Читать книгу Anglo-American Cultural Studies - Jody Skinner - Страница 25

still an island?One linguistic effect of the Channel TunnelChannel Tunnel, inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth and the French presidentpresident Mitterrand in 1994, was the invention of the new word “ChunnelChunnel.” While plans for a tunnel to connect the island and the continent can be traced back at least a couple of hundred years, engineering challenges weren’t the only reason why it took so long. Britain (geographically “Great BritainGreat Britain”) had been an island for a long time, longer than most of its inhabitants can trace back their rootsroots, and the tunnel changed this special island status. It might be difficult for non-islanders to imagine the psychological impact of such [24]a change. Easier to quantify are the results of the Chunnel: distance, speed, and economic aspects including the enormous cost of the Chunnel. The organization running the Chunnel has been on the verge of bankruptcy now for almost as long as the Chunnel has been open. While some of the British might welcome the closing of the tunnel, it looks as though the connection between Europe and Great Britain is here to stay – at least until either the next Ice Age or global warming changes the geographical face of north-west Europe.