Home Thought from Abroad

[steepholm]

Here's a thought. If barristers who take silk are called QC when there's a queen on the throne, and KC when there's a king, why not extend the principle to other areas of royal-inflected language? As long as we're carrying on the with whole stupid system at all, let's at least do it non-sexistly. The rules about succession were recently changed so that sons could no longer leapfrog daughters, but why - when we have a female monarch - is it still called a "kingdom"?

I propose that while there's a queen on the throne, we should refer to this as a queendom, and the name of the country should be the United Queendom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or UQ for short. This would have the advantage that "You queue" is virtually our national motto anyway, although I like to think that informal expressions of concern ("You 'kay?") are not entirely out of character.

We'd better hurry though, for the current queen is elderly, and beyond her stretches a line of sons even to the crack of doom.

Better still, we could just have a republic...

Comments

[dorianegray.livejournal.com]

Why not go properly unisex - call it the UR, United Royaldom. And then you can all have fun completing the sentence, "you are ...".

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Or the United Monarchdom - I would enjoy giving my nationality as UM.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

We did have one and then like bloody nanas decided we'd like a Lord Protector (king in all but name) and then the House of Stewart back please!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I saw a production of Julius Caesar in which the title role was played by a woman. Some of the gender-based speech was changed, some was not. Antony offered Caesar a monarchial crown, not a kingly one (or even a royal one, which would have scanned).

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Didn't Elizabeth I call herself a prince? And anyway prince and princess have the same initial. It could be all U.P. with you folks, all the time.

[mount-oregano.livejournal.com]

British Reign?

Logically, there would also be the Reign in Spain.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

"If the sun don't come you get your tan from standing in the British reign..."