Wikipedia vote: inserting "British Isles" into articles

Rebelheart

Just thought some of you may be interested in knowing that numerous Wikipedia articles have been renamed in the past 6 months in order to insert the term "British Isles" into the new title. Thus 'History of Britain' has been renamed 'History of the British Isles', 'Hill Lists in Great Britain' has been renamed 'Hill lists in the British Isles' and so forth.

I'm sure most people are by now familiar with the 8-year long edit war on the main British Isles article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:British_Isles), with 28 archives of former discussions. It's well worth reading if you haven't done so already (especially for the term's origin in the English language).

The latest article to be renamed was originally 'Military history of Britain' but changed to 'Military history of the British Isles'. It is currently in an edit war under the title 'Military history of the peoples of the British Islands'.

There is a vote at the moment on what to rename the new article. There are five options for the new title:

Option 1 - Military history of the British Isles

Option 2 - British military history

Option 3 - Military history of Britain and Ireland

Option 4 - Create two articles. Military history of Britain + Military history of Ireland

Option 5 - Military history of the United Kingdom


You can vote here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Military_history_of_the_peoples_of_the_British_Islands#Poll_on_Article_Name

meglome

It funny but the term British Isles really irks me. I don't use it and I don't like it when I hear it. There are several reason why but tourism alone is a good enough reason to not lump us in with Britain.

P. Breathnach

I think it is too late to get the rest of the world to abandon the phrase. There just isn't another good term that we can promote in its stead.

Console yourselves with the thought that the original Brits were people of the Celtic tradition, and not the Anglo-Normans that we had trouble with later.

bmaxi

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I think it is too late to get the rest of the world to abandon the phrase. There just isn't another good term that we can promote in its stead.

Console yourselves with the thought that the original Brits were people of the Celtic tradition, and not the Anglo-Normans that we had trouble with later.

In an episode of Time Team they quoted a recent study of DNA which has shown that up to 90% of the Uks population are descended from Celts. Saxons, Angles, Jutes et al make for a very small proportion. So it has been a family squabble all along.

Rebelheart

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I think it is too late to get the rest of the world to abandon the phrase. There just isn't another good term that we can promote in its stead.

Console yourselves with the thought that the original Brits were people of the Celtic tradition, and not the Anglo-Normans that we had trouble with later.

That's far, far from the truth. If you have a read of the main "British Isles" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles) page you will see that the term has been abandoned in the past five years by plenty of international publications, and there is an unquestionable decline in its use:

A number of international publications have abandoned the term – in early 2008, National Geographic abandoned use of the term and replaced the plates on its maps which formerly read British Isles with British and Irish Isles.[31] Likewise, publishers of road atlases such as Michelin,[32][33] SK Baker,[34] Hallwag,[35] Philip's,[36][37] Reader's Digest[38] and The Automobile Association (AA)[39][40] have replaced British Isles with Great Britain and Ireland or Britain and Ireland in their recent maps. In 2008, Folens, an Irish publisher of school text books, decided to abandon using the term in Ireland while continuing to use it in the United Kingdom.[41][42]

As you can imagine those references didn't get on the page without a long fight. It has also been abandoned by the French TV Channel TV5 following a complaint and is generally avoided even by British stations now, although in Britain it is increasingly being used by Eurosceptics as a means to separate Britain from the rest of Europe. Furthermore, the government of Ireland is also officially on record objecting to the term and it does not exist in any British-Irish agreements such as the GFA in 1998 where 'Council of the Isles', for example, is used rather than 'Council of the British Isles'. All of these things are referenced in the wikipedia article.

Actually, read this for a very detailed list of the growing objections, academic and otherwise, to the name:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:British_Isles/References

Names and their meanings change all the time. Once upon a time the swastika was merely a Hindu symbol for peace. And, as you observed, once upon a time British meant something entirely different. So why would this be any different?

Rebelheart

PS: The Norman invasion was much more a Cambro-Norman invasion than it was an Anglo-Norman invasion, and led by Cambro-Normans like Strongbow, the earl of Pembroke, also. A Breathnach should know these things!

partyguinness

I had a similar problem with an English guy on YouTube.

He had posted a video on the "British Lions" and I asked him to correct it.

Cue...a fairly obnoxious set of replies back and forth with the general tone being that I was being "precious". And that was the more polite of the words used.

How do I vote? Cant seem to make it out.

Rebelheart

partyguinness wrote: »

I had a similar problem with an English guy on YouTube.

He had posted a video on the "British Lions" and I asked him to correct it.

Cue...a fairly obnoxious set of replies back and forth with the general tone being that I was being "precious". And that was the more polite of the words used.

