Great Britain / UK
- Thread starter Reverend
- Start date
First, Republic of Ireland is not part of either UK or Great Britain (and you would get in a great deal of trouble for saying it is in certain parts!). The full name of UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which gives away the principle difference between UK and GB - that the UK includes the (disputed) territory of Northern Ireland. You can also throw in some of the rest of the British Isles, too eg. Isle of Man and Channel isles. The UK is a sovereign state consisting of non-sovereign countries (England, Scotland and Wales). Basically, by sovereign it means that this is where the political power lives - the countries and principalities within, though having some devolved power, are not self-governing entities within their own right.Reverend said:
It's actually a very confusing subject, but try reading Wikipedia British Isles definition for more info.
pocketmoon66
Newcomer
Zaphod said:
Now I'm confused
My passport says I'm British yet it's issued by the the United Kingdon of Great Britain and Northern Island.
So I would say that my Nationality, British, is a rolling up of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar...
pocketmoon66 said:Now I'm confused
My passport says I'm British yet it's issued by the the United Kingdon of Great Britain and Northern Island....
India, Canada, Mikonos, Ibiza...
sytaylor said:
You're excused, you have just got back from Miami afterall, it's normal that your IQ is lower than usual...
/RUNS
It's kind of debatable whether Wales is truly a country (having been subsumed by the English crown for so long).
On the flip-side at least they have their own Parliament (of sorts) which we English don't. So maybe we should regard Wales and Scotland as true countries and England as the playground for Scottish politicians to try out their new policies in (/waves at Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Reid, Robin Cook oh no he's dead, ... etc.)
On the flip-side at least they have their own Parliament (of sorts) which we English don't. So maybe we should regard Wales and Scotland as true countries and England as the playground for Scottish politicians to try out their new policies in (/waves at Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Reid, Robin Cook oh no he's dead, ... etc.)
sytaylor said:I got back 6 days ago, I think since then my IQ has frozen off... something else didnt though
yeah, chilly isn't it... at least it's not snowing...
Ah, yes. A country/state will often for 'political reasons' use the terms that way. The most basic definition of a nation is a body of people who possess the consciousness of a common identity.pocketmoon66 said:Now I'm confused
My passport says I'm British yet it's issued by the the United Kingdon of Great Britain and Northern Island.
Take the Kurds, for example: There exists a Kurdish nation, it’s somewhat vague what their country is, and they definitely have no state.
Words like nation (mostly cultural), country (mostly political), and state (mostly legal) have distinct meanings, but are also deliberately used interchangeably and derivatively and are thus also ambiguous. A nation-state has something inherently legitimate to it, so it is often used both inspire and deter separationalism for example. States want to be nations and nations want to be states.
I'm sure that the GB poll this, everyone does, and that trends can be looked up somewhere as to whether people feel, say: British more so than they do English and so on. While nationality is, in English usage, the legal relationship between a person and a country, it is culturally the status of belonging to a particular nation by birth or naturalization. A more neutral term would be citizenship, but this is not legally interchangeable with nationality.
Now I managed to confuse myself, so I’ll stop. Just be aware that some terms have different political, cultural and legal subtext than others. In official (or scientific) language they would most often be carefully chosen (to signal the intended meaning), while they are often used more interchangeably in casual use.
Last edited by a moderator:
Just to add some complexity, where does "the British isles" fit in, and does that include Ireland? Would that include, say, the Orkneys? Does "the main island" have a name of it's own? Would you ever refer to it as its own geographical entity? I would think you might from time to time, so you'd want a name for it. . .
Will they have to change the name of the country if/when Northern Ireland separates?
Will they have to change the name of the country if/when Northern Ireland separates?
geo said:
The main island: England, Scotland, and Wales is Great Britain. Britain is the name given to the area (the island, but this was more diffuse then as it was mainly a settlement in what is now southern England) by the Romans, some of who later fled and formed Brittany, in France, after the Barbaric Horde
razz of Angels and Saxons swarmed in from Denmark and Germany (Anglo-Saxons, if that wasn't obvious). Even later the Normans, from Normandy, located next to Brittany in France, as the humor of the Universe would have it, invaded and took control.Just my opinion, but I don't think so. England, Scotland, and Wales do well as united kigndoms and they also happen to form Great Britian. So, it would just be The United Kingdom of Great Britain (and not Northern Ireland)
Last edited by a moderator:
