just the person i was hoping to hear from, thank you so much for posting on this thread! i was hoping you would take the bait!
and i want you to know that i agree with what you said. i don't think TOS is solely attributable to genetics. besides which, national borders are entirely arbitrary, aren't they, so if you think about it, in order to really nail it down, i suppose one would want to pay the $100 and submit their DNA into that national geographic study, go back a few 10,000 years or so and REALLY see from whence ye came (i.e., as in which primitive tribe along the euphrates).
as far as the norman english v. the german blood coursing through my own body (and doing a lousy job, at that!), the irony is not lost on this child that it is an historical ACCIDENT that we are not posting all of this speculation here today in the FRENCH language!
great britain was ruled by the normans, after all, for over 200 years! do you know how rare it is for the dominant tongue NOT to become the mother tongue in that situation? instead, we ended up somehow keeping the GERMANIC grammatical structure (emphasis on the germanic, not an accident, either, pay attention) but at least 70% of our vocabulary is ROMANTIC. not lovey dovey, kidz...ripped off from the normans! frogs, that would be.
(i'm an equal-opportunity offender and in case anybody reading this doesn't "get" my humor by now, picture my tongue firmly implanted in my cheek as i write this. i am not trying to insult anyone's ethnicity and i am really just kidding around. but i am bound and determined to make a point as well, if you all will just be so kind as to bear with me for a sec?....)
some linguists theorize that english must be a creole because of this phenomenon, as that is the "only" thing that explains it. of interest are the couplets that still exist, side by side, comprising words from each language - that of the oppressor (the normans) as well as of the subordinated people (the brits) - such as 'cease and desist" or 'vim and vigor' (there's a ton of 'em)... the 2 words mean EXACTLY the same thing if you look them up in the dictionary; they just have different historical roots!
(FYI, a creole is a pidgin language with @ least one native speaker, by 'de way, if anyone is interested... and a pidgin is generally defined as a trade language, i believe [no native speakers, very simplified, used for basic commerce, etc.]. gosh, it's been years since i thought about this stuff. i wonder if anyone but me finds it intriguing?)
so anyhow, yasuko, you would be absolutely correct, TOS does not discriminate, and even if it did, it would make no sense whatsoever to say that it did so based on a nationality. if so, then i'm fleeing to botswana.
but i still think we might be on to something. and i wonder if anyone is aware of any studies have been done - i don't want anyone to take this the wrong way, now! - but regarding the relationship between the development and/or the severity of TOS injury, on the one hand (i know there's a pun there, shut up), and either personality type or cultural mores (hey, i'll take what i can get at this point!), on the other.
because if prepubescent japanese children can fling themselves out of highrise windows for not getting accepted at the right school (gomen nasai/forgive me, won't you yasuko-san, for that visual, i know it's dramatic but also a classic example of the type of inner conlict i think we are talking about, not to mention despair...) because they "know" they have disgraced their family, cannot possibly face them again and life, as they knew it is quite over,......
then caucasians certainly do NOT have the market cornered on what it takes to develop the type of muscular bracing i personally believe is necessary to SUSTAIN a major neurovascular entrapment disorder such as TOS, not to mention for the pain and dysfuntion to become chronic and neural plasticity, central sensitization and everything else to occur. there is the original injury, and then, to me anyway, there is the LARGER ISSUE of why it DOES NOT RESOLVE, despite the amazing healing powers of the human body and some of the finest medical care in the world. that's the part that i think has everyone totally clueless and frustrated, isn't it.
there are only 3 races on the planet, unless i am sadly mistaken. while i am not personally aware of anyone of african descent (or haitian, jamaican, etc.) on this forum, it would be VERY cool to hear from you if you are out there and reading.
but the human brain being what it is, we love to subdivide, so of course you get into lots and lots of cultures, subcultures, ethnic and linguistic differences, geographic, political socioeconomic and religious stuff and what do you have, really? BOUNDARIES. mostly arbitrary crap, though, so would be irrelevant for purposes of our discussion here, i think, anyway.
i do think it's useful to look at though.
OK, think i've rambled on enough for one evening. i need a leash! a timer would be good....
sorosoro shitsurei shimasu, yasuko-san.
alison-san