Word: swiss
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...were a watch, he might not be Swiss. No, that is not the caption to a Surrealist painting. Let me explain...
...Anglo-Swiss, born to a Swiss woman and her British husband (me), and holds passports to both countries. In other words, he is 50% Swiss, and that makes him all Swiss. A not-dissimilar legal privilege is extended to Swiss watches, which can only claim the celebrated tag "Made in Switzerland" if at least 50% of their production costs are incurred in the country. (See pictures from EURO 2008, which took place in Switzerland and Austria...
...that could soon change, renewing a debate on what Switzerland's German-language newspapers refer to, in English, as "Swiss-ness." The government is mulling new laws that will raise the Swiss share of those production costs to 60%. Forty million fake Swiss timepieces are made every year, most of them in China, claims the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. Sales of the real thing are threatened, despite the federation's slogan: "Fake watches are for fake people. Be authentic. Buy real...
...laws will also apply, with various alterations and restrictions, to products such as cheese and chocolate (but not, thankfully, to children). Enforcing them could be problematic, since identifying "Swiss-ness" is sometimes not as easy at it seems. Just ask McDonald's. Its campaign to assure customers that its ingredients are 100% "aus der Schweiz" took a knock last July when it emerged that the cow used in a poster was in fact Austrian. But then cows aren't the only Swiss animals having an identity crisis. (Read: "Supersizing Europe: The McDonald's Stimulus Plan...
...Nobody can deny there is something special about Switzerland. Just ask the Swiss. Their sense of exceptionalism is based on being both central to the world and remote from it. The country is situated at the heart of Europe yet is not a member of the European Union. It didn't join the United Nations until 2002, despite the fact that Geneva has the largest U.N. office outside of New York. It has tough immigration and citizenship laws, but also one of Europe's highest immigration rates. A fifth of its 7.5 million population are foreigners, mostly from Western Europe...