Originally posted by Deadlock Hey, why is it called "Great Britain" and not just plain old "Britain"???
I mean, nobody ELSE sticks a promotion for themselves in the name of their country. It's not "Fanatastic France" or "Fabulous Finland" or "Awesome America"... What's up with that??? How do you Brits get away with it?!?
I think I know where the 'great' comes from. Britain is a region of France and it is situated right under the UK. So I guess Great Britain means the upper Britain.
EDIT: or it means the bigger Britain because Great Britain is certainly bigger then the French region.
Originally posted by vaxer I think I know where the 'great' comes from. Britain is a region of France and it is situated right under the UK. So I guess Great Britain means the upper Britain.
EDIT: or it means the bigger Britain because Great Britain is certainly bigger then the French region.
In English, I've always heard this region called "Brittany."
Great Britain is often used as a convenient abbreviation for the unwieldy "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". While it may be seen as inaccurate, the abbreviation Great Britain is still often used by official bodies as a synonym for the UK in some contexts (for example, the UK competes in the Olympic Games as Great Britain and the UK uses the International license plate code of 'GB').
Why "Great" Britain rather than Britain?
There are in fact two Britains: the island of Britain in the British Isles and the land of Britain in France. In French these are known as Grande Bretagne and Bretagne, in English as Great Britain and Brittany. The word "Great" in this context has its old meaning of "big" as in "she was great with child" or "Greater London". Likewise, the ending "-y" on the end of "Brittany" has the meaning "Little", as in "doggy", meaning "small dog", or "Jimmy", meaning "little Jim". During medieval times, the British Isles were referred to as Britannia major and Britannia minor (as in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae). The term "Bretayne the grete" was used by chroniclers as early as 1338, but it was not used officially until King James I proclaimed himself "King of Great Britain" on 20 October 1604 to avoid the more cumbersome title "King of England and Scotland".
Originally posted by whipem How did the American accent come into being, anyway?
Well it all depends on what part of the USofA you are from. See Im from the North East so my accent would be called "Red neck" cos thats what I am and if you were say from the South lets say Alabama your accent would be called "Hillbilly".
Originally posted by whipem How did the American accent come into being, anyway?
Judging from the many different nationalities that America has to offer, I think many of them got blended together in different parts of the country. Like up in New York, Boston, and Jersey. Then you got the South and Mid-West, which has a varity of accents, which I think are cool. Then you got the northern accents, which you can catch with some words, but it's not completely obvious. And then you got the West coast, with their laid-back surfer-ish type of accents.
All in all, alot of variety here in the U.S.... I think it's awesome.
What attracts me most about the UK? The fact that you weren't too proud to ask for help in WWII. Just kidding. Actually, nothing is all that overly attractive about the UK to me.
