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

LIverpool a tourist destination so...let's put up a memorial that say's: Hey! we were at the centre of the slave trade. Woo hoo! High Five!!!!

nnnNo...but Liverpool's 'Museum of Slavery' is certainly popular. And the evidence of slavery is so obvious that it can hardly be brushed under the carpet. Half the streets are named after slavers. Bold. Rodney. Tarleton. Berry.

Interesting issue! Personally I'd vote for the money being spent on activities and resources rather than more public art.

And that Utoob video was a surprise. Good lord is there nowhere one can hide from the whirled anymore.

I'd like to remind everyone that slavery had been around for thousands of years before the Portugese discovered the financial advantages of the custom as it was practiced around the Niger Delta.

Their discovery started the general European slave-based economy that indeed did drive forward exploration, settlement and trade and enriched the cities of Europe.

But the fact remains that slavery in various forms and with varying degrees of cruelty was and still is practiced all over the whirled.

Most astonishing is the fact that there are now more people enslaved today than all the blacks ever taken out of Africa by Englishmen.

peace
~jwf~

Indeed yes, around one and a half million Europeans were taken as slaves by North Africans, Algerians I believe, whole villages on coast in parts of Britain were abandoned due to fear of being enslaved.
Slavery existed in Africa before Europeans became involved, indeed black Africans raided other rival villages and sold their fellow black Africans to European slave traders!
Much of the slave trade seems to be forgotten about in a rush to slag Europeans off, but surely as horrific the European involvement was, to sell your fellow countryman into slavery must be far worse!

And the word /slave/ is derived from /Slav/.

TRiG.

3Dots:
>Indians are seen as different to 'blacks' I am not sure a did not ask...anyone know?<

Indians were 'coloureds' and were sort of a class between blacks and whites. Not sure exactly what the distinctions were but I think it was sort of like the caste systems in that coloureds had more freedoms than blacks but not quite as much as whites.

I'm really sorry to interject, but it's *world* not whirled. to whirl is to turn or spin something.

It's a knowing idiosyncracy of his, R. He does it to make himself look interesting.

It makes me shudder every time I read it I've been trying to leave well alone for ages!

'Whirled' could be a subtle reference to the way the world is spinning.

'Subtle'?

It could just be a homonym being deliberately misused, if I'm feeling uncharitable, or being accidentally misused if I'm feeling charitable. I'll leave the cap to be worn by those whom it fits...

On the other hand, those mistakes are quite useful for the foreigner struggling to pronouce strange words.

By the way, do you know how to pronounce "ghoti"?

He only does it to annoy/ Because he knows it teases./ (Wow-oww-oww!)

Fish, of course.

Why did I suspect that you would know it, I wonder?

If it's a genuine mistake due to not knowing, then I should imagine a person would be grateful for being shown the right way.

If it's someone being deliberately 'interesting' then tough. You're using the wrong damn word.

Q. What do you call a fish with no eyes?
A. A fsh.

ghoti can also be completely silent if you take your examples from the right places, but I forget the details.

Of course, gh is only pronounced f at the end of a word, and ti is only pronounced sh when followed by another vowel. And o is pronounced i only in the word women.

TRiG.

"If it's someone being deliberately 'interesting' then tough. You're using the wrong damn word."