2000-12-02
>From what others have been saying, Scotland seems to be more metric friendly
than England, despite the fact that BWMA's headquarters are in Edinburgh.
Would it be possible for the Scottish Parliament to legislate road sign
conversion on Scottish soil ahead of England? What would be the
implications?
John
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, 2000-12-02 10:16
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:9501] OT: Re: Re: SI is English!
On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 21:23:40 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Joseph B. Reid)
wrote:
>Scott Clauss wrote in USMA 9484:
>>And on a off topic, what is the difference between British and
English? I
>>suppose they used to swing swords at each other because of the
distinction,
>>but in America at least in modern times the distinction has faded.
>
>I suppose the term British would be appropriate for events after 1707 when
>the Scottish parliament was abolished and Scotland started to send MPs to
>the parliament of Westminster.
To recap what was covered here some time ago: Britain=the island that
comprises England, Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom = Britain +
Northern Ireland. As Joe says above, since 1707 the parliament in
London has ruled over all of the UK (including all of Ireland up to
Irish independence earlier last century). However, Scotland retained
its own legal system, and while most laws apply across the whole of
the UK there are occasionally separate laws that apply to Scotland (or
N Ireland) only, or laws are modified slightly for these regions (the
Weights & Measures legislation being one example). Presumably now that
Scotland has its own parliament it will be passing its own laws, but
I'm not sure exactly what the relationship between that and the
parliament in London is.
For a discussion on terminology regarding these islands, I refer you
to 'The Isles' by Norman Davies, a highly-regarded historian. He chose
the title as the most appropriate name.
--
Chris KEENAN
UK Metrication: http://www.metric.org.uk/
UK Correspondent, US Metric Association
