Re: British term

On 8/4/14 2:05 PM, 'Ellen Rawson' via Tamson House wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>
>> From: Sibyl Smirl <polycarpa3@ckt.net>
>
>
>> Being a Colonial, you probably count as British. Peter has inherited,
>> besides some skin color, some of his mother's Nigerian culture,
>> therefore imported.
>
> I count as British because I was naturalised as a British citizen. I hold dual US-UK citizenship and get to vote in both countries. As an American, no, I wouldn't count as British. I have some British ancestry, but it goes waaaaay back. The whole 'Irish-American', 'Italian-American' etc. thing indeed is a very American thing.
>
> The current Labour leader, Ed Miliband, is the son of immigrants. His father, Ralph, emigrated from Belgium in 1940. (His parents had emigrated to Belgium from Poland. Their family was Jewish.) Ralph joined the British Navy. His mother, Marion, also Jewish, emigrated from Poland to the UK post-World War II. She and her family had been hidden by Polish nuns.
>
> Despite his parents' immigrant status, Miliband is British and, as stated above, the Labour leader. If he's maintained as Labour leader and Labour wins the election next year, he'll be Prime Minister.
>
> Peter's mother's culture may have been imported from Sierra Leone, but Peter was born and raised in Britain. He's British. Technically, as Sierra Leone was colonised (and is still part of the Commonwealth), if being from a former British colony makes you count as British, his mum is British through and through. :)

Some of this stuff just doesn't translate! An internet friend from New
Zealand did a round-the-world trip on the shoestring of what remained of
her mother's life savings inheritance. One of the objects of the trip,
besides just "travel" was to meet in the flesh as many as possible of
her Anglican List friends in the US (another was to visit her daughter
in England, who'd been a student there and was at that time working in a
lab there). Her husband was British-born, NZ raised, and she was
NZ-born, both of them older than I by a few years, and retired. They'd
lived pretty much their whole lives in rural areas. They were crossing
the US by way of Amtrak and tour bus. She said something about the high
number of foreigners on a tour bus in the west, and I said something
about the likelihood that American tourists would be more likely to
drive to what they wanted to see than to take a tour bus. I don't
remember the exact wording, but she was shocked: "Surely, you don't
consider Ian and me as foreigners!" as if that were an insult, as well
as untrue. I didn't ask her to define "foreigner" (I probably should
have done), but did ask her when was the last time she'd voted in the US.

I probably should have said that I consider people from Kentucky as
foreigners! ;^)


--
Sibyl Smirl
I will take no bull from your house! Psalms 50:9a
mailto:polycarpa3@ckt.net

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