On 2016-11-17 09:22, Paul Eggert wrote:
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?
That only inserted the Northern qualification into the style, as the United Kingdom was originally created (still later than the USA) by the 1801 Acts of Union and styled the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The 1707 Acts of Union referred to it as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and United Kingdom, but was styled Kingdom of Great Britain, or Great Britain officially. In his 1604 Proclamation of the Union James VI/I styled himself King of Great Britain, France and Ireland by royal prerogative, as in the 1603 Union of the Crowns the English parliament would agree only to the style King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, which was the official term used until the Civil War. P.S. My mother's family apparently emigrated suddenly from NI to Scotland sometime in the early 20s, possibly due to legal or sectarian troubles, but those who knew why took the reason to their graves, leaving younger members with an interest in the history of the period. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada