Snarkpit's geographics

(I tried to sort it by most probable majority)

i have friends/acquaintances that live all over the world..

i have a question for your peeps across the pond..

it is fairly easy to separate canada, the us and mexico here, but exactly how do you separate your tiny countries over there? excepting russia and china, i imagine most of the rest are rather smallish countries..

actually thats not my question, my question is, where does the UK stop, and the rest of the world begin???

easy when you hit water you know youve gone to far in any direction.

Belgium. And damn proud of it. :smile:

Heres to being PMC!!! :biggrin: w00t

Orpheus said:
i have friends/acquaintances that live all over the world..

i have a question for your peeps across the pond..

it is fairly easy to separate canada, the us and mexico here, but exactly how do you separate your tiny countries over there? excepting russia and china, i imagine most of the rest are rather smallish countries..

actually thats not my question, my question is, where does the UK stop, and the rest of the world begin???

Atlas :razz: tsh, and i thought they were joking when they said 70% of US high school students couldnt point to the USA on an unmarked world map :rolleyes: :razz:

gwil, i was serious.. :rolleyes:

sure i could just assume that blah blah country, because its in the neighborhood must be the UK, but there has got to be 30 or 40 pissant countries in the same landmass area as the USA.

you trying to say that if its not china or russia, its the UK?

I know when I went there for a 3 week exchange, some of the high-school students kept asking me and my friend if we lived in igloos.

Not exactly, Russia and China are frickin miles away from UK comparatively. Western Europe, obviously has France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland.. etc

There are all on the same land mass, southern of the UK - Europe keeps stretching all the way up to the East, going through Poland, Romania, Estonia, Latvia etc - up to where we meet "Eurasia/Asia" - Ukraine, Russia, Georgia.. and so on...

Theyre not exactly pissant countries :razz:

(Oh and BTW, assuming UK and other European countries are similar, just because theyre "European" is just as foolish as presuming all the US states produce identikit yokel drones.. :smile: )

Wild Card said:
I know when I went there for a 3 week exchange, some of the high-school students kept asking me and my friend if we lived in igloos.

sadly, the highschool teaching level is not what it once was, but from some of the thoughts i have read from our UK collective, their teaching system is not any better :rolleyes:

hell, most have trouble thinking that most issues have more than one solution :sad:

pissant as in- size, not technological.

most countries prolly have less land mass than the one state i live in.

Not really, the UK is small in comparison to its role on the world stage. For instance, France has the same population (around 60m) but is a good 4/5 times the size? Yes, theyre small in size when compared to states of the USA but that's just how small Europe is.

I think so far there's around 12 member states in the EU, and theyre mostly from our western half... if you can visualise how big our continent is in relation to the USA you can "guesstimate" how big the countries are..

Seriously though, if you have an Atlas or some spare time go spy through them - the CIA world factbook is always interesting for learning about the world.

Europe is a small place, so there are less countries overall in comparison to the USA area.. thats just a presumption on my part, no real evidence to support my theory :razz:

As for me, i'm slap bang middle in of the UK - pretty much the exact centre (excluding Scots highlands..). and Adam Hawkins lives about 15 miles or so down the road, i'm sure gimpinthesink lives in the next city along..

east england, above london. on the head shaped part.

considering 90% of my online friends, my true online friends , hail from the UK, you should really never assume i mean any comment such as "pissant' to be detrimental guys..

sad that after all this time, i still have to explain this concept to you.. i use words you don't, to describe the same meanings you do, just accept it. IE "prick" can mean dick, but does it have to?

anyways.. i reckon i can look it all up, but it would have been nice had you only explain it from the onset, without being condescending :sad:

afterall, i have driven my nation from side to side, and top to bottom, if you asked me where iowa was, i could have told you without resorting to your educational forte' :rolleyes:

I'm not being condescending Orph, youve been bitten by our own gripes :razz: different meanings and insinuations.. this is how i would normally speak about countries (obviously slightly different cos this is text) or whatever to all my "real life" friends :smile:

i accept that maybe words have different meaning, but "pissant" is a whole different kettle of fish :razz: i'm sure it has the same insinuations when used in both cultures orph - for a start it is just a modifier of a profanity :razz:

thank goodness you never became a diplomat :wink:

so pissant, means something else besides "size" there?

i realize that a truly negative personality can conceive of all sorts of hateful meanings for almost any words known, but i would hope/expect, that the snarkpit would mature past that someday :rolleyes:

question- can pissant be taken poorly?
answer- sure
question- can it be taken any other way?
answer- not according to SP :rolleyes:

i hope to live long enuff to where we all bond, at least to a point to where we can argue over something OTHER than text and its shortfalls.

