Talk:United Kingdom

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 November 2024

The United Kingdom is not a country, but four countries united in one democracy. The article needs to reference that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Island are all countries in their own right with centralized governments and borders, and can also independently vote to leave the United Kingdom at any time if they desire. 173.59.11.65 (talk) 12:58, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. CMD (talk) 14:09, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

The UK is single country with one central government, i.e. a unitary state. It has four sub-divisions which would be better described as states. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have regional governments, who conduct specific governmental affairs on behalf of the central government. England does not have its own government.

The regions cannot vote to leave without approval of the central government, as they have no sovereignty. GAAEditorIE (talk) 17:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Use of "Britain" in opening paragraph

I am aware that "Britain" is used incorrectly as a synonym for the UK. However, this is only done on the island of Britain, not the entire UK. In fact use of "Britain" to mean the UK in considered offensive and a sign of unintelligence in one UK constituent region.

Given that there is widespread confusion (domestically and internationally) about what the UK is, I propose that text is added to show that "Britain" is an incorrect term used to describe the country but remains in common use. GAAEditorIE (talk) 17:12, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Do not confuse Britain with Great Britain. I'm not aware that using "Britain" as a synonym for the UK is incorrect; who says it is? The footnote in the opening sentence clarifies what is acceptable or preferred. Bazza 7 (talk) 17:51, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I am not confusing it. Britain is merely short for Great Britain (also stated in the footnote you cite). GB can mean two things: i) the main UK island; or ii) the entire territory of Scotland, England and Wales.

Neither of the above two meanings include Northern Ireland, and therefore Britain cannot be used in place of UK. The reference that you cite literally says that Britain should not be used. GAAEditorIE (talk) 19:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

@GAAEditorIE: You're literally making stuff up as you go along. The footnote states Usage is mixed. The Guardian and Telegraph use Britain as a synonym for the United Kingdom. Some prefer to use Britain as shorthand for Great Britain. The British Cabinet Office's Government Digital Service style guide for use on gov.uk recommends: "Use UK and United Kingdom in preference to Britain and British (UK business, UK foreign policy, ambassador and high commissioner). But British embassy, not UK embassy."

I cannot see in the footnote or any of its references "Britain is merely short for Great Britain".

I can see "Use UK and United Kingdom in preference to Britain and British (UK business, UK foreign policy, ambassador and high commissioner). But British embassy, not UK embassy." but not "Britain should not be used". Bazza 7 (talk) 20:03, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

You've just cited the text of the footnote - "Some prefer to use Britain as shorthand for Great Britain" GAAEditorIE (talk) 23:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

"Britain" is ambiguous as it has two common meanings: 1, a synonym for United Kingdom; 2, an abbreviation of Great Britain.

However, "British" only has one common meaning: it is the demonym for the United Kingdom in its entirety - the whole of it - it only ever means belonging to or relating to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or its people. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:41, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

"Britain" is used to describe the United Kingdom & it's irrelevant if anyone is offended by that. GoodDay (talk) 19:37, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it is often used to mean that, but as I say above, it is ambiguous as it has two common meanings. For clarity, it is better to use "the United Kingdom" or "the UK". -- DeFacto (talk). 21:44, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Not really. There are c. 30 uses of "Britain' in this article all of which clearly mean the UK. When GB is meant, GB is used. There's a couple of anomalies (eg "Roman Britain") where it obviously doesn't mean the UK. Context is all. There is no issue. Nothing to see here. DeCausa (talk) 23:30, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Go to Northern Ireland, UK and tell them you're in Britain, see what reaction that gets. Very weird that you do not even care about offending your fellow citizens. Britain does not mean the UK, I have set out the only two meanings. I agree that British is the demonym for the whole UK.

