ossobuco wrote:And the tangential, or maybe not, question interests me. I seem to have gleaned that some separate the UK from Europe, which I don't, except for use of the Euro, the Euro Union and so on. I think of that as political as opposed to geographical. Tell me if I am wrong on this..
The UK and Ireland are part of Europe, according to pretty much any geographical or political definition.
But the English have this habit of sometimes talking about "Europe" as if they're not part of it.. like it's only "the continent" (i.e. the mainland). But of course at other times they consider themselves fully part of Europe. I mean, what other continent would they be part of?
It seems to mostly have to do with the European Union. Of which the UK of course
also is a member; but of which many Brits are somewhat resentful at the same time. It's a somewhat dysfunctional relationship.
But yeah, the talking of Europe like it means just the mainland is purely colloquial; to any & all formal definitions the UK is Europe, just like Ireland. So I'll leave it up to Dlowan to explain what she meant with the "probably, in some senses" thing.