Orph, you need to listen to your own pleas from the other thread - accepting other peoples opinions and ideals. Over here, i'd say being labelled a "pissant" country is offensive, especially to the smaller european states..

Considering, empathising with, and accepting other peoples cultures and viewpoints is the greatest lesson you can learn from international relations - and sometimes you have to bite the bullet and realise it's not ok to waltz and denounce the French as "dirty frogs", for example - even if you only mean it as a joke or something entirely different to you.

It's not about text and it's shortfalls Orph, its about respect and combatting ignorance and offensiveness :smile:

I have to say it seems pretty poor to me that you didn't know that the UK isn't right next to russia. It actually made me laugh. I think western people in general have a distroted view of how big their countires are because of the projection typically used on world maps - many will show the US being as big as the whole of affrica, when in fact it is nowhere near as big.

i use words you don't, to describe the same meanings you do, just accept it

No, No, No. Pissant means insignificant and unimportant - you cannot change this! If you call somebody a pissant, you are saying they are insignificant and unimportant. If you describe a country as 'pissant', you are saying it is insignificant as a country. The fact that you do not know what these words mean is hardly our fault.

The worst part is that if any of us make a meaningful criticism of anything to do with america, you are among the first to say we should keep out of it and leave your country alone. Then when we point out that pissant isn't exactly the right word if you aren't trying to be nasty about something, you attack our education system for producing people so close-minded, we can't accept an incorrect meaning for a word? Please.

Yeah, jeff's right on this one. The only definitions in the book for pissant are "insignificant" and "obselete." Sure, that's another way of saying "small," but I see where they're coming from in being a little upset with the word choice.

EDIT: and bah, I managed to toss a completely incorrect word in the first version of this post. English major, my ass. :razz: Good thing I'm done with that. :razz:

Forceflow said:
Belgium. And damn proud of it. :smile:

Where aboots in Belgium Force? I've been to Ypres, and towns in the area - not sure if its classed as Passchendale up there? Not entirely sure, but they served great beer :smile: in huge jugs as well!

Gwil said:
It's not about text and it's shortfalls Orph, its about respect and combatting ignorance and offensiveness :smile:

but, how would i have known in advance that anything as petty as the word pissant would, or could possibly be blown so out of proportion?

it definitely means small, i even asked 3 people here a few minutes ago, to see if the word changed meaning with the next generation, and the answer was, "small or tiny" and that by no means is offensive.

it could however be considered rude of me to insinuate that small might be significant or better, should NOT be significant when describing european countries, but how else would someone say "your countries land mass is relatively tiny"?

seriously people, chose your offensives wisely, cause eventually those who listen, will start to disregard you as the "boy who cried wolf" syndrome.. i get mad at people here, but seldom from something as simple as text shortfalls.

try to do what i do.. read it at least twice, ask yourself could it have more than one meaning, and if the answer is YES, chose the least inflammatory by default..

you, gwil, chose to be offended by "pissant" it has more than one meaning.. but i barely got upset at all when you chose to attack/comment on my lack of a decent highschool education.. there is a lesson here, learn from it.

but, how would i have known in advance that anything as petty as the word pissant would, or could possibly be blown so out of proportion

Nobody said you should be able to do this. The only problem is that you used a word without knowing it's correct meaning - if you have friends who say pissant means small, that doesn't mean you are right, or that we should think it means small as well. The simple fact is that pissant does not mean small - even if popular opinion in your area says otherwise.

Sure pissant may mean small over there in crazy orph town but in the rest of the world, where everyone else lives it apparently means insignificant or obsolete.

And that's the end of that chapter!

