Cyprus-Forum.com

[andri_cy]

I wasn't talking to you or about you, but your low self esteem couldn't help but act up.

[Svetlana]

The word comes from the Latin 'ex' (out of) and the greek 'patria' (πατριά - country).

A nickname in the UK for former expatriates who have returned to Britain is the "When I"s, or "When we"s, as they are accused of starting conversations by saying "When I was in Rhodesia" or "When we were in Singapore". LOL!

Lana

[twinkle]

unique_earthling you never used to be so agressive. What happened dear?

[reportfromcyprus]

unique_earthling you never used to be so agressive. What happened dear?

Maybe a bad day? I've had them and they make me so zarked off* with the world.

*Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy flashback

[unique_earthling]

i have just had a look back to see if i could find any reference for andri's comment, and couldnt so all i can assume is it was directed at me.. as it fits no where else. but i apologise if i am wrong.. Things are a bit stretched here at the moment, so sorry again for my short fuse..

[unique_earthling]

and andri, try and think of something more original than using my post about sotos and self esteem... I didnt say it about you.. i will say i dont like you, but i will try and keep above that, by not replying to you again..

[andri_cy]

I was talking about the empire reasoning and not you in particular. I have been trying to not reply to you at all so it makes sense I wasn't talking to you or about you because the last thing I want or need is to hear you whine and talk about how bad all Cypriots are all over again. I wasn't using any of your posts about Sotos because I try not to remember what you write so my day doesn't go bad. The whole self esteem thing was an observation coming from the fact that you took something that was not directed to you and took it personally. Please don't reply because I wont dignify you with an answer anymore.

[rawk]

I agree with Lana on the Latin interpretration of "ex patria".

But if you think about it from a UK resident's viewpoint, they are those who have left the home country (Notice I didn't say 'Fatherland'which is a closer interpretation of 'Patria', from which we get patriarch, pater, father etc)

and no longer live there.

To the citizens of their new found country, they are immigrants. Tis true.

However, with the dominence of the English language and its strange adaptability and

(perhaps because of its syntax flexibility ie. it doesn't matter how much you jumble the words of a sentence up or mispell the words, one can still understand it, also the lack of gender and the language's ability to describe 3 dimensional movement in spatial terms, such as a spiral or helix without having to wave one's arms about lends to its universal use,

If I say, " a man came to the door". You can have: -

The door a man came to.
To the door a man came.
A man to the door came.
The door to a man came.
Came to the door a man.

Not only that , you can mis spell English words to your heart's content, so long as the first and last letter is correct, others can make sense of what you write. Look at this,

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Read it again and see if you make sense of it),

the term "Ex-pats" have become a term for British immigrants.

The bendy stretchy English language is what has helped that situation.

Rawk

[unique_earthling]

Great post rawk, now i understand a lot better why English has become the universal language.. Thanks

[reportfromcyprus]

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

httas revy nintresgsei

I tried it but it didn't work out as well as your paragraph. I think they can only be mixed up in a limited way, if you change them around completely the brain doesn't recognise the word.