Pedants flag up Duke’s dubious terminology

IT IS the short phrase that raises the hackles of pedants everywhere: using Union Jack to describe a British flag waved on dry land.

No less authority than the Duke of Cambridge, a future head of the British Armed Forces, this week weighed into the debate, as he taught Polish schoolchildren to name the flag in English.

The Duke, who was speaking to youngsters during a walkabout in Warsaw, enunciated carefully as he pointed at the flags they waved, telling them: “Union Jack. Union Jack.” Traditionally, many have believed the term should only be used for flags flown from a naval jackstaff, with those flown on land called the Union Flag.

The Royal family’s official website tends to use the term Union Flag, as does The Daily Telegraph’s own style guide. But the Duke, it appears, is not without his supporters. An expert at the Oxford English Dictionary said the use of jack for flags on land is by now “well-established and of long standing”. It was used as early as the late 18th century in “perfectly reputable publications”.

Clifford Sofield, senior assistant editor at the OED, said a jack specifically refers to a ship’s flag, smaller than an ensign, which is typically used at sea as a signal or to show which country a ship comes from. He added: “Since the early 19th century it has been quite common to call the flag the ‘Union Jack’, and today it is the more usual term.” In 2013, in an attempt to settle the debate, the Flag Institute published research concluding that both are equally valid.

The Duke will have had plenty of opportunity to study the flag itself during a trip to Europe with his wife and children, with well-wishers waving them and painting their faces from Warsaw to Hamburg.