On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 22:31:21 GMT, "Peter Aitken"
> wrote:

>"Bob" > wrote in message
...
>> Peter wrote:
>>
>> > Indian -as in the country of India - restaurants are fairly
>> > common but East Indian -the islands - are not.
>>
>> "The islands" are the WEST Indies.
>>
>> Bob
>>
>What *are* you talking about? I used "the islands" to make it clear that I
>used "East Indian" to refer to the East Indies and not to the eastern part
>of India.

I'm not following you. Are you referring to Indonesia, then? Or the
Moluccans? Timor? The people who live on islands in the Caribbean
are collectively referred to as West Indian. The expression "East
Indies" isn't one I run across often outside references to
colonial-era trading companies. A quick Google search turned up hits
for WWII campaigns in what was once called the Dutch East Indies, for
example. Googling West Indies turned up hits for Jamaica, Trinidad,
Martinique, etc.

Anyhow, you're quite right when you say that Indian food is more
common in the US than Indonesian food. If that's what you meant.

(I need to learn more about Indonesian food. Candle nuts, e.g.)

modom