Nitpicking about Holland [OT]

[Fluks, H.W.]

Sigvald:

This is totally off-topic. People who are not interested should skip the
rest of this mail.

> Another t[h]read is called "Rosa in Holland". Technically
> this means "Rosa in the province of Holland" because
> Holland is a part of Netherlands like England is a
> part of UK.

Technically: no. Holland is not a province of the Netherlands. It was split
up in the 1860s, now making two provinces: Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland.
"Holland" does not mean anything anymore. Technically.

> Just wonder what our Dutch friends here think anout
> this?

I introduced the subject myself, so I don't mind - in the English language,
that is. As far as I know, all foreign languages except Norwegian, have a
PLURAL name for my country (The Netherlands, Les Pays-Bas, etc.). In
every-day language, using "Holland" is more convenient, and it's not VERY
wrong.

In Dutch (and in Norwegian), my country is called "Nederland". A singular
form. And in Dutch, the word "Holland" also means "the western part of the
country, around Amsterdam, where the arrogant people live who think the rest
of the country is not worth mentioning". So in the Dutch language I object
to using "Holland" for the entire country. But I'm sure this is not of
interest to you.


Now why does my country have two names, and why is one of them in plural?
That's for historic reasons.

In the 16th century, 17 counties ("graafschappen" etc.) declared themselves
independent from Spain. They called themselves "The republic of the 17
united Netherlands". After a war that lasted 80 years, Spain gave up half of
the area, which became "The republic of the 7 united Netherlands". Spain
kept the other half: this later became Belgium (and was long called the
Southern, Spanish, or Austrian Netherlands).

Now "The Republic of the 7 united Netherlands" was quite a mouth full. So
they shortened it to "The Netherlands". And even that was too long, so
usually people just mentioned the county that was the most powerful (in the
17th century): Holland.


And now this proud Dutchman will end his mail with some local geography. The
12 provinces that are currently The Netherlands, are:

Groningen (main city: Groningen, last week's Giro d'Italia city. I was born
there)
Friesland (where they speak Frisian, a language that's somewhere between
Dutch and English)
Drente
Overijssel
Flevoland (before 1930, the area of this province was all sea)
Gelderland (contains lots of cities, but not Geldern, which is now in
Germany)
Utrecht (main city: Utrecht)
Noord-Holland (main cities: Amsterdam, Haarlem, and also Edam)
Zuid-Holland (main cities: Rotterdam, The Hague, Gouda, and also
Leidschendam...)
Zeeland (New Zealand was named after this province)
Noord-Brabant (main city: Eindhoven, maybe famous because of PSV. This
province is "North" Brabant: the rest of the ancient Brabant is now in
Belgium)
Limburg (main city: Maastricht, the place where main decisions about Europe
were made)

Enough off-topicness for DCML.

--Harry.
Harry Fluks, Leidschendam, The Netherands