Kiribati is pronounced Kiribus because it was once known as the Gilberts (or Gilbert Islands) and that't the way the inhabitants pronounced the old name.
THe Gilberts were part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands - but the Ellice Islanders went for Tuvalu as their new name when escaping the yoke of British imperialism.
Unless they're women, in which case they're called Filipinas.
And I can't get this out of my mind. And it was on the first page. If Australia is the second driest continent (and my god it's all desert), what's the first?
First, thank you, Francis. There must have been some cross-pollination between the languages and the spelling.
Um, I'd have to look it up but I think the driest is Antarctica.
I don't have to look it up and Joe is right.
username wrote:And I can't get this out of my mind. And it was on the first page. If Australia is the second driest continent (and my god it's all desert), what's the first?
Antartica is the driest.
Which, by the way, is that considered a country/continent also.
i thought it (Antarctica) wasn't a country - no one really lives there. the people who do actually do not have full-time inhabitation of it.
The antartic is not a country but it is a continent. There is a big chunk of rock under all that ice after all.
Think of it, Antarctica, as Australia with frosting.
Antarctica is such an odd word. Shouldn't it be Anti-arctic? And isn't it sad that they couldn't have thought of a whole new word for it, instead of just naming it essentially, the other end?
And what about the word arctic?
What's that 'c' doing in there between the 'r' and the 't'? I have lost Scrabble games due to that 'c' escaping my memory. You say it in English, or good old America, 'R-tick', there is no ARK about it. And who added the 'tica' to Ant (no 'i') Arctic. We have the arctic, but down in the South we must have the arctia. Suave.
Joe(itinerant word sleuth)Nation
I say both with a perfectly audible "c".
You Amerians are jus laz.
Yes, I forgot Australia is known the world over for proper pronunciation and diction.
Joe(one of it's many major exports)Nation
Joe Nation wrote:Yes, I forgot Australia is known the world over for proper pronunciation and diction.
Joe(one of it's many major exports)Nation
My diction is very fine indeed, Mr Nation.
Knock it not unless you have heard it.
I'm sure that yours is, but getting back to Kicky's question, do you think that we should continue the fiction that Australia is a continent? It been confusing school children for years.
Why not just a sub-continent of Asia as India/Pakistan are?
Joe(maybe you wouldn't feel so islolated)Nation
We ARE a continent.
We aren't attached to some other mess of land, like a namby pamby kid.
What is so hard about a country and a continent, anyway?
Wusses.
Anyhoo, wot's that yer saying?
Yer an Aussie?
Well, get your arse right back here then!
It's an island. Just like the rest of the islands in the Malay/Indonesian archipelago, just the biggest one that's all, and the only one which had the very good fortune to be settled first by the British rather than the Dutch or the Portuguese. Or the Chinese for that matter, they were sailing around the Great Barrier Reef in the 1400's well before anyone else.
No, sadly I am not an Aussie, I didn't mean to give that impression. (Sometimes my parenthetical remarks are more obtuse than I think.)
Though, on two separate occasions in my life, the first after seeing a film about a man from Alice Springs, the second after a footballer from somewhere down under came to play for the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Roughnecks Soccer Team, I spoke with an Australian accent for almost two months.
'Ere 'ave sum pie 'n chips then, right?)
Joe(thankfully, someone beat it out of me)Nation
North and south america is an island eurasia/africa is an island. Antarctica is an island. And australia is an island.
Check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent for a rather interesting discussion. Pay particular note to the table that lists the 7, 6, 5 & 4 continent models - in which Australia is listed as a continent in each....
Re: Australia: Country or Continent?
kickycan wrote:Frickin' Australia. How the hell does it get to have the distinction of being a country AND a goddammed continent? What a bunch of ****. Are these people self-important, or what?
I say, country or continent, you pick. But you can't be both, you Aussie bastids!!!
The Country of Australia is an
Island Continent about the same size as the US with a population of only twenty million souls.
kickycan your ignorance is showing:
"I say, country or continent, you pick. But you can't be both, you Aussie bastids!!!"
didn't you attend school, or is it just a case of, "ignorance being bliss?"
pssssst, anton, kickykan is just
like that! He means no harm, honest!
Greetings from Melbourne & welcome to A2K! Enjoy!
It's the world's largest island, and the only country in the world that completely spans the continent on which it is situated. Now who's confused?