How do I vote? Cant seem to make it out.

Hi Party (Did your sister get sorted out in Australia?)

Yeah, that's another example of "British Isles" being abandoned ; the rugby organisers officially changed the name to the British and Irish Lions.

To vote, just click on the link in my first post. When you get to that wikipedia page click the button on the top right that says Log in/Create Account. Then just log in and if you don't have a wikipedia nick create one for yourself in about 20 seconds.

Then scroll down the page and put 'support' or 'oppose' underneath each of the five options(as listed in my original post). It should take about 3 minutes :-)

Fratton Fred

so if ireland is not one of the "British Isles" where is it? what is the alternative name for the relatively insignificant set of islands off the north east of Europe?

I can understand getting the name of the British and Irish lions correct, because that infers nationality, but isn't Ireland part of the islands that make up the british Isles, along with Great Britian, Isle of Man, Jersey etc?

r3nu4l

Fratton Fred wrote: »

so if ireland is not one of the "British Isles" where is it? what is the alternative name for the relatively insignificant set of islands off the north east of Europe?

I can understand getting the name of the British and Irish lions correct, because that infers nationality, but isn't Ireland part of the islands that make up the british Isles, along with Great Britian, Isle of Man, Jersey etc?

Isn't it obvious? The 'Irish Isles' of course!!

After all Britain is a one of those islands incorporated into the Irish Isles, we couldn't leave you guys our on your own!

Erin Go Brath

Fratton Fred wrote: »

but isn't Ireland part of the islands that make up the british Isles, along with Great Britian, Isle of Man, Jersey etc?

No

jhegarty

Fratton Fred wrote: »

so if ireland is not one of the "British Isles" where is it? what is the alternative name for the relatively insignificant set of islands off the north east of Europe?

I could be wrong , but I think Ireland is on the island of Ireland.

I presume you acknowledge Iceland exists (even though it's not part of a larger group) ?

P. Breathnach

Fratton Fred wrote: »

so if ireland is not one of the "British Isles" where is it? what is the alternative name for the relatively insignificant set of islands off the north east of Europe?

I have tried promoting "The Celtic Archipelago" but found few takers. I suspect that a lot of people cannot spell "archipelago".

IIMII

Fratton Fred wrote: »

so if ireland is not one of the "British Isles" where is it? what is the alternative name for the relatively insignificant set of islands off the north east of Europe?

I can understand getting the name of the British and Irish lions correct, because that infers nationality, but isn't Ireland part of the islands that make up the british Isles, along with Great Britian, Isle of Man, Jersey etc?

This is Ireland. Over there

---

> Britain. We don't need a collective name, other than Europe.

I'm happy with our name, until some shower try to re-write history under the pretence of geography.

It ain't Geographers that keep changing wikipedia

IIMII

r3nu4l wrote: »

Isn't it obvious? The 'Irish Isles' of course!!

After all Britain is a one of those islands incorporated into the Irish Isles, we couldn't leave you guys our on your own!

Exactly, isn't Britain located in the Irish sea? Slam dunk, your ass is ours

Fratton Fred

r3nu4l wrote: »

Isn't it obvious? The 'Irish Isles' of course!!

After all Britain is a one of those islands incorporated into the Irish Isles, we couldn't leave you guys our on your own!

You're too kind

Erin Go Brath wrote: »

No

well what then? how would you describe these islands?

jhegarty wrote: »

I could be wrong , but I think Ireland is on the island of Ireland.

I presume you acknowledge Iceland exists (even though it's not part of a larger group) ?

Yeah, but Iceland is kind of in the middle of nowhere though and geographically is about the same size as "these islands".

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I have tried promoting "The Celtic Archipelago" but found few takers. I suspect that a lot of people cannot spell "archipelago".

i'm not sure Rangers fans would go for that

partyguinness

Oh God no...not this again.:eek:

Fratton Fred...do you have an alarm system for these topics that has you racing back to the Forum...:)

IIMII

Rebelheart wrote: »

You can vote here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Military_history_of_the_peoples_of_the_British_Islands#Poll_on_Article_Name

How do you vote?

partyguinness

well what then? how would you describe these islands?

Why a description at all? We have our island and you have yours. Quiet simple.

We are in Europe and we are an island off the mainland of Europe.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Erin Go Brath

Fratton Fred wrote: »

well what then? how would you describe these islands?

Why does their need to be one term to describe Ireland and Britian anyway? If you are obsessed with pursuing this then i believe the "North Atlantic Archipelago of Islands" is sometimes used and is less divisive if a little unwieldy.

Rebelheart

Fratton Fred wrote: »

You're too kind



well what then? how would you describe these islands?



