6 ms·
This article tackles the 'simple' case of comparing Netherlands to the United States. It doesn't provide a motivation for why this phenomenon only happened in
by ramblerman 7y ago
This article tackles the 'simple' case of comparing Netherlands to the United States.
It doesn't provide a motivation for why this phenomenon only happened in the Netherlands, and not it's neighbors Belgium, Germany or Scandinavia.
Those would be much more similar in Social equality, and to some extent even dairy consumption.
Edit: I've corrected Holland, to read Netherlands. Apologies for the misnaming.
- econcon 7y ago>for why this phenomenon only happened in the Netherlands, and not it's neighbors Belgium, Germany or Scandinavia. They were already tall no? Were they ever shortest in Europe?
- lebuffon 7y agoIn the paper it says they average 165cm in the past and mentions they were 5..8cm shorter than the average USA citizen.
- classified 7y ago> ... Holland ... The Netherlands. "Holland" is the name of one Province in the Netherlands. Edit: I stand corrected. Actually two provinces.
- Freak_NL 7y agoTwo (Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland).
- RmDen 7y agotwo not one... Zuid Holland and Noord Holland
- lebuffon 7y agoIs this more common in English or does it happen in other languages also? Example: Q: What you call your country? A: Deutschland Q: Ok, then we'll call it Germany ???
- eesmith 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany - "Because of Germany's long history as a non-united region of distinct tribes and states before January 1871, there are many widely varying names of Germany in different languages, perhaps more so than for any other European nation." I like 'Navajo: Béésh Bich’ahii Bikéyah ("Metal Cap-wearer Land"), in reference to Stahlhelm-wearing German soldiers.'
- smcl 7y agoIt happens all the time. Think how many non-Brits refer to the UK as “England” for one example
- mumblemumble 7y agoUsually, at least in Europe, if it's not due to linguistic drift or somesuch, it's because the name is just being translated. For example, the French name for the Netherlands, "Pays-Bas", is just a literal translation of "nether lands". My guess for Germany, which certainly seems the weirdest, is that it's a result of that process happening and the name getting fixed at different times for different languages, combined with the region having a rather complicated political history.
- blattimwind 7y agoGermany comes from Germania which is Latin. Deutschland is deutsch + land, and deutsch can be traced to proto-germanic origins (common root with Dutch, I believe). So Germany is not actually one of these cases; it's an externally assigned name.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- yorwba 7y agoEdonyms vs. exonyms. Happens in every language. It's especially common when the two sides have difficulty communicating: "What do you call yourself?" "Ger man." (Spear man [1]) "... henceforth the lands east of the Rhine shall be known as Germania." [1] This is only one possible etymology.
- Freak_NL 7y ago> This article tackles the 'simple' case of comparing Holland to the United States. The dataset focuses on the north-east of the Netherlands (specifically the three provinces of Drenthe, Fryslân, and Groningen). So no, not Holland.
- babesh 7y agoInterpreting sexual selection in this scenario: Dutch were really short because of malnutrition. Perhaps people were trying to make sure their children become taller despite being so short. So they tend to marry the tallest people. This works because of improving nutrition. Perhaps this preference for height became ingrained culturally in the society. This cultural preference becomes ingrained since it can be reproduced by relative isolation (cultural and/or physical). According to the article, tall men were favored whereas average sized women were favored. I wonder why tall women weren't favored versus average sized women? I think these preferences are in general populations but were exaggerated here?
- econcon 7y ago>Dutch were really short because of malnutrition. It's hard to be malnutritioned. Can you link why only Dutch were malnutritioned and not other Europeans? You don't really lose much height through lacking diet. My grandmother was born in poverty and there was famine and drought at her time which killed 3 of her family members, yet she was 6'2 tall.