[thechat] footer, can't we all just get along?

Chris Marsh chrism at puffofsmoke.net
Sun May 26 17:42:00 CDT 2002


> On 26 May 2002 at 21:27, Chris Marsh posted a message which said:
>
> > Wales is not a country. It *is* a nation, *and* a principality, but
> > not a country.
>
> According to my dictionary, if you have an occupied land with

You don't say which dictionary. My Oxford Concise draws a distinction
between "country" and "nation". Unfortunately I don't have it to hand
but IIRC a nation was a group of people populating a given territory,
whereas to be defined as a country said people had to have their own
government.

> a sovereign land, then the people, or the land, or the
> government which is sovereign over them can be referred to as
> a nation, or a country. A principality is the territory of a
> prince, which may or may not be sovereign.
>
> By those definitions, England, Scotland, and Wales would be
> neither nation nor country, but simply regions of the United
> Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

So how do you explain their *national* rugby teams <g>? Again, I guess
it depends on your definition or "nation" and "country", but I doubt
that you would find many people that would dispute England, Scotland and
Wales' national status.

> You obviously see some difference between nation and country.
> It wouldn't be the first time the dictionary missed some
> semantic nuance. Would you care to explain what *you* see as
> the difference between the two?

Regards

Chris Marsh




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