Why Do British People Say 'Sorry'?

During my group investigation about the United Kingdom, something that caught my attention was the different use of the same language (English) that British and American people have. Into this subject, I decided to focus on a single expression:

“Sorry”

Terms such as “Sorry” and “Excuse Me” have an apologetic meaning in the use of modern English, but it has come into my attention that in the last years, the list of situations where using ‘Sorry’ is appropriate  has started to grow wider.

But, why do British people say sorry? Nowadays, it could mean anything. In Britain, it’s very common to say ‘Sorry’ or ‘Excuse Me’ to begin any petition, to ask for something, to call someone’s attention, to even to excuse oneself for an action that will happen in the near future! 

It occurs to me that the original, apologetical use of the word ‘Sorry’ is starting to get lost between the labyrinth of slangs we create through time, not only in Britain, but in every single nation with a language in common.

But what’s wrong with that? You may ask. Well, have you ever heard of the insensitivity of the modern age? Just imagine what would happen if everyone begin to not care about anything. If words such as ‘Sorry’ start to mean nothing, then we might become being with no emotion, with no regrets.

Think about that, and think it twice the next time you feel like saying ‘Sorry’ to someone just to ask for a seat on the bus.

Official Languages in Canada

Something that I was surprised about when I was looking information about Canada, was the fact the even when they are two official languages, French is the minority of the entire country.

 English and French are legally the official languages, which made Canada a Bilingual country. In fact, 98% of Canadian population can conduct a conversation in English or French, and 8/10 Canadians had one of these languages as a mother tongue.  

There are others languages spoken, but more than 90% of the population speak one of the officials regularly at home. But only 1/4 have French as the mother language, and 3/10 Canadians can conduct a conversation in this language. This shows that even when they have two official languages, the majority of the people speak English. Either because is more easy to communicate with people from other parts, or because they don’t use French. 

Quebec is one of the provinces that is an exception, because there mostly people  speak French. Is one of the few parts, where is really used as the major language. Those who live in there wants to preserve the difference, because they are really compromised with the use of French as the mother tongue. In other parts, such as Montreal, people use both languages, without problems. 

Australia as a British jail

Something that caught my attention when I was searching information for my map about Australia is how this country was used at the beginning of the history. We know that every country had theirs problems and nations too, but now that I’m searching for more information I realized how different this story is as the story that I thought it was.

This story begins in XII century when Australia was discovered, this island was almost empty and probably it wouldn’t be useful, or that is what they thought. Some years after that, in 1787 to be more specific, United Kingdom was in a colonial period and theirs jails were filled of people, so they started moving them to this new place. The island was used as a jail for 160 thousands of people, like thieves, prostitutes, criminals and political prisoners. They mostly came from England.

This went on until 1868 and it finished because jails in England weren’t full anymore and Europe started an economic crisis. Nowadays almost a quarter of Australians have ancestors who lived there as prisoners.

Now we can realize that we have similar stories, maybe our country was not used as a jail of foreign people, but most of the countries lived difficult periods as they and us.

By: Concepción Andrade Ercilla

Amazing Pink Lake in Australia

Something what is not well known in Chile is the raising tourism industry and scientific development in Australia. In this entry I´ll tell you as these two ways are joined in one destiny.

Researching about Australia I found this interesting tourist destination, Lake Hillier. Is located in Western Australia, specifically on Middle Island.

Australia has more than wildlife and exotic animals for to travel to meet, also have the most beautiful natural pink lake in the world.

Lake Hillier

The Lake Hillier is a saline lake with awesome pink-colored water. No one knows why this lake is pink, but some scientist believe that the color come from a bacteria that lives in the salt.

This lake not is very large, is about 600 meters in length and 250 meters in width, is surrounded by white sand and big woodland of eucalyptus trees.

The most common question about this lake is: is possible swim in this lovely pink water? The answer is: yes, is possible, some scientific research proved that the only difference with other lakes is what this lake is very salty like the Dead Sea, so is perfectly safe swim in this water.

Scientific community still is doing research about the origin of the pink color in the water of the Lake Hillier, such as shown in this video -Sampling trip- from Xtreme Microbione Project.

References

1.- "Lake Hillier". Retrieved 15 April  2015 http://hillierlake.com/

2.-"Swim in Lake Hillier, Australia". Retrieved 15 April 2015 http://whenonearth.net/swim-in-lake-hillier-pink-lake-australia/

3.-"Esperance and Recherche parks and reserves draft management plan 2012". Department of Environment and Conservation, Government of Western Australia. October 2012. pp. 15 & 108. Retrieved 15 April 2015 http://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/images/documents/parks/management-plans/decarchive/20110559-esperancerecherche-dmp_web.pdf

4.-"Xtreme Microbione, Lake Hillier Project". Retrieved 15 April 2015 

http://www.extrememicrobiome.org/#!lake-hillier/c1pep