Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 October 21

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October 21

England expects that every man etc. Why not Britain?

On 1805 October 21st Lord Nelson famously signaled "England expects that every man will do his duty". Can anyone explain how this was possible at such a historical moment (not some casual slip of the tongue) almost one hundred years after the Acts of Union? I do understand that in 1707 Scotland's contribution was something like three ships. However in 1805 the Royal Navy was (albeit in practice essentially an English thing) officially the whole of the kingdom of Britain's navy. To Nelson's sailors and soldiers at Trafalgar (most of them English I would guess) was "Britain" in 1805 still a somewhat artificial entity? Would employing "Britain" have smacked of officialese? Are there any other historical examples of this kind? Contact Basemetal here 01:26, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

A lot of Irish sailors in the Royal Navy.
Sleigh (talk) 03:08, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

They try and forget that, though: Nelson's Pillar. 86.176.124.43 (talk) 03:48, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The flag code used (devised by Rear Admiral Sir Home Popham) appears not to have 'Britain' as one of its codewords - though it does have 'England'. [1] Spelling out 'Britain' would have made the message substantially longer, and thus would have taken more time to send. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:19, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

To this day, many people still refer to the "Queen of England", which is as terminologically accurate as, I dunno, the "President of California" or something. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:51, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Would that be President Schwarzenegger or President Eastwood? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:05, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

California was claimed for Queen Elizabeth by Sir Francis Drake. However, as the case of John Augustus Sutter shows - who was unlawfully deprived of the land upon which San Francisco now stands, won his law suit in 1855, and died a beggar on the steps of the Congress in 1880 - respect for others' property rights in that State does not seem to be very highly thought of. 86.176.124.43 (talk) 14:19, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Using a smaller geographic division to refer to the larger entity is a form of metonymy which is not confined to England/Britain. See also Holland/Netherlands, the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (commonly called Rhode Island after the smaller portion of the state), etc. There's also historical examples, such as Asia which was originally applied only to Anatolia and Persia (Asia Minor and Asia Major respectively) and Africa which was originally only applied to a Small part of North Africa inhabited by the colonial Afri people (Carthage). --Jayron32 10:59, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Good point, but to me this fits better with synecdoche than metonymy. The former is for parts of the whole, the latter is for aspects of the thing. Of course there is plenty of room for overlap. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:36, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Surely, Synecdoche is part of the whole only when the whole is New York State? --ColinFine (talk) 11:44, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I am currently reading a book about security in Britain during WWI and official memos, etc. most commonly referred to "England" as the protagonist in the war. Even in the 1950s when I was at school in England (sic) we needed to be rather actively taught that England and Britain were not the same thing. It is only in recent decades that there has been any political sensitivity in England on such matters. Thincat (talk) 10:49, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A suggestion as to why only "England" was in the naval flag code - all the Royal Dockyards were in England at that time. Pembroke Dock in Wales was established as a naval base in 1814 and Rosyth Dockyard in Scotland wasn't constructed until the 20th century. However, a more likely explanation is that apparently "England" was sometimes used as a synonym for "Britain" even into the 20th century - see How England saved Europe; the Story of the Great War (1793-1815) which was published in 1900. Alansplodge (talk) 10:55, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't know. I see no problems with referring to the United Kingdom as the United Kingdom, but referring to it as "Britain" seems problematic. Historically, "Britain", "Briton" and "British" were used to refer to the Brythonic peoples and their descendants, not the English. It seems inaccurate to refer to something of Anglo-Saxon origin as "British". Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 12:37, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

