Talk:County of Moray

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus, leaning on against. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 06:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

In the light of CheckUser findings, the result has been revised to don't move. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 10:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Would it be better for me to draw up a map for the 1889 administrative counties and replace the map with those? I could do the same for all the others where this is an issue. Obviously, I'd rather prefer to correct the maps. Morwen 18:00, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

The current map that ostensibly shows the traditional Counties is a pretty accurate depiction of the post 1889 administrative counties (and the current resgistration counties) minus Cromartyshire (and the bit of Nairnshire incorrectly labeled as Cromarty).

Thus, if you erase the enclaves in ross-shire, there's no need to create a new map for the former administrative counties. (The only other flaw is the fact the loch lomond appears to be in dumbartonshire, which it isn't, although to be honest, I doubt many people will notice.)

I may amend your master map to correctly show the historic Counties (I have a very accurate master map of my own, although the style is different and I'm not prepared to release it into the public domain at the moment). Could I ask what software you use to make the maps? 80.255 18:18, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Exactly. I even already have that maps prepared (see Ross and Cromarty). Re Loch Lomond - the map is certainly stylized and doesn't show every twiddle of the coastline. To make the maps I use the Gimp, which is just a raster package. Morwen 18:26, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Requested move

This page used to live at Morayshire until it was unilaterally renamed by User:Mais oui! who then deliberately edited the Morayshire page so that it couldn't simply be moved back. Owain (talk) 12:40, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

But that was wrong, as is this. Morayshire and Moray (county) and Moray (traditional county) should redirect to Elginshire. That's the name used in the Statistical Accounts of 1791–1799 and 1834–1845 - see here - as the constituency name from 1708 to 1906, and on the first Ordnance Survey. Pont does indeed refer to "Elgin in Moray" (and many other places "in Moray"), but I would think that this should be read as "Elgin in the province of Moray" rather than "Elgin in the county of Moray", not least because Blaeu's later Atlas refers to "Moravia Scotiae provincia" (see here). And don't get me started on East Lothian, West Lothian and Dunbartonshire. Angus McLellan (Talk) 13:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support - restore original name before unilateral move. Owain (talk) 12:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose ridiculous Angicised title. --Mais oui! 12:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
• Strong support return to correct English name (yes, English names tend to be Anglicised!) in English wikipedia. 82.26.197.74 12:57, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment This is the English language edition of Wikipedia. It is not the Wikipedia of England. Some people fail to comprehend the huge difference. --Mais oui! 12:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment - When these entities were used in administration, the "anglicised titles" were commonly used; people did not, in normal speech, refer to 'official titles' such as "the County of Elgin" any more than they refered to "the County of Southampton" instead of saying 'Hampshire'. Calling them 'anglicised' is a red herring; it's question of quasi-official titles that often took the form of County of <<administrative centre>> versus normal English names. Secondly, Morayshire was never known as "the County of Moray"; officially, it has always either been "the county of Elgin" or "Morayshire", so remaning it as you have done is inaccurate on two counts. Stringops 13:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC) (previously 82.26.197.74)
      • Comment In administration, in my experience, Scots referred to these entities as Scots entities, not as English dominions. You're right, People didn't pronounce the full, proper title of their regions/counties. Nor, however, did they use Anglicized names. When referring to Scottish lands, one would more commonly say "I'm gang back tae Argyll," not "I'm going back to Argyllshire." This holds true for other counties such as County Moray, and County Ross. As well, Elginshire would be the preferred term over Morayshire, as evidenced here by many others. Canaen 00:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose - should be Elginshire. Angus McLellan (Talk) 13:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
• Support - if it's a choice between not good Morayshire and bad Moray (county), I had better take not good, but I still think Elginshire is best. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:35, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - Elginshire gets 12,400 hits on google; county of moray gets 567, and Morayshire gets 1,030,000. I think that this, although only a 'google test', demonstrates which name is most commonly used, and thus what the wikipedia article on it should be called. Stringops 14:10, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
    • And "Moray" gets 5,750,000 - --Mais oui! 14:15, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
      • A thoroughly specious comparison, as you very well know, because the huge majority of these results will be refering to the current council area called Moray or the former district of the same name, and not the county. You want to call the article Moray (county), so the only way to test how popular the name 'Moray' is as a specific reference to the county is to search for 'county of Moray' or moray county (326 hits).
        • "Moray" "county" gets 1,370,000. --Mais oui! 14:35, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
          • Any search without quotation marks to ensure that it is 'moray' that is being refered to as a county is worthless. Stringops 14:57, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
            • Stop talking utter nonsense: your Google search using "Moray county" is an utter farce.--Mais oui! 15:02, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
              • How exactly can we determine whether or not an instance of the word 'Moray' is specifically refering to a county without searching either for 'county of Moray' or 'Moray county'? Clearly, on the other hand, 'Morayshire' is refering only to the county. The mere fact that 'Moray' and the common word 'county' appear on the same page means absolutely nothing. A search for Moray country gives 1,490,000 results - more than moray county. Does this mean that, by your logic, we should consider 'Moray' to be a nation state? Stringops 15:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
• Support best title for page to avoid parenthesised disambiguation JRawle (Talk) 15:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose - I have a low opinion of the value of google hits. Anyways, Morayshire sounds just ridiculous; but as a historical county, I'm with Angus MacLellan, Elginshire is much the best. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 22:11, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment : Hansard 1830-1832 uses County of Elgin and Forres. And Forres ? Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:43, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear, things become more complicated. Was there really no standard way of referring to this, or did County of Elgin and Forres just get transformed into Elginshire - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 23:16, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

