h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So, today I looked up an author on wiki, and there was one sentence reading:

>>It was released on November 8, 2011 in the US, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, EU and India.<<

Now I know that UK citizens don't consider themselves part of Europe, but seriously, they're on the European continent as far as I'm aware.

I'm not sure that the argument that they aren't on continental Europe counts, because the republic of Ireland isn't, either - yet it isn't listed (and I'm sure the books were published there, too).

So, a question for my non-European friends: do you include the UK if you think of Europe, or do you, too, think it isn't part of Europe?

The UK is certainly part of the EU.

But it can be either in or out of Europe depending on context. If an English person says "I'm going to Europe", nobody will reply "You're already in Europe". Everybody knows that they mean the European mainland.

This even extends as far as "going to the continent" which means the same thing.

But if asked which continent Britain belongs to, most UK citizens will know that it is Europe, although I'm sure there are some who will deny it.

It's the same situation exactly in Ireland. There are some people who know that Ireland is part of the EU but would deny that we are in Europe.

This has always baffled me. Maybe we need an additional continent comprising the UK and the Republic of Ireland?

But how would it be called?

Tut tut Gnomon. The question was directed at Bel's *non-European* friends

(But thanks for the informative answer all the same.)

Bel: we could call it "England"

I can only guess that books are launched into separate markets in the UK (which probably includes Ireland) and the rest of Europe.

>>The question was directed at Bel's *non-European* friends

That makes it a somewhat biased question. Her UK friends who think UK is not part of Europe can answer. The ones who think it is part of Europe are forbidden from doing so.

But my point is that from where I am, the UK belongs to Europe.

Nobody is forbidden from answering, and I specifically worded it this way to make it ambiguous.

Who first drew up the geographical boundaries of Europe? Was it the Romans?

Europe was invented by the Greeks, but they wouldn't have known about the existence of Great Britain and Ireland. I don't know whether the Romans considered these islands to be part of Europe or not.

Gnomon: But you are not from the UK either!

Icy's answer makes sense as to why there are two dates for UK and EU, but not why wiki writes EU instead of "rest of EU" or something similar. Citation needed!

It's all about markets in this case. The UK market (linguistically compatible with the US market) is perceived as different to the EU market (which requires translations and whatnot).

In a wider context, we don't like being referred to as part of Europe because this is an insular island that has the misfortune to be mere miles away from a continent full of gabbling Johnny Foreigners who seem to have spent the past 1000 years trying to invade us.

Sometimes successfully.

...not to mention the previous 1,000 years, when they were a lot more successful at it.

But Europe has so many countries with different cultures and languages, if you single out the UK, why throw all the rest of Europe in one melting pot? I'm sure marketing in Germany is very different from marketing in, say, Greece, or Albania.

It's something US and UK publishers do. It basically splits Europe into "places where we can print as is" and "places where we need to localise the product".

Is it perhaps significant that the countries listed have separate currencies? That is a distinct difference between the UK and most other European countries. I would need to know the context the wiki piece was written in.

Hmm, you may have a point, because Bluebottle talks about Europe (in connection with Japanese games consoles).