71–80 of 118 posts
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I don't know if you've ever been to London, Rome or Kyoto, but Americans actually fucking love old stuff
They should visit our thousand (nearly) year old door: https://www.westminster-abbey.org/history/explore-our-histor... I'm a Brit and didn't realise until recently that England is one of the world's oldest countries (927 AD).
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That's your "definition" of country? These countries: https://mgnsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/map_col_high... remained sovereign for tens of thousands of years. Whereas, for example, the "United Kingdom" as a country (of four kingdoms) only dates back to 1801, prior to which there was a long history of contested sovereignty claims, there's some interesting paperwork declaring a King of Scotland as a the King…
My OP specifically mentioned "England".
Do you have a definition of what makes a country yet?
This question of oldest country that you've laid claim to does rather rest on something that works about the globe so that we can compare.
The "definition" (as such) provided by 'relaxing' fails England as England has been claimed by a Scottish King to be his realm.
I'm with you though, I reject that definition.
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I don't know if you've ever been to London, Rome or Kyoto, but Americans actually fucking love old stuff
> but Americans actually fucking love old stuff to visit, absolutely. But you don't see the Americans insisting on getting their own ceremonial King as head of state in name only. They prefer to love that stuff at a visiting distance. This is also why "Downton Abbey" etc does so well in the USA.
It is worth stating (because the word bylaw is not always understood) that a bylaw (by- is the Scandinavian word for "city", "town" or "village" depending on which modern Scandinavian language you use as your source) is basically a local law. It is not universal. It exists in a single place, and although they can be similar in many locations, they are strictly only applicable in the specific municipality that has the…
> I guess the US does use bylaw, but it seems to always be rules and regulations that companies make. In the USA we call local laws “ordinances”. In US English, “by-law” relates to a set of rules associated with a contractually-created body, like a homeowners association.
This isn't just an old tradition. It's a coded signal - and one that the river users can be assumed to understand. There's no principle difference between this use of straw to caution navigators on water, and the use of (for example) " 300 status codes to signal redirection to to navigavators of the internet.
This isn't a criticism of the practice but I did think it might be more effective to use something in safety green or orange, maybe with reflective surface, or maybe blinking lights. But I'm not an expert with this, and I can see how a straw bale might also catch your attention.
Ah, yes, England and its innumerable traditions; turns out, Gormenghast is actually a documentary.
Well, how would you alert boat traffic of work going on under a bridge? I got to thinking and a bale of straw isn't a bad idea. My first thought was a flag on a rope, but wind can make it blow up and become less visible. So it needs to have weight in order to hang down and be visible at the right height. It needs to be disposable and cheap. And it can't damage boats. So a bale of straw is not a bad idea even in 2023.
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Ah, that's cool, I didn't realise the etymology. UK east coast has a lot of place names ending in '-by', supposedly from Danish invasions around 10th century (for example Grimsby), it's nice to see there's a link.
Presumably 'by-election' comes from the same place too.
Ah, yes, England and its innumerable traditions; turns out, Gormenghast is actually a documentary.
Well, how would you alert boat traffic of work going on under a bridge? I got to thinking and a bale of straw isn't a bad idea. My first thought was a flag on a rope, but wind can make it blow up and become less visible. So it needs to have weight in order to hang down and be visible at the right height. It needs to be disposable and cheap. And it can't damage boats. So a bale of straw is not a bad idea even in 2023.
British people love old stuff like Americans love cars and guns.
I wouldn't say British people themselves really care (I don't). It's just London especially has been around for so long that this sort of stuff just accumulates. The charity that exists purely to help look after just the Thames crossings in London that was doing this is itself almost 1000 years old for example. There is lots of old stuff - it's just part of life, not something that people go out of their way to give…