The sheriffdom was "Elgin and Forres" by the 1550s. An entry in the Dictionary of the Scots Language makes a connection between counties and sheriffdoms explicit: "Her grace the dutches of Hamiltoun, high shirreff of the said shirreffdom or county of Lanerk (1708)". "Real" shires, like Weemsshire, Kinghornshire, Culrossshire, Dunfermlingshire, and many more, those just in "traditional" Fifeshire, are mentioned here there and everywhere in the DSL citations. Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose - This is a simply not how we refer to things. These are not English shires, they are historic Scottish counties. This is akin to renaming Ulster Ulstershire,simply because Ulster's currently in the U.K. Canaen 23:57, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Counties only have the suffix "-shire" if there is a county town of the same name eg York - Yorkshire but Taunton - Somerset. Hence this article should not be moved to Morayshire. -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - Counties only *need* the shire suffix if there is a town of the same name, but that isn't to say that counties that aren't named after towns can't have it too. There are plenty of examples of such names that have only recently gone out of fashion - Somersetshire, Rutlandshire, Devonshire, &c. Owain (talk) 18:50, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose - the other proposed scottish shires were strange enough - but Morayshire! It sounds ludicrous. An Siarach
  • Comment - Proposed? By whom? Why does Morayshire sound ludicrous? According to the Royal Mail it is both a postal county and traditional county. Owain (talk) 18:50, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
    • That is a thoroughly deceitful contribution. The only reason that the Royal Mail database has those fictional "traditional" (sic) "counties" (sic) is that the "Association of British Counties" (sic) managed to hoodwink them, see Association of British Counties#Successes. Shame on you,... and even more so on them.--Mais oui! 00:08, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Oh please! The Royal Mail don't have to do anything anyone tells them. The ABC supplied the data, but the Royal Mail added it to the PAF. Shame on anyone who doesn't subscribe to your PoV eh? Owain (talk) 18:55, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
        • The ABC supplied the (faulty) data, but the Royal Mail added it to the PAF (in good faith and without checking it). I see. Now all is clear. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Restoration of historic name. MonMan 15:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Moray is the historic name (going back at least 1000 years). "Morayshire" was a Victorian neologism. --Mais oui! 15:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
    • A 'Victorian neologism' would be better called an Archaeologism, otherwise known as a word. Also, in pre-19th century usages, it is generally spelt Murray, not Moray. Will you next be arguing that Alba is a far older word than Scotland and therefore we should move the Scotland article to Alba? Or move England to Albion? Stringops 16:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
      • He ain't arguing that. He's pointing out that Moray is older than Morayshire, which wipes away the validity of the statement "Restoration of historic name", the statement he was responding to. Actually, the original spellings are either Muireb or Moreb (pronounced as Muref, hence Latinization as Moravia). - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 19:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
        • I fully acknowledge that 'Moray', 'Murray' or 'Muireb' are older terms. The question is: where and how should we draw the line when naming articles? The other question - one that you don't seem to accept - is that of what specifically these terms have refered to in the past; this article is about the county; it is not about the general area of the comital province. Morayshire and Elginshire both refer exclusively to the county; phrases like the county of Moray or the county of Elgin also refer exclusively to it; but I haven't yet see any evidence that plain Moray is popularly used for such exclusive reference, and, even if it is, don't you think it makes the title ambiguous in a way that wikipedia should seek to avoid? Stringops 16:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I was referred here by a post on WP:AN. The consensus here seems very mixed. I don't feel comfortable closing this discussion. Argue about it for a while longer, please. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I do. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 06:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Further discussion

• The ABC supplied the (faulty) data, but the Royal Mail added it to the PAF (in good faith and without checking it). I see. Now all is clear. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Who said it was faulty data? Who said the Royal Mail didn't check it? Obviously there are alternative names for every county and you are free to use whichever alternative you like, but that's no use if the Royal Mail don't supply the data in the first place. Owain (talk) 09:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Who said it wasn't ? Who said they did ? Point is that in the absence of that information, the Royal Mail can be considered no more reliable than the ABC on the subject of county names. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

• "There were two large detached portions of Morayshire situated locally in Inverness-shire, and a corresponding part of Inverness-shire situated locally in Morayshire. With the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 these parts were merged into the county in which they locally lay." Philips' Handy Atlas of the Counties of Scotland, 1886 edition, shows this reassignment as having already happened: Philips map "Counties of Elgin & Nairn"

Towns that aren't in the County of Moray

I see that the list of Towns and villages of the county includes several that are in the Moray council area but not in the County of Moray. These include

• Buckie
• Charlestown of Aberlour
• Dufftown
• Findochty
• Keith, Moray
• Portknockie

and possibly others. I propose deleting them from the list, unless someone can explain why they should be retained. Maproom (talk) 13:19, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I have now deleted

• Buckie
• Charlestown of Aberlour
• Dufftown
• Findochty
• Glenlivet
• Keith
• Maggieknockater
• Portknockie

Maproom (talk) 09:54, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

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