Originally Posted by
PDR1
Another fake fact!
Great Britain did not exist until James 1st (VIth) invented the term to describe his kingdom as a single entity without any implied supermecy of England over Scotland or vice versa - this would have been abouyt 1605, so barely more than 400 years ago...
:0)
PDR
[This post was brought to you by Pedents R Us AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Pointless Pedentary for a Better Britain GMBh]
And so down the internet rabbit hole I went, curious about yet another distinction in
the many names for all or part of the archipeligo off the north west coast of europe.
I learnt that according to that font of much usually but not always reliable information, Wikipedia:
The classical writer,
Ptolemy, referred to the larger island as
great Britain (
megale Bretannia) and to Ireland as
little Britain (
mikra Brettania) in his work,
Almagest (147–148 AD).
[37] In his later work,
Geography (c. 150 AD), he gave these islands the names
[38] Ἀλουίωνος (
Alwiōnos),
Ἰουερνίας (
Iwernias), and
Mona (the
Isle of Man), suggesting these may have been native names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing
Almagest.
[39] The name
Albion appears to have fallen out of use sometime after the
Roman conquest of Great Britain, after which
Britain became the more commonplace name for the island called Great Britain.
Clearly Ptolemy postdates the formation of the English Channel and the North Sea...