Sky News | General Discussion

It even had a county council between 1974 and 1986!

Though you also get plenty of people who refuse to aknowledge the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Merseyside are counties too and insist that they still live in the pre-1974 counties (the amount of times I've had people from and around Manchester insist they're in Lanacashire and Stockport in Cheshire). And Greater London too. Something about those metropolitan counties gets people riled.

A county called South Yorkshire was created in 1974, right? I couldn't care less what the heck the "metropolitan"/"non-metropolitan" bit means. Both of those phrases end with the word "county". Therefore, the powers that be decree that in some-sense-or-other they are counties. South Yorkshire has never subsequently been abolished by those who would have the power to do so. Therefore it exists.

What local people do/don't like, and how they choose to identify themselves may well differ from what the governmental/administrative/official designation is, but it doesn't negate it.

Claiming that e.g. South Yorkshire (or any other de facto current county) "doesn't exist" just because you don't happen to agree with it, is utter tommyrot.

The words "fact" and "opinion" are many pages apart in a dictionary. Think of this as a metaphor for the distance between the two concepts.

Does that also count for all the people who insist the counties that no longer exist (i.e. Cleveland and Middlesex) do still exist?

Yup. I see no reason to have slightest iota of tolerance for such people, and I therefore never will.

If someone says to me e.g. "I'm from Middlesex", I'm inclined to respond by expressing my surprise that I am conversing with the corpse of someone who died long enough ago to be unaware of the county changes.

Go to hell, Austin.

Love from the West Riding.

We still have people who live in places like Romford and Dagenham who insist they're in Essex, despite being part of London since 1965.

Kingston's an odd one, been part of London also since 1965, but is still the home of Surrey County Council.

I've said this before to you but…


You must be fun down the pub.

At least Sky are referring to Sheffield as being in South Yorkshire.

What is worse in my eyes is when the London centric media just refer to somewhere as being in "Yorkshire"

There definitely isn't a county called Yorkshire, it's almost as if they think there is and South Yorkshire just means the south bit of Yorkshire, like you might say East London.

Yet they will then go on to report on some knife/gun crime in London and pin point it to the specific London borough.

Especially if it's a pub in Hayes or Teddington

As in "Kingston-upon-..."?! (Which is definately not in the West Riding...)*

By the way, what the blithering flip is a "Riding" of a county anyway? I've never heard of such a thing in relation to anywhere but Yorkshire. Did Yorkshire folk just make it up, or something?

Did Yorkshire have only three Ridings (i.e. N/W/E, but no S)? Where do they begin/end in relation to present-day counties?

Does the present day county of ERoY truly correspond to the historic East Riding?

*EDIT: Speaking of that Humber-proximate city... As it is usual (and most logical) to shorten "Town-upon-River" to just the "Town" bit, why does Hull go against the grain? (Surely it's the only place that does this?) Technically, doesn't e.g. "I live in Hull" mean you must live in the actual river?!

Meanwhile, spare a thought for the residents of Poyle, just outside the M25, which has had *two* changes of county - originally in Middlesex, before becoming part of Surrey in 1965 and then being transferred to Berkshire in 1995.

And it adjoins Colnbrook, which was part of Buckinghamshire before itself being transferred to Berkshire in '95.

I don't think so, it's just the part of Humberside that was north of the Humber.

And Humberside was a county people most definatly pretended didn't exist during its short life!