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Leonard Will wrote: > In message <[log in to unmask]> on Fri, > 20 Jan 2006, Sheila Corrall <[log in to unmask]> wrote >> I completely agree that many people in other countries use the words >> 'England' and 'English' at least as often as, if not more often than, >> they use 'Britain', 'UK', etc. When I am overseas, people frequently >> describe me as 'English' (which I am not, being a British citizen >> from Northern Ireland) and when I try to correct this description, >> many people do not seem to grasp that 'England' is not synonymous >> with the UK. > > I suspect that many people in this country are guilty of the same > mistake when they use the name of the province of Holland as being > synonymous with the name of the country, The Netherlands. The reasons being the same, of course: Holland being the dominant province, and uncertainty over the changing name of the whole polity (United Provinces, Dutch Republic). Holland was so large that it has been divided into two provinces: North Holland and South Holland. I am not at all clear when the name "Belgium" became established for that other part of the Burgundian Netherlands, the former Spanish/Austrian Netherlands. The Latin "Belgia" or "Belgica" properly applied (as did "The Netherlands") to whole of Benelux, as well as chunks of France. Perhaps we could also ponder that "America" is smaller than "North America" :-) John Briggs