[Sugar-devel] [ASLO] Release I know America-2

[Walter Bender]

On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 11:09 AM, James Simmons <nicestep at gmail.com> wrote:
> Gabriel,
>
> It's worse than you think.  In the U.S. we don't even consider Canada and
> Mexico "America".  About the only time anyone says "North America" is when
> talking about cars.  We have North American Car of the Year to disguise the
> fact that our auto manufacturing jobs went to Canada or Mexico in search of
> cheap labor and/or adequate health care.
>
> I agree with leaving the Activity name alone.  It is correct.
>
> This reminds me of a Canadian girl friend I had many years ago who used to
> talk about South of the Border and mean the U.S. That threw me for awhile.

If you live in Detroit, south of the border is Canada :)
(I wonder if that is what they mean when they say the Big 3 jobs all
went south.)

-walter

>
> James Simmons
>
> On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 6:46 AM, Gabriel Eirea <geirea at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 2011/8/21 Paul Fox <pgf at laptop.org>:
>> > i meant to say this when i read the previous mail about this
>> > activity -- my apologies for perhaps waiting too long:  i think this
>> > activity (in english, at least) would be more correctly titled
>> > "I Know the Americas".  north america, south america, and central
>> > america aren't known collectively as "America".  they're called "The
>> > Americas".  (plus, for better or worse, when anyone says "America" in
>> > english, they're almost certainly referring to the USA.)
>>
>> On the other hand, given that this is an educational project, it
>> wouldn't hurt using the correct term for a change.
>>
>> I'll tell you a story. When I was a kid in Uruguay they were showing a
>> very popular TV series called "Fame". In one episode they would
>> rehearse and present a dancing piece called "America". I was all
>> excited since for the first time I was going to watch on TV something
>> that had to do with me in some way, I felt "included", if you know
>> what I mean. Then the piece started and they were all showing flags of
>> the United States and the Statue of Liberty, and I was all confused
>> and dissapointed. "What's wrong with these people?" was my 10-yr-old's
>> thought.
>>
>> Later on I grew up, had the chance to learn a few things and lived in
>> the US for 7 years. I came to appreciate the good and bad things of
>> the country and its people, and in the end human beings have so much
>> in common anywhere in the world.
>>
>> I would only hope if a 10-yr-old american ;) kid opens this activity
>> it would create the same type of cognitive dissonance the Fame episode
>> created for me at the time, and he would ask around, and hopefully
>> some interesting conversation follows up.
>>
>> As you can see, for us living in the backyard it is not a small thing,
>> since behind the innocent word there are so many things we wouldn't
>> even know where to start.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Gabriel
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-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org