Is the imaginary line that separates the legal and administrative jurisdictions of Scotland and England a border or a boundary?
It’s certainly the dividing line between civilisation and not-such but other than that, the detail of the question?
Is the imaginary line that separates the legal and administrative jurisdictions of Scotland and England a border or a boundary?
It’s certainly the dividing line between civilisation and not-such but other than that, the detail of the question?
A border is a boundary, but a boundary is not necessarily a border. A border has restrictions on who or what can pass through. A boundary is just an administrative line, just like the boundary between different councils and different counties where there is no restriction on who or what can pass over the line. And no a boundary with a gate at the entrance to a property is not a border, but a security feature.
“A border has restrictions on who or what can pass through”: it might have but it needn’t have.
SBML: A border has restrictions on who or what can pass through
That’s a bit narrow – countries have borders and border restrictions are within the gift of the countries – Schengen countries pre covid fall into this category and the line between England and Scotland is a border rather than a boundary and yet people cross without border formalities.
A pendant is a sort of necklace. A person who points this out is called a pedant.
SBML,
What about the border between 2 Schengen countries? (before the current panuicdemic)
National borders, county boundaries, parish bounds are the conventional uses.
@Pedant’s Pedant
That sort of person is a pendant, because they should hang.
And around here it’s “pendant” Because Polly Toynbee once called me a pendant – a typo for pedant – so we adopted it as part of the local language around here. The “joke”, such as it is, has been running for near two decades now…..well, OK, perhaps 15 years.
I heard Scott Adams use pendant in one of his daily Periscopes (on YouTube). I couldn’t tell whether it was a deliberate slip or just a slip.
Pedant’s Pedant,
You haven’t been around this manner long, I take it?
@PP. Pendantic sorts let it all hang out.
A border is the outer edge of an area, around that area. A boundary is a limit within an area. For a Country its border is the outer edge of its land area, but there may be boundaries within that area.
Since Scotland and England have the same territorial area, Great Britain, and are a unitary State, the line between North Britain and South Britain is a boundary since 1707, before which it was a border between two separate States.
PJF, perhaps Scott Adams reads this blog. Is he Steve?
Dear Mr Worstall
The Sage nails it – @ July 6, 2020 at 10:04 am
When I drive to Scotland I cross the border, same to Wales.
@ DocBud July 6, 2020 at 10:15 am
Pedant’s Pedant,
You haven’t been around this
mannermanor long, I take it?Fixed that for you. /pendant
DP
DP, somehow I think DocBud misspelt manner/manor deliberately…
@Bison and @Solent A border has restrictions. That they might be eased under some agreement doesn’t stop it being a border. Witness whats happened due to covid. There might be Schengen countries who agreed to not have a physical border, but they quite quickly re-imposed them when the health of their citizens was at risk.
https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/schengen/reintroduction-border-control_en
@ John B
There is a border between England and Scotland which are not a unitary state but two parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As Scots law differs in many respects from English law I do not think that the two countries would be a unitary state if the Welsh and Irish seceded. The lack of a separate English Parliament is not enough to make the UK a unitary state.
Is Hadrian’s Wall an actual wall? Is it a boundary?
It’s not a border. Except to some fields and such.
I am inclined to John B’s “A border is the outer edge of an area, around that area. A boundary is a limit within an area.”
Though, to give it another perspective: a boundary is a limit, it is a view from within as to where ‘this’ becomes ‘that’; a border is line, an outside view, where some place becomes another place.
A border goes around the outside of something. I can set the colour of my screen border, not the colour of my screen boundary. There is a boundary between the border and the content area of the screen. There is a border to this editbox that I am typing in.
It is the line between civilization and porridge eating savages
Is it not that there are some areas of scotland where the people consider themselves to be Englishfolk and as such their territory should come to England upon separation?
@jgh
Borders can be in the anywhere in an area
I suspect Pedant’s Pedant was making joke along similar lines to those made in the intro’s to one of the I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue word games.
Dunno, but Berwick-upon-Tweed has always been pretty flexible about whether they are part of Scotland or England.
I quite like Tim’s distinction. If you feed oats to horses you’re civilised, if you eat them for breakfast (especially using salt for flavouring instead of sugar or honey) then you are no more civilised than the hairy arsed followers of Robbie the Bruce.
Then again, I’m a foreigner (Manx/Irish), living amongst the Scots, so I have a certain perverse nature to begin with. I like my neighbours. Nice people.
There is a border between Gretna Green and London.
End of discussion.