Yeah, but Iceland is kind of in the middle of nowhere though and geographically is about the same size as "these islands".



i'm not sure Rangers fans would go for that

'Atlantic Archipelago' is the best one, in my view. And there are even plenty of books about it - http://books.google.com/books?q=%22atlantic+archipelago%22. Of course the British Isles fans contend that there are loads of islands in the Atlantic. Yes, but we are still in the Atlantic. We are not, on the other hand in Britain or, for that matter, British. Ergo, Atlantic Archipelago is a much more accurate term.

Moreover, I'm against these separatist (from the rest of Europe) contextualisation of Ireland's place in the world as British. Europe is our geographical location. The only thing sustaining the term "British Isles" is that Britain is full of people who want to separate Britain from Europe, and thus they are keen to talk about something they call the "British Isles".

Nationalist separatism from the British? I am indeed shocked.:rolleyes:

Fratton Fred

partyguinness wrote: »

Oh God no...not this again.:eek:

Fratton Fred...do you have an alarm system for these topics that has you racing back to the Forum...:)

This is the only interesting thread on here for ages. its nice to see something other than how much the Civil Service or FF are ripping us off by

partyguinness wrote: »

well what then? how would you describe these islands?

Why a description at all? We have our island and you have yours. Quiet simple.

We are in Europe and we are an island off the mainland of Europe.

Great britain is an island off mainland europe, Ireland is an island off that

Groups of islands have always had geograpical names, unfortunately the name given to these ones has political overtones.

Why name it? why not I suppose. we talk about Scandanavian countries, so why shouldn't people talk about the countries in the common Travel Area in one collective term?

British Isles isn't ideal, I agree, but I don't see why there shouldn't be a collective name.

getz

bmaxi wrote: »

In an episode of Time Team they quoted a recent study of DNA which has shown that up to 90% of the Uks population are descended from Celts. Saxons, Angles, Jutes et al make for a very small proportion. So it has been a family squabble all along.

most in the passed [its changing now]the british peoples are mostly of celtic origin,even with the invasions of the saxons, jutes ,and angles[they are the ones that england got its name from] not enough of them came over to change the DNA make up ,remember there was over 4 million celts in britain at that time all they did was to take on the culture of the invaders

Rebelheart

daveirl wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

And in that Canadian -US analogy the minor matter of centuries of brutal treatment of the former by the latter is where, precisely?

The term "British Isles" can only be dated in the English language to the year 1577, and no earlier. It began to be used as a means to assert British rule over Ireland, and the person who coined it, John Dee, made no secret of his desire to create a "British Empire" covering his "British Isles" (in fact, he coined both terms according to the Oxford English Dictionary).

In Irish, Oileáin Iarthair Eorpa (Western European Islands) is recorded as the name for the same area in the late medieval and early modern period.

Rebelheart

IIMII wrote: »

How do you vote?

To vote, just click on the link in my first post. When you get to that wikipedia page click the button on the top right that says Log in/Create Account. Then just log in and if you don't have a wikipedia nick create one for yourself in about 20 seconds.

Then scroll down the page and put 'support' or 'oppose' underneath each of the five options(as listed in my original post). It should take about 3 minutes :-)

:-) I voted for Option 4, creating two articles, one called 'Military history of Britain' and the other 'Military history of Ireland' as that is obviously the most reasonable. Looking at current voting the final vote will be between Option 4 and Option 1 (rename it to 'Military history of the British Isles'). But you can vote yes or no to each of the five, most people seem to be doing that in fact.

Bottle_of_Smoke

The White Islands

getz

Rebelheart wrote: »

And in that Canadian -US analogy the minor matter of centuries of brutal treatment of the former by the latter is where, precisely?

The term "British Isles" can only be dated in the English language to the year 1577, and no earlier. It began to be used as a means to assert British rule over Ireland, and the person who coined it, John Dee, made no secret of his desire to create a "British Empire" covering his "British Isles" (in fact, he coined both terms according to the Oxford English Dictionary).

In Irish, Oileáin Iarthair Eorpa (Western European Islands) is recorded as the name for the same area in the late medieval and early modern period.

before 1920 nobody gave a monkies, there are some sad people about,by the way the term used for the islands of britain came from the romans 100 ad

IIMII

Before the 1920's we were a subjugated race

getz wrote: »

by the way the term used for the islands of britain came from the romans 100 ad

The Romans called us Hibernia

Rebelheart

getz wrote: »

before 1920 nobody gave a monkies

Your evidence for this is what?

PS: Wishful thinking is not evidence.

ejmaztec

I insist on Britain, Ireland and Rockall.