How can the UK be referred to as "Britain" when 25% of the constituent regions are not on the island of Britain? GAAEditorIE (talk) 23:31, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Yet it is so. That's the strange thing about a living language. There are no rules, only real world usage which defies that which it should be. WP follows WP:RS nomenclature, however distasteful to some. DeCausa (talk) 23:38, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I have no issues with 'Britain' remaining. I accept it is widely used on the island of Britain. I just feel that the page will be most accurate if a few words are added to reflect that it is inaccurate and against convention.

The section on 'Etymology and terminology' sets it out very well, but those who do not read the entire page may be ill-informed. GAAEditorIE (talk) 23:46, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I look forward to reviewing your multiple WP:RS citations establishing the WP:DUE assertion that it is "inaccurate and against convention". Or should we just take your superior knowledge as our bible? DeCausa (talk) 23:50, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

No need for the attitude. See WP:civility

Per WP:NPOV

Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts

Prefer nonjudgmental language

Indicate the relative prominence of opposing views

The main body does an excellent at complying with the above. The lack of clarification in the lead section conflicts with that. GAAEditorIE (talk) 00:03, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

It's offensive, isn't the best argument. GoodDay (talk) 23:43, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

It is offensive. There has been controversy regarding the corporate name of the Olympic team. See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37058920. Note the opening line "In the run-up to Rio 2016 it was the most-Googled question - why GB and not UK?"

The UK is moving away from the old pre-1801 name. For instance, UK replaced GB on the white oval stickers for cars in 2021. GAAEditorIE (talk) 23:53, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't care if it's offensive. We're not here to right great wrongs. GoodDay (talk) 23:58, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

DeCausa and GoodDay are correct. GAAEditorIE is mistaken. "Great Britain" is not the same thing as "Britain". "Britain" normally means the United Kingdom unless the context shows otherwise. It may seem paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true, that "Britain" (which includes Northern Ireland) in its usual meaning is a larger entity than "Great Britain" (which excludes Northern Ireland). -- Alarics (talk) 14:35, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Without appropriate context or without sufficient understanding of the complex history of the terms, "Britain" can be ambiguous. On the other hand, "United Kingdom" (or just "UK") is not. So why would we choose to use the potentially ambiguous terminology when there is a straightforward alternative? -- DeFacto (talk). 18:17, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Because Wikipedia reports what is, not what should [not] be. As the footnote in the lead notes, The Guardian and Telegraph use Britain as a synonym for the United Kingdom, so it's reasonable to note that some people consider this, even if your own preference, like gov.uk's, is otherwise. Bazza 7 (talk) 19:46, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I never commented on which was my preference, I just pointed out the "Britain" can be ambiguous, whereas "UK" is not. Is "UK" ever ambiguous or incorrect where "Britain" is not? It's similar to the "Holland"/"Netherlands" situation. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:01, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

@DeFacto: I was commenting on your "So why would we choose to use the potentially ambiguous terminology when there is a straightforward alternative?" in which I interpreted "we" to mean Wikipedia writers. Apologies for not making that clear or misunderstanding your question. Bazza 7 (talk) 20:16, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

You were correct to interpret it that way, it is a valid question though, but does not imply any preference on my part. I'm looking for a convincing reason to ever use "Britain" rather than "United Kingdom" or "UK" when referring to the UK. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:07, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Because it's a word that's popularly used. Wikipedia's role is to follow, not to lead. If it's ambiguous, we explain the ambiguity (which we do here in that footnote), we don't censor the word altogether. WaggersTALK 09:40, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm talking about clarity of language, not etymology, though. Sure we can describe the ambiguity somewhere, but there is no apparent need to use the ambiguous word in general prose when there is a perfectly adequate and much clearer term that can be used.

