaçao, Aruba and Sint-Maarten) joining a Caribbean defence treaty with countries in the region and the United States and being as good as neutral in Europe.

[Albion]

Well.. the EU will disintegrate sooner of later anyway. And what individual countries do individual countries do. I would be more in favour of the Dutch (together with Curaçao, Aruba and Sint-Maarten) joining a Caribbean defence treaty with countries in the region and the United States and being as good as neutral in Europe.

France, Britain and the Netherlands are enough, the USA would never want to violate its own doctrines or side with the "imperialists" in the eyes of the Latin Americans.