/me rolls eyes repeatedly..

jeff, slow down, re-read everything, and only THEN get back to us.. your are being rude again.

andrew, you are right, it can mean exactly what you say, AND what i said.

gwil, my apologies, i never realized that europeans had there version of "penis envy" when it cam to the size of their countries, when compared to the rest of the world.

jeff again, when was the last time you heard me argue FOR the USA :rolleyes: .. stop before you mess up again, i would suggest you learn what foot tastes like, cause you always end up with at least one in your mouth . :smile:

again, my apologies, i intended my comment to be entirely size/landmass based.

get a life guys, picking on my archaic and tack-less choice of wording should NOT be your life goals.

We dont Orph, and im not bothered how big my country is - it's just common sense, respect and decency - as well as tolerance to realise that calling countries "pissant" is far from acceptable.

and no, i agree - picking on your wording isnt and shouldnt be mine and jeffs goal in life. All we are trying to highlight is using archaic phrases and "questionable" terms in discussions is the easiest way to start conflict :smile: Use the theasauras of non-confrontation and friendliness, and I expect a lot more threads on here will not turn into "Orph vs The World" :smile:

Gwil said:

Forceflow said:
Belgium. And damn proud of it. :smile:

Where aboots in Belgium Force? I've been to Ypres, and towns in the area - not sure if its classed as Passchendale up there? Not entirely sure, but they served great beer :smile: in huge jugs as well!

Ypres is in in the west ... I live more central ... in Mechelen, it's a city between Antwerps and Brussels. (the two major cities in Belgium ... Mechelen is something in between ^^ )

it can mean exactly what you say, AND what i said

Another example, Orph, of you not accepting that what you think is in fact wrong. This isn't an opinion or something that can be interpreted in different ways - pissant has one meaning, and that meaning is not 'small'.

I'm perfectly happy to accept that you didn't mean to be rude, now you have said it, I am perfectly happy to accept that you think pissant means small.

But the fact is, it doesn't. We reacted in the way we did, because pissant does not mean small - you cannot criticise us for knowing what a word actually means when you didn't. This is a fact that you and no number of belittling remarks can change.

The only point is, that even within one country such as the US, there are any number of regional and local dialects and slangs that assign all sorts of meanings to all sorts of words. The same is true and only exagerrated on a global scale. Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me and spinoff goods were all censored in numerous nations due to people not wanting to see the equivalent of "f**k" on their billboards and toy shelves. Even different English-speaking nations are going to have different meanings for the same words, and I guarantee there's plenty of Britishisms (for the sake of making up a word) that would equally upset you. It -is- as simple as saying "countries are small over there." People know what you mean. Sure, you can ask that people look for multiple meanings in words, but that only works when the meaning you use is part of the definition they are familiar with.

Of course, with a big magical 0 tacked onto my rating, obviously my presence in this thread is unwanted, and I'll make my exit just as the last time. Funny, I would have thought the -past- thread would have done that rather than this one. Go figure.

Thankfully Raven requests minimized community interaction once officially on the job.

with a big magical 0 tacked onto my rating

Hu? What does that mean?

i have now looked up the word pissant in 3 different dictionary sites, and the general consensus is, its exactly what gwil said.. but dammit it used to mean exactly how i said it, i'll be damned if i am going to re-read the whole forking dictionary to see how the politically correctionist are altering the damned thing.

i seem to stand corrected.

but you may as well accept, that although i may no longer USE the word, i will still retain my definition of it, which was the original, meaning tiny or small.

chalk it up to incert word here that means local definitions and customs i hate it when i need a word, and cannot spell it even well enuff for the spell checker to fix it :sad:

:rolleyes: Make maps or something.

scary_jeff said:

with a big magical 0 tacked onto my rating

Hu? What does that mean?

ditto, or did you forget that my dick tracy decoder ring was broken??

Alien_Sniper said:
:rolleyes: Make maps or something.

this from our least able to release a finshed product member

i still wuv you dave :smile:

http://www.axis-of-aevil.net/archives/img/2002_11/World-Map-1200.jpg

UK is in the middle top.

Jeez look how big russia used to be!! It was like... 20% of the whole world! I like russia, they invented some awsome stuff in the cold war (not that I claim to know anything about the cold war).

Well I'm not bitching and I live in the most pissant country in the EU.

Oh and I resent that comment about my inability to make a map. :biggrin:

1st off, most of that mass in russia is ice, so no bigg whoopee there

2nd, what are those red things in the middle? "pissants mounds"?