Surely we should be aiming to produce clear and unambiguous prose, and not using unclear or ambiguous terms just because we can or just because other publications do. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:02, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

The word "Britain" outside of the phrase "Great Britain" and the "commonly known as" bit, is only used twice in the lead, both times in links to other articles. One of those articles is literally called Roman conquest of Britain so it seems reasonable to use that text in this article. The other is a link to Economy of the British Empire, piped as "Britain's economic power". Is that single instance of the word what all this fuss is about or am I missing something? WaggersTALK 12:09, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 November 2024

Replace the The United Kingdom's topography map with this image (talk) 23:58, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. Remsense ‥ 论 01:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Revert

@Tim O'Doherty, regarding this edit:

1) It reads softer and more natural because you rarely see a noun without a verb following in a flowing text, thus creating a better reading flow. I never wrote it was "needed" or wrong without it.

2) I contest that as I read "pre-[...]" far more often than "pre[...]". Anyway, regardless of that: The article already uses the variant with a hyphen several times, and since there should be consistency throughout the same article, this edit should be restored. Or you change all the other instances of the article to remain consistent.

3) This is just false. I quote from MOS:CAPTION: "Most captions are not complete sentences but merely sentence fragments which should not end with a period. However, if any complete sentence occurs in a caption, then every sentence and every sentence fragment in that caption should end with a period."

4) Why is the tag incorrect? The caption claims that the city occupies certain places in a ranking of financial centres, but does neither cite a source nor state which ranking this is based on. Since there are several rankings of financial centres based on various metrics, this information is absolutely necessary and the tag therefore needed.

5) Fine, but the links were all potentially helpful to readers: "Financial centre" is an important key term, and the link about the most populous cities in the past provided context. Therefore, as long as you have nothing against them, I suggest they should be restored as well.

6) "We operate on BRD: your bold edit was reverted." Yes, I know, and I have no problem with people who revert my edits. It would just be nice if they would at least explain why they did so instead of making vague statements and only justifying their revert when asked about it, which is way "bolder" than what I did.

Maxeto0910 (talk) 21:17, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

@Maxeto0910, @Tim O'Doherty:

1) the verb is not needed; it's inclusion can suggest the main sentence is a result of London's size

2) no hyphen: [1]

3) the captions are a complete sentence so a terminating full stop is required.

4) whatever

5) WP:OVERLINK: "financial centre" is common enough so no link needed Bazza 7 (talk) 23:43, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

1) Could you elaborate why? I fail to see how it would imply that.

2) Both writing forms are correct. I can refer to the exact same source you used: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/post-war. Like I already wrote, regardless of which form is used (I actually don't care which we use), it should remain consistent and not be mixed, i.e., switching between "postwar" and "post-war" like the article does now.

3) Exactly. Good you see it too. Should definitely be restored.

4) I think there's not much to discuss here. The removal of the tag was clearly inappropriate and it should be restored.

5) The familiarity of a term is not the only yardstick by which we should judge whether we link something or not. It's also about how much the average reader knows about it. In this case, I think most readers have a rough idea of what a financial centre is, but not necessarily what its exact criteria are and what role it plays in a national or international context. Also, I still think the link to the most populous cities in the past provides valuable context to readers. Maxeto0910 (talk) 00:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I just saw that you already correctly restored 3). Thanks. Maxeto0910 (talk) 00:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

1) Unnecessary word: perhaps you could justify its inclusion, rather than us its removal.

2) Hyphenating things like this seems more American to me. This is, of course, a British article.

3) A full stop should not be there per MOS:CAPFRAG. It is a description, not a standalone sentence. "HMS Invincible returns after defeating Argentine forces in the Falklands War, 1982" does not work as a sentence. If it was styled "HMS Invincible returned after defeating Argentine forces in the Falklands War in 1982" then that might work, although I'm not sure what the point of that statement would be in a caption in an article about Britain. ""HMS Invincible returns after defeating Argentine forces" is just a description of what is happening in the photograph, and as such does not require a full stop.

4) The tag, if one does need including, should not be an "according to whom" tag: at a push it would be a cn.

