> On 04/02/2014 5:26 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
>>>
>>> * 1. The Governor of the Bank of England is on record as stating that an
>>> independent Scotland could not retain the pound sterling.
>>
>> That's hard to enforce.  There's nothing - apart from tanks and bombers
>> - today preventing everyone in one country to use, say the US dollar,
>> the pound or the Euro, as its own internal currency.  Just Like Zimbabwe
>> did a few years back, when their currency collapsed.
>>
>
> I am not so sure about that. There are several countries, that I know
> of, who use the US dollar but that is generally unofficial. I think that
> I have heard of one country that has dual official currencies. Money is
> a token and unless it is recognised by other countries it is valueless
> to buy and pay for international goods and services.
> I will ask one of our financial consultants, tomorrow.
>
>
>>> 2. If Scotland left, it would have to reapply for membership of the
>>> European Union and that would be in no way a done deal. Spain, for one
>>> and with an eye on Catalonian independence, would probably veto the
>>> deal.
>>
>> As someone living in a part of a country where a sizeable portion of the
>> population wants to get out of said country as well, things such as
>> international trade agreements and economic concerns in general usually
>> do not enter in their reasoning.
>>
>
> How true, if you can call it reasoning.
> It is generally the heart that rules in these matters. That is why, in
> my opinion, the Scottish First Minister is allowing 16 year olds to vote
> (and not non-residents).
> BTW I've been reading a bit about the French Language police. You would
> not credit it. Good luck with World Peace. ;-)
>

Don't get me started on them...  It may have been initially a good 
thing, in some instances, such as making sure that people could read the 
contracts they were signing, but I personally think they go too far and 
in true government busybody fashion, they have a tendency to trip over 
the flowers of the carpet, as we say in French.

My take on languages (and culture in general) is a free-market approach. 
  Your product should be interesting enough that people will want to buy 
it.  They should focus on making people _like_ French so that they will 
want to use it, instead of forcing italian restaurants to remove the 
words "insalata" and "antipasto" from their menus, or making sure that 
the Arabic words on the mosque's sign are smaller than the French.

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