On Jan 5, 10:19 pm, Bram Moolenaar <[email protected]> wrote: > Olaf wrote: > > On Wed 04 Jan 2012 at 10:42:35 -0200, Niels Horn wrote: > > > So, maybe technically "Netherlands" is correct, but the large majority > > > of the rest of this planet will always call it "Holland" :) > > > My personal reason for prefering The Netherlands, or variants of that, > > is that Holland would refer only to two of the 12 provinces of the > > country (Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland or North and South Holland). And > > I don't live in either of them. It's like calling Great Britain England. > > > Historically the two Hollands are among the most "important" provinces > > because that's more or less where the impressive people came from when, > > a few centuries ago, history was written. Zeeland was another one. Most > > of the rest has a convoluted history of what belonged to who. And of > > course Holland seems to be easier to pronounce than The Ne Ther Lands :-) > > Wikipedia sums it up quite nicely: > > Holland is a name in common usage given to a region in the western > part of the Netherlands. The term Holland is also frequently used as > a pars pro toto to refer to the whole of the Netherlands. This usage > is generally accepted but disliked by many Dutch people in the other > parts of the Netherlands. > > It's funny that many people who live in the Netherlands would not deny > being a Hollander, even if they do not live in North- or South-Holland. > And especially during a soccer match against Germany :-). > > -- > Arthur pulls Pin out. The MONK blesses the grenade as ... > ARTHUR: (quietly) One, two, five ... > GALAHAD: Three, sir! > ARTHUR: Three. > "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" PYTHON (MONTY) PICTURES LTD > > /// Bram Moolenaar -- [email protected] --http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ > /// sponsor Vim, vote for features --http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/\\\ > \\\ an exciting new programming language --http://www.Zimbu.org /// > \\\ help me help AIDS victims --http://ICCF-Holland.org ///
Interesting, now I came to know why English text books often call The Netherlands but rarely Holland. Looks like Holland is the upper-left corner of the map of The Netherlands, making me recall the Puget Sound (pronounced like pyudjet sound) and King County in the US, which was on the upper-left of US. Well that was the place of my first visiting abroad and I wondered do they call a lake connected to the sea a "Sound"? :) WBR, Robbie (Decheng) Fan -- You received this message from the "vim_dev" maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
