Talk:Britain

Why is a page about Britain even mentioning Ireland? Ireland may have been part of the United Kingdom at one time, just as Northern Ireland now is (no ambiguity there) but it has not been part of Britain (or vice-versa) since the last Ice Age. However the article sems to claim that it was part of Britain until 1921!

This article is very misleading and I'm inclined to ditch the references to Ireland unless someone can come up with good reasons not to. -- Derek Ross

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We already have articles on Great Britain, the British Isles, England, Scotland, Wales, and the United Kingdom. Is this article even necessary? -- Zoe

A very good point -- Derek Ross

Redirecting this article to Great Britain - I think we agree that the contents are unneccessary. KJ 17:45 Aug 3, 2002 (PDT)

I disagree about the redirect, agree the contents need changing.

According to The Oxford Companion to the English Language, when Ireland entered the Union in the early 19th century, it was referred to as "West Britain" (I don't know who by) - see http://www.xrefer.com/entry/441278 Whether this should be under "Britain" or "Great Britain" I'm not sure, but I should think the former. There is also the historical use of "Britain" before "Great Britain" was thought of. You have Great Britain the island, West Britain (for a time), and Brittany (Little Britain if you like) in France. I don't know enough about this to elaborate, but it seems there could be a decent historical article here.

Also, many of the English (and maybe others, I don't know) refer to the UK as "Britain" in speech - perhaps this rather subtle twist resulted in the somewhat messed up article that was here. A note pointing this out could be useful. In any case, surely "Britain" alone deserves an article. I'll do a bit of research and see if I can put something together. --Camembert

This is old news now, but I want to go back on what I said here - I now think that it's correct that Britain should redirect to Great Britain (I reserve the right to change my mind again later...). --Camembert

I think the "West Britain" discussion belongs in British Isles. A particularly interesting point for that article is whether Ireland was always part of the "British Isles" or whether it was added as "West Britain".

"West Britain" may be by analogy with "North Britain" for Scotland and "South Britain" for England which were also coined by some the more zealous Unionists in the 19th century. However none of these terms came into general use by the British or Irish population apart from in company names like The North British Railway. There is a small amount of logic in calling Scotland and England, "North Britain" and "South Britain", whereas calling Ireland "West Britain" just seems silly. Most Britons and Irishmen would think that West Britain meant Wales or Cornwall -- never Ireland. No doubt that's why it didn't catch on even in Unionist circles. You could add this North/South/West Britain info to the Great Britain article or the Ireland article if you really think it worthwhile but I don't see that we need a separate "Britain" article for it. -- Derek Ross -- Derek Ross

The BRitain/great brittan/brittany thing is already explained on the great britain article... KJ

It's probably OK to redirect Britain and British to Great Britain, if the latter article discusses the terms and explains the confusion. One possible confusion would be if people from other islands describe themselves or are described by others as "British". It should be easy to explain why the NI Unionists are sometimes called "British" by the (rest of) the Irish.

Also, what's the correct term to describe a citizen of the UK, if it's not "British"? I guess it's "UK subject"?

Accoring to this discussion, articles like: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1815014.stm 'Gibraltar wants to remain British' quote: "Gibraltar has been British for nearly 300 years and we want to continue to be British. We don't want to be Spanish." don't make a lot of sense. Perhaps the BBC (British(!) Broadcasting) misuses the term?

No worse than using "American" to mean "Unitedstatesian", is it? In linguistic matters, common usage is correct by default. --Brion VIBBER

Often this is the case, which suggests to me that the redirect to "Great Britain" is incorrect. "Britain" was an old term for Great Britain and Britany which got reused for the new combined realm that became the UK. I.e., the association to the UK is now the strongest usage. So I think the previous versions of Britain and British should be reverted and the Britain article improved as required (don't remove the stuff about Ireland, which became part of the "British Empire", but improve as required).

It's not a good idea to confuse an article on Great Britain, which is a well-defined concept of an island, with stuff about "Britain" which is used in various ways.

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I think rather than re-direct all of "Britan" to "Great Britan" we should do this to make it clear that "Britain" is often used ambiguously. So I'm putting some text back here - a sort of disambiguation page, with a bit of text expalaining why there's confusion. I've tried to keep it a history of the word "Britain" and leave out politics as as much as possible. That can go in the other articles.

I don't think there's any ultimate authority for what is the "correct" use of an English word - just common usage. (There are "official" country names, but that doesn't help in this case). But we can say, for instance, that certain usages can be offensive to some people. Andy G 16:50 4 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I agree. This page looks like a good explanation. I'm not sure about redirecting British here, though. That term seems to be used uncontroversially enough to mean "of the United Kingdom", rather than "of Britain". Or have I got that wrong...? -- Oliver P. 02:43 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I don't know what word you'd use to mean "of Britain" if not "British" - it certainly seems ambiguous to me (usually context will sort it out, of course). That said, I think it's fine that British redirects here since this article explains the various usages of both words (I suppose it's also fine if it's a disambig page and doesn't redirect here). --Camembert

Sorry, I just meant that "British" can mean something other than "of Britain"; a redirect would suggest that it only meant "of Britain". Yes, I know that's not what I said, but that's what I meant. I really shouldn't keep coming here at 02:something in the morning... But yes, I agree that the term is ambiguous. I reverted British back to an old disambiguation page last night. However, I suppose if this page makes clear that "British" doesn't necessarily mean "of Britain", then redirecting it might be all right. Then again, it might not, because someone seeing themselves being redirected to Britain might just think that it means "of Britain", and not bother reading far enough into the article to find out that it might not. -- Oliver P. 01:39 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see what you mean. Well, I think it's OK to keep British as a dismabiguation page, to be on the safe side. It doesn't do any harm, I don't think. --Camembert