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Although it seems intended as fun I’m always a little nervous of things like this because it also denies the power relationships that led to those borrowings. D
by aardvark179 4y ago
Although it seems intended as fun I’m always a little nervous of things like this because it also denies the power relationships that led to those borrowings. Degallicized English is kind of erasing the relationship between England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and even Cornwall. I’d be much more comfortable if I didn’t have to explain to so many Americans that Scotland is not a part of England, that it isn’t a separate island, etc.
- philwelch 4y agoWhile I understand and appreciate these distinctions, I think a lot of Brits can get a little precious about the idea that England, Scotland, etc. are different “countries”, to the degree that they even e.g. field competing teams in the World Cup. I understand that there’s a nuanced narrative in which the UK consists of four different countries that share a monarch and a government, but from the outside y’all are just one country. I’m a little more sympathetic to pedantry about not calling that country “England”, but people do the same thing with the Netherlands and Holland. (There are apparently twelve Netherlands, with Holland only consisting of two of them!)
- walthamstow 4y agoI don't know any English people who think that Scotland or Wales are countries. Most people understand that the four nations compete separately in football because the game was invented here, and the first ever international match was between England and Scotland. A great distinction I once heard was that the US is a nation made up of states, the UK is a state made up of nations.
- Wildgoose 4y agoPleased to meet you. I'm English. Scotland and Wales are countries. There can't be a concept of a "Union" if there are no components to unite. Scotland has its own Parliament, Legal System and even bank notes, for example.
- walthamstow 4y agoSo Georgia and Virginia are countries too? They entered into a union, they have their own legal systems, they have their own legislatures.
- philwelch 4y agoThey even have their own militaries.
- philwelch 4y agoThe Scottish Parliament has its authority devolved to it from Westminster. It lacks the inherent constitutional right to self-government held by any of the fifty United States.
- adammarples 4y agoEvery English person I know thinks that England, Scotland and Wales are countries. It's what we were taught in school. I find it odd that you find the opposite.
- walthamstow 4y agoI think the opposite because I live in a country called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is what it says on my passport.
- adammarples 4y agoThat's weird, my passport doesn't say "country" on it anywhere. Where does yours? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_of_the_United_Kingdo...
- walthamstow 4y agoIt says the name of the issuing country on the front, like every passport in the world, and inside it says that the issuing country is GBR, the ISO code for the UK. There is no Scottish passport, nor an ISO country code for it, because it isn't a country. Any justification you have for calling Scotland a country would mean that Georgia and Massachusetts are also countries. US states are actually are more country-like than Scotland, they have a constitutional right to self-government, and have semi-sovereign powers even within the union. Does Scotland? I think we have seen recently that it does not. The only evidence or basis you have come up with so far is that you were taught in school that Scotland is a country, which I find to be a very weak argument. (To be clear, England is not a country either.)
- adammarples 4y agoI guess you are deferring (appealing?) to the authority of the International Organization for Standardization and their list of country codes then, which is fair enough, but not really to the Passport Office, which doesn't make mention of the word country in their passports and is not really weighing in on this semantic dispute, despite using an ISO code. I'm not trying to advance any evidence that Scotland etc. "really are" countries, rather that it is very common usage of the word, per wikipedia it seems that even the Prime Minister's office and the ONS use it, as does more or less everyone I know, that is all.
- bloppe 4y agoWhile it's tough to find uses of the word "degallicize", I'd imagine it comes from Gallic, meaning roughly French, not Gaelic.
- davidgay 4y agoOf course, the root of Gallic is undoubtedly the same as Gaelic :)