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Comment by kulahan | Hacker News Reader

Imagine Chinese saying they aren’t Asian, or Brazilians saying they aren’t South American! It would be equally as hilarious and important to ignore.

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And it would be accurate if you were talking about political or legal safety nets which are common across Asia except in china, for example. Your attempt at being geographically correct is dismissive and counter productive to the conversation about something that is obviously not about the specific geographic usage of the word.

Nope, it still wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever. Nobody cares if the UK wants to pretend to be Asian or American or simply “not living on a continent” or whatever worthless distinction they’re clinging to. They’re European. Chinese are Asian. Brazilians are South American.

They’re the ones deviating from the usage the rest of the world uses. It would be identical to them pretending they’re the only ones driving on the correct side of the world. Nobody cares.

It makes perfect sense to everyone but you who’s intentionally being obtuse and argumentative. Show yourself out.

Is this a new meme or something?

"I am the only arbiter of how words ought to be used" is the totality of your argument.

No, it’s “people don’t get to randomly decide not to be part of the land they live on”, or even shorter: “words have meaning”

The UK in general is left out when talking about Europe or the EU because of a mix of historical behaviour and geography (i.e. not on the continent).

Nobody does this, it’s a disconnect between the UK’s believed place in the world vs. their true one. Literally nobody does this. They might say UK to differentiate from Europe because they’re SO intertwined that it can be legitimately difficult to separate the two in any other way.

Americas do it themselves. Imagine Americans (and they don't live in Asia, so have no right) saying Iranian Iraqi Saudis are not Asians.

Correct, this is just as stupid. You only say “Middle East” to differentiate from the rest of Asia because they’re so similar and intertwined otherwise. Pakistan is literally just India.

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