While originally the words "Briton" and "British" referred to the Celtic-speaking inhabitants of Roman and pre-Roman times, during the modern era, the words came to refer to all of the inhabitants of Great Britain, as well as at least the Protestants of Northern Ireland, whose ancestors came from Great Britain. During the modern era, Britain has become a widely recognized synonym for the United Kingdom, and few people are concerned about the word's Roman or pre-Roman origins. Marco polo (talk) 13:41, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The English have probably always had a stronger emotional tie to "England" than to "Britain". Britain stands for the imperial, world-power, dominant side of the United Kingdom. England is the motherland, where people spent their childhoods and have their families. Assuming that all or a large majority of the seamen Nelson was addressing were English, referring to "England" in his appeal gave it a more visceral emotional power. Marco polo (talk) 13:41, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The England/Britain thing sometimes reminds me of the usage of Yankee. Matt Deres (talk) 16:11, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• Does this mean that rather than speaking English, Americans speak British? μηδείς (talk) 16:55, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

No, American English is clearly a variety of English rather than of Scots or any other British language. American English ultimately derived specifically from England (though with some influences probably by way of what is now Northern Ireland). There is no "British language", or if there is, reverting to Tharthan's point above, that language is Welsh. Marco polo (talk) 19:16, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

That's hardly clear, given American is Rhotic like Scots and Irish, the influence of Irish on Americn, and the fact that Germans and Irish outnumber English by ethnicity in American residents. If anything, it's clear the Queen Great Britain speaks the President's American. Except she's fonder of Churchill. μηδείς (talk) 02:27, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Standard British English (probably not the right term) was rhotic at the time of the American Revolution. Presumably, there were Rs on both sides of the Atlantic at the key point of linguistic divergence, so rhoticism isn't really useful as an argument for determining linguistic "ancestry" in this particular situation. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:10, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Or Breton. Which is actually called "British". Paul B (talk)

I am aware it's called Breton. Where is it called British? That's like saying Dutch is called Deutsch and Slovenian's called Slovak, no? μηδείς (talk) 02:27, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's exactly like saying it. That's the whole point. Breton means "British". In French the words Briton and Breton are identical, as is the name "Bretagne" - Britain. Paul B (talk) 07:27, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• This exchange was from The Man Who Never Was, set during WWII:

  [The military needs a dead body for counterintelligence.]

  Montagu: I can assure you that this is an opportunity for your son to do a great thing for England.

  The Father: My son, sir, was a Scotsman. Very proud of it.

  Montagu: I beg your pardon.

  The Father: Never mind. We're used to that. You English always talk about England when you mean Britain.

• -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:02, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Part of the the reason for this is that much of the most famous English literature was written before the Act of Union. Shakespeare is almost all about "England", not "Britain" (with the exception of late James I/IV era plays). So much of the most famous patriotic literature uses 'England'. And of course "United Kingdom" is more of a technical label than a name. But I've always also thought that this is related to the very words England and Britain. I don't known why, but the name "England" just sounds better than "Britain" - more inspiring. When Clifton Webb says "do a great thing for England", there's something in the rhythm and the sharpness of the consonants that has a ring to it. It just seems to shine in a way that "do a great thing for Britain" doesn't. Britain has a dull sound. Paul B (talk) 20:47, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

In the 19th century, it was quite common to use the term 'England' when, by the context, it meant either Britain or the United Kingdom. Look for example at Benjamin Disraeli and see how often he mentions England compared with Britain. See also Oxford History of England. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:16, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Also bear in mind that the United Kingdom was created only five years before Trafalgar; prior to that, it was the Kingdom of Great Britain. Alansplodge (talk) 13:44, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

