Talk: Hadrian's Wall
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Note: revisions of this article from prior to February 2002 are under Hadrians Wall.
It is usually written Hadrian's Wall with a capital "W". Tony Vignaux
- Article has been so renamed from Hadrian's wall. --Brion 02:23 Oct 8, 2002 (UTC)
euphemism?
The article says "The name is also sometimes used as a euphemism for the border between Scotland and England, despite it not following the modern border." Is there any evidence for this? I don't remember hearing it so used, ever, and I wondered what the justification was for this statement. I don't mean to sound hostile, just puzzled. Nevilley
- This usage is indeed current and immediately understood in the UK. (Or I've heard it a few times since I moved here a coupla years ago.) I didn't originally insert it into the article, but I did move it to the first para for that reason. - David Gerard 10:32, Feb 12, 2004 (UTC)
- Hmm. We may have to agree to differ over this. I certainly don't have the inclination for an edit war! But I must say that I still cannot imagine how this alleged contemporary usage actually works, unless it is being used by people who are simply - ah - wrong. In which case it would need writing up in a different way perhaps. But if you said to me "I'm going North of Hadrian's Wall" I would not hear that you were going to Scotland - I would probably (perhaps unfairly to the west of the country!) assume that you were heading for Northumberland. Are you saying that people actually do use it that way? I've lived in England, north and south, for rather more than a couple of years - well, getting on for fifty actually! - and it just does not have that meaning for me. It is not, in my view of usage, "current and immediately understood". If the article said "It is occasionally used to represent the Anglo-Scottish border by people who have no idea what they are talking about and who also think that whales are fish and the tromba marina is a brass instrument but we are mentioning here that they do this because it has happened once or twice" then I might have more sympathy with it although I don't really think that cataloguing misconceptions is a core role for the wiki. :) Right, I have ranted, I will leave it! Off to find another windmill to tilt at - Nevilley
- "I still cannot imagine how this alleged contemporary usage actually works, unless it is being used by people who are simply - ah - wrong."
- I think that would be the one - the north starts at Watford Gap or something. I don't have any deep affection for it, but I have heard it used colloquially, and being wrong and stupid never stopped a colloquial usage. Dunno if that's encyclopaedic enough - kill it if you like :-) - David Gerard 17:28, Feb 12, 2004 (UTC)
- I've certainly heard "North of Hadrian's Wall" to mean Scotland - usually as a jovial insult, i.e. "the barbarous land to the North" DJ Clayworth 17:38, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Oh well, fair enough. Not worth getting out of one's pram over. :) Nevilley
Past tense
Why is so much of this article in the past tense? - it has a lot of statements like "Hadrian's Wall was ..." and "H's W ran ..." I know that some of them are correct (it was built etc) but surely others are wrong given that it still (mostly) is, it still (mostly) runs etc etc? Nevilley 23:12, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
