The French origin of Great Britain

Peter Auty

Letters, April 15) accuses me of unhelpful and unfounded criticism of our country which, according to him, is called "Great Britain".

I should apparently realise how perfect our nation is because of the word "Great".

He's wrong; Great Britain is the geographic name of our main island, it's not a country, and the "great" was never intended to mean "excellent" – it was to distinguish La Grande Bretagne (Big Brittany) from the smaller Bretagne (Brittany, absorbed now as a region of France). Big Brittany and Little Brittany, if you will.

I'm in no doubt though that what was originally merely a geographic term has been seized on for the purposes of UK marketing and selfaggrandisement. I wonder how many people around the UK and the world are aware of this.

The deceit is being perpetuated by our populist politicians of both the major parties: from the Tories "Great British Rail" and "Great British Nuclear" and now a Labour proposal, "Great British Energy".

I'm not aware of any other state on the planet which feels the need to pump itself up constantly by calling itself great.

We must cure ourselves of this delusion; perhaps by unravelling the UK and all its mysteries and emerging as simpler, honest countries (England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales) we might do so.

We might then start to focus on reality rather than illusion; breaking the spell woven by our medieval hangovers such as the church, the monarchy, Lord Lieutenants, House of "Lords", medals named after a ghastly and defunct empire etc.

We could perhaps then start to make the many sorely needed improvements.

But in the meantime I will enjoy the common ground between me and Peter Auty – our countryside and coastline really are as great as he writes and my wife and I enjoy our Great British Walks as often as possible.