Yeah, but the northern part of the peninsula is broadly more culturally uniform than Sicily and Sardinia, and while the exact borders fluctuated a lot and was mainly made of city-states for a long time, there had been past kingdoms that unified the North peninsula much more recently than either of those two regions. "Italy" as a term really only referred to the northern peninsula, for the most part, for well over a thousand years.

Sicily (which would include the south end of the boot) would probably have the same label if it weren't less funny that way. They were all distinct kingdoms and cultures for most of their history. the modern unified Italian identity is quite young by European standards, about as old as the US civil war

? You're saying exactly the same thing I am. I was giving a definition, not an example. Admittedly confusing since I used the (real) word in its own (slang) definition.

No, "aesthetic" is generally just a noun, historically. As in "it has a modern/minimalist/cyberpunk aesthetic." Its usage as an adjective just means "relating to the general idea of aesthetics as a field of study," or "someone with a strong sense of and attunement to the design and beauty of things." Using it to just mean "beautiful," basically, is a new usage in just the last 5 years or less.

Using it as an adjective, to mean "has a pleasing aesthetic."

I mean... Babies and small children don't "choose" what language to learn, they just pick up whatever's spoken regularly around them. So whatever their families and community speak, same as everyone else?

Yeah, which nobody would "expect" you to if you're not from there

Where are you getting this impression? I've never gotten any sense that anyone outside the city is "expected" to know its geography. "Expected" how?

Also there are only 5 boroughs

Any concept this was ever a thing will be buried beneath the sands of time within your lifetime. You, too, will forget it completely. Nobody will ever think it peculiar because nobody will ever think of it at all.

it's also not that weird

can it? Sure, most any arrangement of bits can be converted into some kind of Unicode text. Can it be converted to something meaningful or readable? No, some formats are plain text (.txt, .ini, .json, .html for some random examples) that are meant to be read by humans, and others are binary formats that are only meaningful when decoded by a computer into specific data structures inside a piece of software.

surprised_pikachu

I'm sure some parents use it as a substitute to avoid saying "son of a bitch" in front of their kids, if that helps

Sure, I mean pretty much by definition. What does that have to do with your question?

Are you under the impression that they don't?

Well, yeah. That's not really in the same category or ever really disputed

No, that's my evidence that it wasn't ubiquitous and typical.

Maybe not just your social circle, but social-circle-specific.

No, this was just your social circle. I know literally zero people who ever bought into any of that crap

Other than the vague "big bad gubbmint thinks you're too stupid for their SECRETS" vibe, I almost find this old school X-Files type insanity sort of adorable. They don't wanna hurt people, they just want a more interesting world

From England straight to Louisiana is quite a leap

It's actually the comptroller, but only if he attacks en passant