The continents

[The Flying Tench]

In the English language all 6 continents begin and end with the same letter. For 5 of them it is an 'a', and for one an 'e'. Why is this?

[chesters1]

Phew i thought gustav holsts work had been downgraded.

Dont know but in german its A or N

And in french they all end in E

Not going to try arabic!

Must be down to letters and stuff?

I expect Al Murray could tell you

Edited January 19, 2017 by chesters1

[corydoras]

In the English language all 6 continents begin and end with the same letter. For 5 of them it is an 'a', and for one an 'e'. Why is this?

I guess your not counting Asia as a continent, otherwise there would be seven continents?

[Sportsman]

Intelligent design?

[Ken L]

I guess your not counting Asia as a continent, otherwise there would be seven continents?

 

Grounds for drawing a continental divide between Europe and Asia are a bit sketchy to say the least.

Ecologists and others think in terms of "Eurasia", which brings us back down to six and promptly buggers up John's linguistic conundrum

 

Then again, it never really worked with "North America", "South America" and "Oceania"....

Edited January 19, 2017 by Ken L

[corydoras]

It's all pretty arbitrary, I'd dispute the notion that Oceania is a continent.

[corydoras]

Intelligent design?

Latin proper nouns?

[The Flying Tench]

My six continents are

 

Asia

America

Antarctica

Australasia

Africa

Europe

 

An amazing 'coincidence' IMHO. If the probability of a word beginning with 'a' is about 15:1, then the probability of it beginning and ending with 'a' is about 15x15:1 or 225:1. So the probability of it not being like this is 224/225 or .9955.

 

If the probability of it not starting and ending with 'e' is about the same, then the probability of it not starting and ending with 'a' or 'e' is .9955 x .9955 = .99102. So the probability of it starting and ending with 'a' or 'e' is 1 - 0.99102 = .008979 , approx. 1%.

 

So the probability of all 6 starting and ending with the same letter which must be 'a' or 'e' is 1 in 100 to the power 6 or one in a trillion.

 

So it's not really a coincidence, there has to be another explanation!

Edited January 20, 2017 by The Flying Tench

[corydoras]

My six continents are

 

Asia

America

Antarctica

Australasia

Africa

Europe

 

An amazing 'coincidence' IMHO. If the probability of a word beginning with 'a' is about 15:1, then the probability of it beginning and ending with 'a' is about 15x15:1 or 225:1. So the probability of it not being like this is 224/225 or .9955.

 

If the probability of it not starting and ending with 'e' is about the same, then the probability of it not starting and ending with 'a' or 'e' is .9955 x .9955 = .99102. So the probability of it starting and ending with 'a' or 'e' is 1 - 0.99102 = .008979 , approx. 1%.

 

So the probability of all 6 starting and ending with the same letter which must be 'a' or 'e' is 1 in 10 to the power 6 or one in a trillion.

 

So it's not really a coincidence, there has to be another explanation!

No its not a coincidence. They are all derived from Latin proper nouns.

[Phone]

All,

 

Somewhat a coincidence Cory.

 

Three Greek

Two Latin

One Italian

 

I like it that Europe is a nasty little non-conformist.

 

Phone