On 29/06/2010 02:23, Roger Traviss wrote:
Conversely, there are cases where post-colonial guilt and PC willy-waving
mean Britons use "local" names which the natives might not themselves use.

But at least it's reasonably close to the Spanish, unlike "bowkay" and
"larngeray" for certain French words, as I've mentioned somewhere.

Anyone mentioned Bombardier yet? (being from Quebec, the train and plane
manufacturer is not pronounced like the beer)

Bom-BAR-d'se-ay. That's how it's pronounced in Quebec.

And speaking of post-colonial guilt why do Brits insist on calling North
America "America"

Do they? I would have thought most people were aware of the existence of
Argentina, Brazil, Darkest Peru etc etc.

and ****ing off the Canadians, Mexicans, the people of the
Caribbean Islands etc., by calling us all "Americans"?

Why do Canadians insist on getting ****ed off at being called Americans,
when other Americans don't seem to? Some UK Daily Mail readers might
object to being described as European, but most of us don't. People from
(say) Kenya don't seem to worry that someone might think they are from
South Africa or the Central African Republic if people describe them as
African.

America and Americans refers ONLY to the peoples of the U.S. of A. The
continent is correctly called North America, no matter what you may think.

So is the Latin American Integration Association some kind of US body
which discusses calculus in a classical language?

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK