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Post by Penddu on Mar 20, 2017 21:00:05 GMT
What's wrong with all 29 Welsh constituencies having a dual name? 1. What if there is no English name.....I gave you a few earlier 2. Because we both know that English media will just ignore the Welsh version and we soon will be back in the good old days of green painted road signs... The constituencies should be named for the convenience of their constituents. Nobody else. Look at it from a different perspective... if the tradtional Welsh name of Ynys Mon is changed to Anglicised Anglesey to suit the more recent incomers, then imagine the uproar when someone suggests replacing an Inner London seat with a Bengali names
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Post by Penddu on Mar 20, 2017 21:02:00 GMT
Penddu - Just as a matter of interest, what does 'Blaenau' actually mean? '...at this moment in time...' What does Whitney Houston have to do with this?
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jamie
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Post by jamie on Mar 20, 2017 21:02:46 GMT
What's wrong with all 29 Welsh constituencies having a dual name? Many of these places will have very few Welsh speakers. You may as well add an Arabic name, Polish name etc, for our more multicultural seats. It's just creating unnecessarily long names when we can have a simple name which everybody understands.
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Mar 20, 2017 21:04:59 GMT
The constituencies should be named for the convenience of their constituents. Nobody else. Look at it from a different perspective... if the tradtional Welsh name of Ynys Mon is changed to Anglicised Anglesey to suit the more recent incomers, then imagine the uproar when someone suggests replacing an Inner London seat with a Bengali names There was already some discussion on this a few pages back. Some share your view, but it felt like there was a majority in favour of taking into consideration people following elections (not to mention debates in Parliament) in other parts of the country when deciding on constituency names. Anglesey is one of those cases where I'd designate the Welsh name as the primary one, but it shouldn't be the only one. Since I didn't visit the island until my 25th birthday I guess I'm a latecomer and my opinion should be discarded though, right? There is already a ward in Tower Hamlets called Spitalfields & Banglatown.
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Post by carlton43 on Mar 20, 2017 21:08:03 GMT
'...at this moment in time...' What does Whitney Houston have to do with this? Who? Why? What?
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Post by gwynthegriff on Mar 20, 2017 21:08:25 GMT
Penddu - Just as a matter of interest, what does 'Blaenau' actually mean? In this context... upper or higher Source (of river) or head (of a valley)?
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Post by John Chanin on Mar 20, 2017 21:08:35 GMT
I have never understood this obsession with names. It seems to me to be just a displacement from addressing the real issues. Adoption of an American style "Norfolk 3rd distict" or an Australian naming of a district "Bronte" or "Raedwald" to stick to Norfolk, might serve to focus people on the essentials of democracy.
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Mar 20, 2017 21:12:00 GMT
But more generally, place names should reflect the primary language - so Ynys Mon - even if this upsets our monoglot neighbours. Most of the time I spent on this island was whilst I was studying French, German and Spanish. If that makes me a monoglot then you have a very strange definition of the word. '...at this moment in time...' What does Whitney Houston have to do with this? Wasn't that "One Moment in Time"?? What's wrong with all 29 Welsh constituencies having a dual name? Many of these places will have very few Welsh speakers. You may as well add an Arabic name, Polish name etc, for our more multicultural seats. It's just creating unnecessarily long names when we can have a simple name which everybody understands. There would be no law obliging the media and ordinary people to use both names every time they refer to the seat. Returning Officers already have to (at least try to) make bilingual declarations, so it would not take up any more of their time either. Equally I wouldn't force S4C or Radio Cymru to refer to 'Swansea East' in the middle of an otherwise Welsh sentence when 'Dwyrain Abertawe' will suffice and sounds more natural in that context.
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Foggy
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Post by Foggy on Mar 20, 2017 21:14:13 GMT
I have never understood this obsession with names. It seems to me to be just a displacement from addressing the real issues. Adoption of an American style "Norfolk 3rd distict" or an Australian naming of a district "Bronte" or "Raedwald" to stick to Norfolk, might serve to focus people on the essentials of democracy. Local pride and identity are important. It's also more convenient for MPs not to have to address each other using a number during debates. If we're going down the Aussie route, it would be 'Brontë' anyway.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2017 21:23:48 GMT
I'm with Penddu on this.
I understand the concern that if, for example, Ynys Môn is allowed because of the dominant language on the island, then why can't বেথনাল গ্রিন ও বো be used for Bethnal Green and Bow? I think we all know the answer to that one: it starts with "common sense".
Welsh is not a dying tongue from an obscure sect. Its use in constituency names reflects its real life use, everyday. Trust me, I spent a weekend in Porthmadog slightly embarrassed by how little more than "Diolch" I could stutter whenever a local would keep a door open for me before-and-during chatting away in Welsh to a friend. It would be a backward step to return to English names in parts of Wales where the English name is in second place to Welsh.
The common complaint, "what about English people/media being unable to pronounce it", well tough cheese (or for that matter caws caled).
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Mar 20, 2017 21:28:59 GMT
I have never understood this obsession with names. It seems to me to be just a displacement from addressing the real issues. Adoption of an American style "Norfolk 3rd distict" or an Australian naming of a district "Bronte" or "Raedwald" to stick to Norfolk, might serve to focus people on the essentials of democracy. Interesting point. OK, in the essentials, you are correct. Polling districts are a way of dividing up the electorate in a way that should allow the will of the people to be measured, while linking the representatives to a specific geographical area. What they are called adds nothing. But beyond that is something that does matter (a bit). We could divide the electorate up on a non-geographical basis - constituencies could be based on occupations ("The Right Hon Member for Lawyers 23",) or age groups, or I don't know what else. We do it on a geographical basis to bring in a sort of sampling basis to each unit - assuming that every community has its shares of the different age groups, occupations, etc - but also because we feel that the electorate is a community: a group of people living together and sharing problems and solutions. Every ward is notionally a village, an Ambridge or Walford or Weatherfield. And in this country villages go back a long way and have a history, and the names have evolved over time, they're organic. Numbered polling districts or ones named after famous people instantly make me feel that there is no genuine community at the heart of the district, because if there was, a name for that community would have evolved for completely non-electoral reasons. So if we can't come up with a name for a place that makes sense to the inhabitants, or can't even agree what bloody language to use, then perhaps it suggests we have a bit of a problem - that the community we are seeking to represent in our Parliament isn't actually a community at all, just a random bunch of people who happen to make up the right number.
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Post by islington on Mar 20, 2017 21:56:40 GMT
I have a question.
This talk about alternative names for seats (apropos Wales) reminds me that there was a time when alternative names were a common feature of the UK electoral map.
Back in 1885 (ah, I remember it well ...) the country switched to (mostly) single-member seats, which meant that a lot of brand-new constituencies had to be created. So the old two- or three-member county seats, which had previously been given compass-point names where a county was divided, tended to be broken up into a larger number of single-member constituencies, many of which were given two alternative names. Hertfordshire, for instance, prior to 1885 was a three-member county seat, with Hertford as a one-member borough. In 1885 the Hertford borough seat was abolished and the county was divided instead into four county seats, each with a single member, called 'the Eastern or Hertford division of Hertfordshire', the 'Mid or St Albans', 'Northern or Hitchin ...', 'Western or Watford...'. And very similar changes were made across wide swathes of the country, with a high proportion (but not all) of the new county seats given alternative names of this type. These boundaries lasted until 1918 when a further redistribution took place.
My question is: Given that 'the Eastern or Hertford division of Hertfordshire' is a bit of a mouthful, what were seats like this actually called in practice? Was the elected member generally known as the MP for Hertford or the MP for E Herts? Was practice consistent throughout the country, where this kind of alternative name existed, in using the 'town' version of the name or the 'compass-point + county' version?
Can anyone assist with this? I'd be very grateful.
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Post by Penddu on Mar 20, 2017 22:41:46 GMT
Moving away from language issues, the problem with many of these names is simply that they are too long, trying to include too many places or bits of counties...
Taking Ynys Mon ac Arfon/Anglesey and Arfon as an example, this could have simply called Menai. No need for translations and no bickering about whether some village is in Arfon, Lleyn or Conwy....
I like using geographical features like rivers or mountains as they have always been there and dont have boundaries as such. All existing or previous County names are just artificial constructs...same as Constituencies
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Post by johnloony on Mar 21, 2017 4:05:47 GMT
What's wrong with all 29 Welsh constituencies having a dual name? There would be practical difficulties of whether you refer to "Anglesey/Ynys Môn" or "Ynys Môn/Anglesey", and whether you look it up in the Times Guide to the House of Commons under A or Y.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2017 5:56:46 GMT
What's wrong with all 29 Welsh constituencies having a dual name? There would be practical difficulties of whether you refer to "Anglesey/Ynys Môn" or "Ynys Môn/Anglesey", and whether you look it up in the Times Guide to the House of Commons under A or Y. The Times Guide is so bad now you might find it under "B" or "J"
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YL
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Post by YL on Mar 21, 2017 8:45:44 GMT
I'm perfectly happy with the Welsh and Gaelic names, but I think the common sense thing to do would be to say that each Welsh constituency has two official names, one in each language. If you're speaking Welsh you talk about Ynys Môn and Caerdydd Canolog; if you're speaking English you talk about Anglesey and Cardiff Central. That seems to be what the BCW is actually moving towards anyway. Similarly Highland and Hebridean constituencies can have an English name and a Gaelic name.
I think that both "Ceredigion" and "Meirionnydd" are now English names, or rather Welsh names that are used in English, along the same lines as "Llanelli". Both have articles with those titles in the English language Wikipedia. I would certainly refer to the county containing Aberystwyth as "Ceredigion" (with a somewhat Anglicised pronunciation, of course); referring to it as "Cardiganshire" feels like something out of the 1950s or trying to make some Little Englander point.
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Post by Penddu on Mar 21, 2017 9:38:35 GMT
There would be practical difficulties of whether you refer to "Anglesey/Ynys Môn" or "Ynys Môn/Anglesey", and whether you look it up in the Times Guide to the House of Commons under A or Y. Depends whether you were looking it up in The Times Guide to the House of Commons or in Canllaw The Times i Dŷ'r Cyffredin. If only I knew the Welsh word for Pedant....
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 21, 2017 12:21:22 GMT
Depends whether you were looking it up in The Times Guide to the House of Commons or in Canllaw The Times i Dŷ'r Cyffredin. If only I knew the Welsh word for Pedant.... I think it's gwynthegriff
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Post by gwynthegriff on Mar 21, 2017 16:45:53 GMT
Depends whether you were looking it up in The Times Guide to the House of Commons or in Canllaw The Times i Dŷ'r Cyffredin. If only I knew the Welsh word for Pedant.... 1. Pedant (but pronounced in the welsh way ) 2. Un coegddysgedig = a vain/empty learned one 3. Crachysgolhaig = scabscholar! I like scabscholar.
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maxque
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Post by maxque on Mar 22, 2017 1:08:34 GMT
What's wrong with all 29 Welsh constituencies having a dual name? Angry English nationalists.
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