Tim O'Doherty (talk) 16:46, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

1) I already justified its inclusion. To quote myself: "It reads softer and more natural because you rarely see a noun without a verb following in a flowing text, thus creating a better reading flow."

2) You still don't seem to understand the issue. Again: I don't care if it's "postwar" or "post-war". What I do care about is that the writing form is consistent throughout the article. And since there are multiple instances of the article using "post-war", we should either change the one instance of "postwar" to that as well (which seems more stringent) or change all the other instances accordingly. However, mixing the writing forms like you did with your revert is clearly inappropriate.

3) It is both a description and a gramatically complete sentence, containing a subject and a predicate, and therefore needs to stop with a period, as Bazza 7 has correctly confirmed. "MOS:CAPFRAG" only applies to sentence fragments, not complete sentences like we have here. Anyway, that one doesn't matter anymore since the caption has been changed to make it more clear that this is a complete sentence and ends with a period now.

4) Wrong, it doesn't necessarily have to be a "citation needed" tag since it would be sufficient if the ranking (with its year) would be stated and, if it has an Wikipedia article, linked. Anyway, even if we'd agree that this has to be a "citation needed" tag, simply removing the supposedly incorrect tag without replacing it like you did with your revert is clearly inappropriate because such a statement definitely needs to be verifiable. Maxeto0910 (talk) 22:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm reading this discussion incorrectly. So far, I'm not seeing a consensus for Maxeto0910's proposals. GoodDay (talk) 02:44, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Right. That's why I only restored the things to which there has never been an objection in the first place and which were reverted without any reason, such as the link to the cities by past population and the tag (which was not opposed as such, but merely the type of the tag, which is why I'm fine with the tag being changed to a cn tag in case someone does). Maxeto0910 (talk) 02:48, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I just saw your revert. No, your assertion is false. There has never been an objection against the link to the cities by past population. Tim O'Doherty literally wrote "I don't care about the links" in the edit summary of the revert. There has only been one objection from Bazza 7 against including the links to financial centre because of MOS:OVERLINK, which I therefore didn't restore. I would therefore politely ask you to undo your revert. Maxeto0910 (talk) 02:54, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The next thing to restore would be the writing of "post-war" (or instead changing all instances of "post-war" to "postwar" as well) since there shouldn't be a need for a consensus to simply fix an inconsistent writing form. It's frankly insane that I have to justify fixing an inconsistent writing form because some people are completely misunderstanding the issue; it has never been "post-war" vs "postwar", but about keeping a consistent writing style throughout the article. What's next? Needing a consensus for fixing a typo? Sorry, but this is utterly ridiculous and I hope you understand my irritation here. Maxeto0910 (talk) 03:18, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I just saw that you undid your revert after I asked you to do so. Thank you for that. However, I noticed that you also removed the tag which I added to the caption. Was that an accident? Maxeto0910 (talk) 03:05, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Didn't notice the tag. Feel free to re-add it. GoodDay (talk) 03:07, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

This is easily sourced but a little dated.... Is anyone even looking for the source? In 2024 they rank 10th now Global Financial Centres Index is where you can find the most recent rankings along with the sources. Moxy🍁 03:52, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

My opinion - 'both are possible but 'being' is not a verb. The sentence is poorly constructed and should ideally be two sentences. Britain being the main naval power and London being the largest city are not connected in any way, so it shouldn't be written as if they are. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:03, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

References

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 December 2024

change term "country" to "political union" as the former term may be confused with the status of countries comprising the United Kingdom. Robert Birkett (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: Per lots of past conversations. CMD (talk) 01:30, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Inconsistent writing of "Postwar"

In order to remain consistent, the writing of "Postwar" in the subsection title should either be changed to "Post-war" or the other way around (i.e., all instances of "post-war" should be changed to "postwar").

I already wrote about this issue in the thread "Revert", but it didn't caught much attention there, so I'm asking again in a separate thread how we should do it. Maxeto0910 (talk) 13:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)