# Q about Britain **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 24, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242 "2016-06-24T15:31:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/21 "2016-06-26T00:00:02Z")
These words have so many definitions, among them: “Nation” — a group of people who share cultural or genetic ancestry and share certain societal characteristics, such as language, regardless of their geographic distribution. “Country” —a geographic region that has a cohesive history, including a history of common governance “State” —an independent, sovereign political entity with a common government “Nation-state” — a sovereign political entity encompassing a nation, that is, an ethnic or cultural group These and other definitions apply variously in these circumstances. They have essentially become arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/22 "2016-06-26T04:14:17Z")
It’s simple: States are countries, except when they’re not. Typically, a sovereign state is a country, except in the United States of America (a sovereign state which is a country), where sovereign states are not countries. For example, Texas, a sovereign state, is not a country: It is, rather, a sovereign state with a republican form of government called Texas, and has been since the sovereign state with a republican form of government called Texas ceased to exist in 1846. A country controls its own laws regarding treason without interference from any other country, which means Scotland is a country, its laws on treason being controlled from England, another country. Scotland skipped becoming a sovereign state when it voted down the referendum on secession, which was not about becoming a sovereign state (like Texas) in the slightest. Now, ask me about the American Civil War, when a number of sovereign states attempted to become sovereign states and lost, resulting in them becoming, instead, sovereign states. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/23 "2016-06-26T04:40:21Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > As opposed to the British political theory that the Monarch has all of the power, but decides to delegate nearly 100% of that power to parliament, who in turn delegates some of that power to the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish parliaments. No, this isn’t right. The Queen is sovereign, but Parliament is supreme. The Commons and the Lords both have power independently of the Queen, not as her delegates. Together the Queen and the two Houses make up Parliament, which is the supreme body in the UK. That’s why it’s called supremacy of Parliament. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/24 "2016-06-26T06:35:25Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > … Typically, a sovereign state is a country, except in the United States of America (a sovereign state which is a country), where sovereign states are not countries. … Another exception is Australia, where the six states in the federation have their own sovereignty, and their own sovereigns (even though the queen of each state is the same person as the Queen of Australia – and the Queen of the UK, and of Canada, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/25 "2016-06-26T12:34:33Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > We call them countries. > > It may sound odd to external viewers who regard countries as places that issue their own passports and sit in the UN, but then foreign opinion on such subjects has rarely held much interest here. > Simply put, the UK is a political union of four countries. > > You can see this come to life in some international sports competitions, particularly amongst sports we established, such as football (soccer), where we compete as separate nations, often against each other on the international stage (eg Wales v England during the current European Championship football tournament). For the Olympics, there are British curling team (which are always the Scottish national teams), while for the annual world championships, Scotland curls as a country and there could, in principle (but never in practice) be an English or Welsh or Irish team. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/26 "2016-06-26T12:58:13Z")
surprised nobody mentioned USA has 46 states and 4 commonwealths - Kentucky , Mass, Pennsylvania and Virginia. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/27 "2016-06-26T13:12:20Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > surprised nobody mentioned USA has 46 states and 4 commonwealths - Kentucky , Mass, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Nope. There are 50 states. Four of the states have “commonwealth” in their official names, but in terms of what kind of political entity they are, they are states. Their use of the word “commonwealth” has zero legal implication. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/28 "2016-06-26T13:17:41Z")
well some people in those 4 places don’t like to admit they are states. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/29 "2016-06-26T13:33:16Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > well some people in those 4 places don’t like to admit they are states. 🙂 That’s just a small number of people being silly. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/30 "2016-06-26T14:25:11Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > It is a complicated mish-mash that has just sort of grown up over the centuries. Yes and No. There was a major reorganization of local government in 1972 in a very structured manner–which was later muddled up: > **[History of local government in England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_local_government_in_England)** > > The history of local government in England is one of gradual change and evolution since the Middle Ages. England has never possessed a formal written constitution, with the result that modern administration (and the judicial system) is based on precedent, and is derived from administrative powers granted (usually by the Crown) to older systems, such as that of the shires. > The concept of local government in England spans back into the history of Anglo-Saxon England (c. 700-1066), and certain ... ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/31 "2016-06-26T16:22:16Z")
it may be true that in 1952 there were only 47 states. Anyone know why? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/32 "2016-06-26T16:29:17Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > it may be true that in 1952 there were only 47 states. Anyone know why? Alaska and Hawaii were admitted in 1959. But that brings us to 48. I don’t know how you get to 47. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/33 "2016-06-26T16:35:33Z")
Congress never formally admitted Ohio until 1953. At the point they made Ohio a state retroactive to 1803 when most people think they were admitted. ( And I bet someone comes along and tells me that this is silly) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/34 "2016-06-26T17:05:08Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Congress never formally admitted Ohio until 1953. Sorry, this tax protestor nonsense is idiotic. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/35 "2016-06-26T17:16:49Z")
I don’t know anything about what tax protestors claim about Ohio. I know that those people always lose in court . I guess Congress just passed that bill to admit Ohio in 1953 just for giggles? They were bored one day and decided to pass that law? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/36 "2016-06-26T17:24:25Z")
Tax protesters use the argument that Ohio was not a state to claim that the income tax amendment was never adopted. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/37 "2016-06-26T17:28:58Z")
which is really dumb because even if you exclude Ohio, enough states ratified the income tax amendment. They only needed 36 states and they got 41 excluding Ohio. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/38 "2016-06-26T17:29:41Z")
There is nothing in the constitution that requires Congress to pass this kind of resolution when admitting a state, but it was done largely to settle whether the official date of admission was in February or March 1803. There was never a question as to whether Ohio had been properly admitted in 1803. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/39 "2016-06-26T17:34:14Z")
OK so they passed a law for fun. 🙂 Sort of like when they declare national ice cream week. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242/40 "2016-06-26T17:44:29Z")
Britain is a very centralized country. Even if in theory the union of 4 countries/nations, for a long time till recently those weren’t actually subdivisions in a meaningful sense in terms of governance for most purposes. There were always exceptions to that statement, like Scotland retaining its own legal system all along, but not Wales for example, and it’s only recently that there’s real decentralized governmental power outside London. In the model of British governance prior to devolution, the subdivisions were really the counties more than the semi-theoretical component four nations. And the other three were really a local empire of England’s. As we saw even in Brexit, England still dominates: they voted to leave by a relatively moderate margin but that was enough to make Scotland’s clear dissent moot. That’s quite different than the US, or Canada or Australia, or a number of other countries which are more federal than the UK has been up to very recently, and much less dominated by any one particular sub-entity. As to the word ‘state’, words can have more than one meaning. State as in US state is one of those meanings. It’s no more a misnomer to call the US states ‘states’ because they aren’t independent countries than it is to call independent countries ‘states’, in some contexts, because they aren’t US states. It’s two somewhat different meanings of the same English word. And China for example doesn’t have states in the US sense, but the US states are referred to in Chinese (and Japanese and Korean) by a particular character, 州, (zhou). That character can also mean province or nation and often appears as the second syllable in city names (Guangzhou, Wenzhou in China, Gwangju in the ROK, etc) but as a standalone it is usually refers to US states, not other countries’ provinces, not independent countries. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/q-about-britain/758242.md?page=3)