Are there any British posters to this Board? If not, I appologize.
My question: Something looks wrong with the verb “to abrogoot”, but I am an American and we don’t have any such word. A dictionary is not readily available.
The word I’m looking for means the process whereby a king or queen quits their office. As happened, for example, in the U.K. in 1936 (“The Year of Three Kings”). Is the procedure called “abrogootion”—or something else?
Since this is the GreatDebates Board, I’ll also ask the following:
Once upon a time the British monarch was elected by a group of “wise men”.
My second question, the one for debate is: “Does anyone think that, in these modern times, the U.K. should go back to the Witan and have them elect the British King?”
Yet another question: Do the United Kingdoms have but one king/queen or is there some committee of kings, one each from England, Scotland, Wales, and N.Ireland? And for debate: Should there be such a committee of monarchs? Or just one single monarch for all the Kingdoms of the U.K.??
“To abrogoot or not to abrogoot? That is the question!”
One queen, Elizabeth II. In the United Kingdom her official title is: “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.”
Great Britain includes Scotland and Wales.
Wales has a Prince–the Crown Prince of England (currently Charles, will be William when his daddy becomes King).
Actually, I think it might be correct except for the word “British.” IIRC, “witan” is perfectly good Old English. If it ever happened, though, it would have been pre-1066, and the person so elected would have been king of England at most. More likely he would have been a regional king of, say, East Anglia or Northumbria.
I’ll leave this one for better medievalists than I am to confirm or deny.
It’s true, the Witan elected the King of England before 1066. And not just the regional kings; King Harold Godwinson was descended from the old kings of Wessex, but his writ ran clear up to Northumbria(as Harald Hardrada found out to his misfortune).
And Northern Ireland. I hate to nitpick but my postcount goes up every time I do!
It’d be great to have a King elected by a body of elders, or wise men. Is that technically monarchy, though? Doesn’t effectively become… um, gerontocracy? Or something? I propose British monarchs be elected by a system of clipped coupons from publications such as TV Quick, Bella, and Loaded.
The thing is, though, the Queen (Gawd bless 'er) has a 99% figurehead role. The Prime Minister heads up what is diplomatically called “Her” government, but the Queen doesn’t have any more sway on governmental affairs than any other relatively wise, intelligent, experienced acquaintance of the PM. That’s to say, he has to go and see her once a week. I imagine she puts in her two cents, and she’s been around for a while so he’d be a fool to ignore her: she’s not stupid. I don’t really know what would happen if they had a violent disagreement. I think both sides try to avoid the situation just in case someone has to be hung, drawn and quartered to stave off violent bloody revolution. Violent bloody revolution is always a bit of a faux-pas as royal etiquette goes.
There must be history to all this. It’ll be on the net somewhere: what, you expected me to stay awake in History?
PS: I think “abrogootion” is a much better word than “abdication”.
PPS: While I’m nitpicking, “Britishers” is a term traditionally screamed by Nazi pilots in bad comic strips while being mowed down by heroic Tommies. The closest acceptable term is “Britons”, which is what they say on the news but it does sound a bit weird. “Brits” usually suffices, or “BritDopers” around here.
Mine says nothing about the Commonwealth (well, it includes it with ‘foreign nations’ in the bit about dual nationality not exempting bearers from their other nationality’s obligations).
Each Commonwealth country has its own passports. I’ve seen plenty of Australian ones.
Okay! I know better than to argue with someone who lives nearer than I do. I guess I was taking “Great Britain” to mean everywhere the Queen (Gawd bless 'er) is titular boss of. Ah, heck, I just wanted to make my post count go bump. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!
(breaks down and is led out gently)
Anybody remember the guy in Braveheart who announced blithely that Ireland was his? He was cool. I liked him. Who was he? Did he have a receipt, or just represent the slightly more fluid rulerships of the time?
Okay! I know better than to argue with someone who lives nearer than I do. I guess I was taking “Great Britain” to mean everywhere the Queen (Gawd bless 'er) is titular boss of. Ah, heck, I just wanted to make my post count go bump. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!
(breaks down and is led out gently)
Anybody remember the guy in Braveheart who announced blithely that Ireland was his? He was cool. I liked him. Who was he? Did he have a receipt, or just represent the slightly more fluid rulerships of the time?
ps: But for the sake of nitpicking I should add that Great Britain includes Scotland, Wales and England. Ha!
pps: Hey, I just realised I’m making an ass of myself. I’m sorry.
Commenting on the OP: perhaps you were thinking of the word abrogation?
Merriam-Webster® Collegiate® Dictionary abrogate
Main Entry: ab·ro·gate Pronunciation: 'a-br&-"gAt
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -gat·ed; -gat·ing
Etymology: Latin abrogatus, past participle of abrogare, from ab- + rogare to ask, propose a law – more at RIGHT
Date: 1526
1 : to abolish by authoritative action : ANNUL
2 : to treat as nonexistent <abrogating their responsibilities> synonym see NULLIFY
ab·ro·ga·tion /"a-br&-'gA-sh&n/ noun
However, as other people have said, the correct word is abdication.
I would like to speak to someone aboot abrogooting my respoonsibility to work prodooctively this oofternoon. Oofter all, it is Frooday. Who could be expoocted to accoomplish anything? Who here has the authoority to approve my abrogootion?
No, although there are those who would suggest the term might suit the Heir but you’re quite possibly of a tender age so lets leave it there…
I guess, though, we do have a VK in a sense - maybe two. Charles is first in line to the throne but if the Queen is just having a funny five minutes, her husband can take over to represent her.
No. The trend is toward greater grassroots democracy (If the politicians are to be believed). Hence, in the last couple of years, Scotland has opened it’s own Parliament (with limited powers) and Wales an Assembly – both elected by the people of those countries. Like the US, we have something called ‘universal sufferage’ which means pretty well everyone 18 or older is entitled to vote - the Witan didn’t work that way.
One Monarch at a time. That’s why it’s called the ‘United Kingdom’ – the Welsh Monarchy is lost in the mists of time although we believe probably Arthur and, certainly, Alfred came from the that area.
Alfred was the first King to unite some of the tribes - that was the first step towards uniting England (mainly the south, west and part of the midlands) – before then it was all tribal, with the occasional infusion of order from the Danes or Romans, etc.
The Scottish line was tied in with the English – that’s a long and complicated story. Lots of chopping (I use the word carefully) and changing…
Going way back, Ireland also had Monarchs. Although I don’t know the history, I believe they too got lost in the mists of time.
Now there is just the one line of Accession in relation to the UK
One is enough. For some, more than enough. The question falls at the first hurdle as there’s only one Monarch available these days and that’s probably not enough to form a committee (see previous answer about what happened to the other lines)
If you’re at all interested, I’d recommend this link to you. Lots of great info:
