On 11/16/2016 08:26 PM, Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
The Guardian's style guide for "United
Kingdom" says "no need to write in full: say Britain or the UK", and for "Britain" it says "Britain is the official short form of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" which is news to me; I wonder what's "official" about it? Nothing.
I tend to agree. It's curious, though. I looked into it, and all I found were other people quoting the Guardian's style guide. I even found it quoted in the book "British Politics: A Very Short Introduction" (2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 2013) by Tony Wright, an authority on the subject. After the quotation he merely notes "this probably takes us just about as far as we can usefully go on this front" which is an odd thing to say about a statement that does not seem to be supported by any evidence. I was amused to learn during my reading that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was formed in 1922. So officially, the US is older than the UK! Who would have thought it?