True, but the K of GB had been around for almost a century before that, since 1707. This would be a justification for saying "Britain expects ...", not "England expects ...". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:19, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks to all. I was well aware before I asked the question that 'England' may casually be used for Britain or the UK just like 'Holland' for the Netherlands or 'the Russians' for the Soviets in the old days, and so on. This is even more prevalent in the non-English-speaking world. I believe I remember a talking monkey in a Hebrew children's book whose main activity was traveling around the world on various adventures traveling at some point to Scotland "in England"! But that wouldn't have answered my question because I was interested in the official use in the UK and in other parts of the English-speaking world of the distinctions between those various entities and how they developped over time since Great Britain and later the United Kingdom became one country, and especially what the right explanation was for Nelson's signal. Note how complex the subject is: 'England' stands for England and Wales in some cases and in other cases for England without Wales. Britain is in principle distinct from the United Kingdom but 'British' mostly means related to the United Kingdom rather than to the island of Great Britain (unless we're talking ancient history). Clearly (despite the fact that the United Kingdom is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and (now Northern) Ireland) and not the United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland) there is no need really for an adjective taking England and Scotland together as a unit within the UK. Spanish does use (pretty rarely I'm told) the adjective "reinounidense", but it's stictly synonymous with "británico", so that's overkill. The observation by Andy the Grump that the code book did not contain 'Britain' is interesting and significant. With the code book we're clearly in the realm of "official" English and yet the Royal Navy didn't think that 'Britain' would be used enough to warrant its own code. However the suggestion that the need to spell out 'Britain' was what may have induced Nelson to use 'England' is questionable because we know what Nelson's message was before it was adapted to the code book and it still had 'England' ("England confides that etc."; 'confides' was changed to 'expects' because 'confide' did not have its own code). Sam Blacketer's observation that Disraeli still uses 'England' to mean Britain is exactly the kind of information I was looking for to appreciate what Nelson's use of 'England' meant. But the conclusion is essentially negative. Disraeli, half a century later, still regularly and uniformly uses 'England' for Britain: in the Wikiquote page referred to by Sam Blacketer: occurrences of 'England': too many to count, including in excerpts from parliamentary speeches, speeches to his party, etc. and in almost every case actually meaning Britain (as Sam was saying); occurrences of 'Britain': zero; occurrences of 'United Kingdom': zero. Then there's probably no way to rigorously evaluate the "emotional" component of the use by Nelson of 'England' although I would tend to agree with Marco Polo that, talking to his men before an important and difficult engagement ahead, the effect of his words on his men would have to have been the concern in Nelson's mind which would have overruled all other considerations. This said, it's still interesting to follow the development of the official distinction: can we see a change from Disraeli to say Churchill? Contact Basemetal here 22:23, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

If you don't already know it, you'll have a lot of fun wading through Terminology of the British Isles. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:30, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Jack, I did have a lot of fun wading through it. I didn't know it. Probably the only geographical-historical entity that needs such an article. And several language WPs have their own version. Sorry for the really small letters. I hadn't realized they were so hard to read. I forgot to add in my summary that data points provided by Alansplodge and Thincat showed the regular use of 'England' for Britain extended beyond Disraeli at least through WWI. So what was the turning point? WWII? We do talk of the 'Battle of Britain' after all, which in earlier generations, given what I now know (thanks to these helpful WPeans) might well have been called the 'Battle of England': note German 'Luftschlacht um England', French 'Bataille d'Angleterre', along with Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Romanian, Hungarian, Polish, Danish and Greek, while (judging from the titles of their respective articles) Russian correctly uses 'Битва за Британию', along with most Slavic languages, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Portuguese, Marathi, Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Turkish. Japanese uses a literal katakana transcription of the English phrase and I can't read the other scripts. However I suspect languages which nowadays use the equivalent of the 'Battle of Britain' rather than the 'Battle of England' may (in some cases at least) have updated their terminology to align it with English. In any case the difference between say Spanish (and Galician) and Portuguese, or Russian and Polish, or Norwegian and Danish is odd. And while nowadays Hebrew uses הקרב על בריטניה 'haKrav al Britania' I'm pretty (though not completely) certain בריטניה 'Britania' used to be a somewhat pedantic way to refer to Britain which was commonly called אנגליה 'Anglia'. Contact Basemetal here 01:14, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Sam Blacketer is absolutely right - in the nineteenth century and down at least to WW1, even many Scots would refer to Britain or even the British Empire as "England" when talking in an international context. In the eighteenth century there was an attempt to rechristen Scotland as "North Britain", but this understandably did not catch on. My understanding is that Nelson originally wanted his signal to be "Nelson confides..." but this was changed for ease of signalling - it is of course a fair point that there was a signal for "England" but not for "Britain".Paulturtle (talk) 15:18, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