Did you hear the famous one about the United States developing a pen Jeff? billions of dollars spent on a pen that wrote underwater, in space, under extreme pressure.. and so on.

the USSR, naturally, used a pencil. :dorky:

Orpheus said:
1st off, most of that mass in russia is ice, so no bigg whoopee there

2nd, what are those red things in the middle? "pissants mounds"?

thats iraq and afghanistan by the looks of it.. dunno wtf the red things are though :razz:

Did you hear the famous one about the United States developing a pen Jeff? billions of dollars spent on a pen that wrote underwater, in space, under extreme pressure.. and so on.

the USSR, naturally, used a pencil. :dorky:

Crafty commies. :smile:

Hah, I like that. My friend actually has one of those pens, what a waste of time :smile:

I don't know what the red things are. Probably something to do with the page that the world map image was on that I didn't look at. I think they could be fuel pumps judging from where they are on the map.

Russia is cold, but it looks like nearly a third of america is Alaska... that's not exactly sunbathing country either! :smile:

bottomline, about this wordplay business, i recommend that for your own sanity, if i write a word such as pissant, and you take offense, but nothing up to that point indicates i have motive to be offensive, chalk it up to my poor vocabulary..

in all the flame fests i have endured here, not one was intentional on my part in its creation, i do however acknowledge that i was a major contributor to almost all of them droning on for countless pages/posts, when i should have just took it in the chin and bowed out.

sometime i might just realize, words don't often translate well, even from as short a distance as the next state away.

if they would only leave the damned definitions alone, i sure would get into less trouble.. i am betting someone my age heard of small/tiny as the definition too :sad:

That's a flat projection map, though - extra areas of land mass are 'created' in the north and south sections to make up for the weird form of a sphere. Greenland is nowhere near that large, nor is Alaska (though it is still quite notably big - covers much of the central US!)

Whoa, no, you guys don't get it.

There's pissant and then there's pissant.

Cassius said:
Whoa, no, you guys don't get it.

There's pissant and then there's pissant.

which brings up another thought, we have a variety of insectiod, that is called pissant, its VERY small indeed, hence the origin of my definition.. could be where i got screwed over :/

Orph? I don't understand why you are still posting about that... nobody had replied to your previous post!

It seems like it isn't possible to get a representative world map without having a globe. I suppose the best type would be one that goes into triangles along the top and bottom so that nothing gets stretched. tries to find... fails

This one looks better, but no country names :smile:

http://www.warpol.netfirms.com/gfx/world_big.gif

hah, 'ant'. Wait, what about anticlimax, that must be derived from ant as well. What about pants. lol :smile:

scary_jeff said:
Orph? I don't understand why you are still posting about that... nobody had replied to your previous post!

because s**t for brains.. yeah another one of those words.. you cry when i screw up, and now i admit i have and you cry some more..

thats as close to admitting my error as it gets..

sometimes i think.. well i think you like me jeff :smile:

hu? I'm now totally lost! It seemed to me like the conversation was over, so I didn't bother replying. Then you seemed to reply to your own post, so I asked why, because this didn't make sense to me. hahaha.

Also, in my dialect, 's**t for brains' means 'beloved brother', and 'to screw up' means 'to make progress in an upward direction by means of rotation', so now I'm even more confused :razz:

What sucks more than being "pissant" is being very un-"pissant" and still coming under the all-pervasive "Other". Bah.

He did say it was done by probable majority.. besides, what happens in India apart from tea drinking and cricket?!

Oh wait thats britain! :dorky: Arf..

Having said that I did see a nice piece on the news about India and Pakistan restarting cricket matches and relations... all good considering they were ready to come to blows not too long ago :smile:

fraggard said:
What sucks more than being "pissant" is being very un-"pissant" and still coming under the all-pervasive "Other". Bah.

in a world with prolly 100's of countries, and 1000's of even smaller units, i dont see a way to have a poll of only 6 choices being reflective, or accurate..

and jeff, stay just like you are, i know i have said that before, but i am reinforcing it.. you are one of my picks, be that an honor or not, is up to you.

my friends here in the real world, use "s**t for brains" and a bonding type of phrase, but it can also mean someone whom has no common sense or screws up simple tasks... so, chose your definition :smile: