Greetings,
One of you has in the past chastised list members for referring to the Netherlands as Holland, and explained the difference. I am curious as to why the World Cup cricket team currently playing in Africa is playing as Holland (complete with really natty orange uniforms, eclipsed only by the Canadians for a bright uniform).
Any explanation appreciated.
The tiny Netherlands basically have a north south divide. Pretty much along the big rivers. The north is protestant, monarchist and loud. The south is catholic, papist and doesn't really very much care about patriotism or monarchy. The south has its base in farming and mining. The north has its base in commerce and government.
In the north part of the country there are two provinces, North and South Holland. You could say that our monarchy and most of the commerce has it's base of operations there. Logically any representation of our country usually was and today mostly still is from the north. The Dutch calling themselves 'Hollanders' has it's roots in history (I believe somewhere in the 80 years war but I'd have to look that up if you really wanne know) but today it is technically very incorrect. It doesn't however bother anyone from the north very much. To southerners it is sort of an insult. It's a bit like foreigners calling an American a Yankee. I can imagine that not all Americans are too happy about that either.
As for the orange...
Our current monarch is from 'Het Huis van Oranje' (The House of Orange) so if anywhere in the world the (idiotic) patriotism of the Dutch is shown, it is done by dressing up in Orange (with red/white/blue attire) and a lot of (drunk) shouting 'HUP HOLLAND HUP'. You can however be pretty much asured that it will be Northerners doing that. People down south are more levelheaded and have more sense. <grin>
Sonja
GCU Care to guess which part of the country I grew up? <grin> _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
