In all fairness, I deal with British tourists a lot and they always talk about "going to Europe" when they refer to their summer holiday in Benidorm.

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muyuu 36 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

yea but that's clear from the context

we use "going to Europe" and "going to the continent" fully aware that the UK is in Europe

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kzrdude 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think that's a problem, and it doesn't mean that Britain is not in Europe, IMO. Comes naturally with human perspective. "Where did you go this summer?" A) "I stayed in England"; B) "I travelled around Britain"; C) "I went to Europe". All perfectly understandable, I think..

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Oarch 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We are nothing, if not needlessly complex!

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ButlerianJihad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the locals refer to SF proper as “The City” (not “Frisco”.)

So, they may live in Cupertino, Palo Alto, or Oakland, but when they say “we’re going to The City for a concert on Saturday!” we can hear them pronounce those capital letters as an unambiguous reference to the one, true City.

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hgoel 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Same with NYC, "going to The City" usually just means going to Manhattan.

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kzrdude 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I live in a city (a quite small one) and if I say that I'm going into the city, then it means I leave my neighbourhood (it's in the same city) and I'm going to the city centre.

	▲	ben_w an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Same. I'm in Berlin, I may say "I'm going to the city/town/village" for different parts of the city-state.