Heartfield's post on GB UK etc

[Greg Nowell]

I found this edifying, but I think that there is some
linguistic confusion over "great" as in "outstanding"
versus "great" as in big.  "Grande Bretagne" for
example simply points out that there is a big one which
is bigger than the little one (in France),  and is to
my mind no more perjorative than the Greater vs the
less Tunb islands in the Persian Gulf.  I do think
people can sometimes get hung up and make a PC issue
out of something that is not particularly a PC issue.
It makes sense to me that after the 5th and 6th
centureis you would need a Grande Bretagne versus a
Bretagne in France, and I wouldn't be surprised if the
Grande came back to Britain via the Norman conquests of
the 11th century.  My Britannica notes the term was
used in the 17th century by the King of England to
refer to the whole, but the reference was not detailed
enough to convince me that it originated then.  I would
put a small bet on its infiltration as a semi-gallicism
(semi because it started with the Romans, travelled
North, came back south, then went north again) via the
Normans.

--
Gregory P. Nowell
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Milne 100
State University of New York
135 Western Ave.
Albany, New York 12222

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