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Cute Young Blonde Girl Travels Around The Country
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Sometimes the word country is used to refer both to sovereign states and to other political entities, while other times it refers only to states. For example, the CIA World Factbook uses the word in its "Country name" field to refer to "a wide variety of dependencies, areas of special sovereignty, uninhabited islands, and other entities in addition to the traditional countries or independent states".
Etymology and usage
The word country has developed from the Late Latin contra meaning "against", used in the sense of "that which lies against, or opposite to, the view", i.e. the landscape spread out to the view. From this came the Late Latin term contrata, which became the modern Italian contrada. The term appears in the Vulgate version of Matthew 12:30 "Qui non est mecum, contra me est: et qui non congregat mihi, spargit. (He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.) In many ways this defined the agonistic world view of the early Christian identity in Europe. From this new theological World view several different senses of the term developed in Middle English from the 13th century, all reflecting a sense of either opposition, or occupation.
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