"Nelson confides..."? There can't be a smiley for dry humor (by definition) but on the net you're taking a risk :) And how do you do "silent laughing"? Contact Basemetal here 16:03, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what your point is - I'm just repeating what I remember from history lessons as a boy. We were told that Nelson was beloved by his men and that they were cross at being "expected" to fight for "England", although how much truth there is in that is, after all these years, impossible to say. The article on the signal does not include the "Nelson confides" version but it is discussed on the talk page - not that that necessarily means anything.Paulturtle (talk) 22:44, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I was not familiar with this version of the message and I thought you were cracking a joke. Contact Basemetal here 22:56, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Talking to you I realize I overlooked the talk page to the article. That was a mistake as much of the discussion there is relevant to the question I asked here. Let this be a lesson to anyone coming to the RD: check talk pages too first! As to anyone getting here in the future when this is in the archive and we all are dead and buried be sure to also check that talk page. Contact Basemetal here 23:07, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

No worries.Paulturtle (talk) 01:57, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Peirce and Bergson

The Wikipedia-Article on Henri Bergson states, quote:

Charles Sanders Peirce took strong exception to those who associated him with Bergson. In response to a letter comparing his work with that of Bergson he wrote, “a man who seeks to further science can hardly commit a greater sin than to use the terms of his science without anxious care to use them with strict accuracy; it is not very gratifying to my feelings to be classed along with a Bergson who seems to be doing his utmost to muddle all distinctions.”

I have worked on Peirce for years but cannot find this Quote. Unfortunately there is no footnote to tell me where to look. Can anybody help me verify that Peirce wrote what he supposedly wrote and tell me where I can find the information? DWagner (talk) 16:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The following source cites (Gunter 1986: 101):

Bankov, Kristian; Intellectual Effort and Linguistic Work: Semiotic and Hermeneutic Aspects of the Philosophy of Bergson. (PDF) Acta Semiotica Fennica IX. International Semiotics Institute at Imatra, 2000. p 36

• Gunter, Pete A. Y. 1986. Henri Bergson: A Bibliography. Bowling Green, OH: Philosophy Documentation Center

—E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 18:37, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Why does the CIA World Factbook consider South Africa a developed country which by their definition means 'high income or 1st world' economy?

Why does the CIA World Factbook consider South Africa a developed country which by their definition means 'high income or 1st world' economy?

This is the current CIA standard. And they consider developed to be equivalent to the 1st world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook_list_of_developed_countries the top group in the hierarchy of developed countries (DCs), former USSR/Eastern Europe (former USSR/EE), and less developed countries (LDCs); includes the market-oriented economies of the mainly democratic nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Bermuda, Israel, South Africa, and the European ministates; also known as the First World, high-income countries, the North, industrial countries; generally have a per capita GDP in excess of $15,000 although four OECD countries and South Africa have figures well under $15,000 and eight of the excluded OPEC countries have figures of more than $20,000; the DCs include: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holy See, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, NZ, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, US; note - similar to the new International Monetary Fund (IMF) term "advanced economies" that adds Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan but drops Malta, Mexico, South Africa, and Turkey

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/appendix/appendix-b.html#D

--Gary123 (talk) 23:12, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

"The criteria for including these states are not mentioned." Hard to be sure if that's matter of fact from Wikipedia, or a veiled threat from the CIA. Probably safe to say South Africa is what it is, and that's all there is to it. That's as far as I'm digging, anyway. A better answer will probably be along shortly. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:23, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The World Bank classifies South Africa as "middle income". It has the 18th largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization. It is a member of the G20 and is also included in various "alphabet soups" of "leading emerging economies". Factors that skew the perception about the South African economy are the very uneven income distribution (very high GINI coefficient) and high unemployment. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:29, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• Two words: South African nuclear weapons program. μηδείς (talk) 19:58, 23 October 2014 (UTC)