Originally posted April 17, 2017:
Apparently with the activation of Article 50 the Slovaks can no longer use the term "Great Britain."
Henceforth it's "Pretty Good Britain".
From The Slovak Spectator:
Media face fines for improper use of 'Great Britain'
The Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Authority informed the media that fines can be up to €6600.
Great Britain has triggered article 50, several Slovak media outlets wrote in late March, reporting the launch of Brexit . Now they face fines up to €6600 for doing so because they violated the law, according to the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Authority of the Slovak RepublicThe "Pretty Good" line is not original to me.
In its official letter addressed to several media companies, the authority objects to the use of the term “Great Britain” and demands the use of “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” or just “The United Kingdom” instead.
The Sme daily checked official documents from the Slovak Foreign Ministry and found that they also use the term Great Britain in several official documents.
Geographer Slavomír Ondoš told Sme that he feels “a strong shame” for being connected with the authority.
“I cannot comment on the legislative aspect of the problem but I am surprised by the uncivilized manner of [the authority’s] communication,” Ondoš said. “The language is live and is evolving in this globalised world in direct contact with English.”...MORE
Some years ago I worked with a Moroccan guy named Raissoulli and upon meeting him asked if he was related to Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli, the turn of the 20th century kidnapper and brigand known in some parts of the territory between the Atlas mountains and the Mediterranean as "The Great Raisuli".
Raissoulli said yes, he was indeed a great-grandson of Raisuli but sadly he didn't think he had inherited any of the piratical swagger,
"I'm not the Great Raissoulli, maybe the Pretty Good Raissoulli though".
If interested, the autodidact historian (and two time Pulitzer prize winner) Barbara Tuchman wrote a short account of one of Raisuli's crimes/exploits. It begins:
"Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead"
Barbara Tuchman American Heritage, August 1959
Reprinted in "Practising History", Papermac, 1995
On a scented Mediterranean May evening in 1904 Mr. Ion Perdicaris, an elderly, wealthy American, was dining with his family on the vine-covered terrace of the Place of Nightingales, his summer villa in the hills above Tangier. Besides a tame demoiselle crane and two monkeys who ate orange blossoms, the family included Mrs. Perdicaris; her son by a former marriage, Cromwell Oliver Varley, who (though wearing a great name backward) was a British subject; and Mrs. Varley. Suddenly a cacophony of shrieks, commands, and barking of dogs burst from the servants' quarters at the rear.
Assuming the uproar to be a further episode in the chronic feud between their German housekeeper and their French-Zouave chef, the family headed for the servants' hail to frustrate mayhem. They ran into the butler flying madly past them, pursued by a number of armed Moors whom at first they took to be their own household guards.
Astonishingly, these persons fell upon the two gentlemen, bound them, clubbed two of the servants with their gunstocks, knocked Mrs. Varley to the floor, drew a knife against Varley's throat when he struggled toward his wife, dragged off the housekeeper, who was screaming into the telephone, "Robbers! Help!," cut the wire, and shoved their captives out of the house with guns pressed in their backs.The story was also made into a movie starring Sean Connery, The Wind and the Lion.
Waiting at the villa's gate was a handsome, black-bearded Moor with blazing eyes and a Greek profile, who, raising his arm in a theatrical gesture, announced in the tones of Henry Irving playing King Lear, "I am the Raisuli!"...
