I don't think the word itself has any particularly strong connotations, it'll depend on the context.
> In Polish though e.g. many cultural institutions use our equivalent of "national" in their names and it just means that it's something that represents our nation and is the main institution of it's kind (contrary to local institutions)
Plenty of Anglophone cultural institutions are also called "national …", such as the different *National Trusts* and *National Libraries*. And there are likewise plenty of agencies all over the Anglosphere called such, from the *National Institutes of Health* to the *National Indigenous Australians Agency*.
Yeah we have both in France. Many institutions use the term "national" because that's literally the nation's institutions, it doesn't need any interpretation. But the term "national" in politics is often seen as far right agenda because it is used as that. Op just confused both terms.
Negative connotations of the word "national" might be specific to the UK. I don't think there are any strong connotations in the US. It's a commonly used term for all sorts of organizations, from government to sports.
I'm from England the term is neutral no negative connocations attached to the word. National\[e\] is reguarly used. I believe this is the same for the rest of the UK.
There are no negative connotations in the UK. Don't know where the OP gets his ideas from. There is one political party called the National Front which is quite right wing but we have things like the National Theatre, National Insurance, National Parks, National Botanic Gardens, National Westminster Bank etc etc etc.
The premise is wrong. The word national itself has no bad connotation. For example, the beloved NHS (national health service) in the UK. In the US there is the NSA, NASA, etc.
It is true that right wing parties tend to use "national" and "nation" in their branding. Partly as an advertising opportunity to distance themselves and their politics from neoconservatives but also to create a narrative and distinct branding especially for topics like migration.
Same in the US. In addition to the organizational examples you provided it also applies to individuals. To be called, for example, a French national, just means the person has French nationality. Nothing negative about it. It’s more commonly used for people from certain countries but that’s just a linguistics issue.
I don't think that "national" has negative connotations in English at all. The National Trust, which is a charity, is one example. National Health Service is another. BBC gets called a national broadcaster, etc. In Britain at least, people like Darwin, Newton, Shakespeare, Attenborough, Dickens, etc. get called national treasures. And so on.
No, "national" doesn't have negative connotations in English. It is used for positive things (the national cricket team), negative things (the British National Party), and neutral things (the national curriculum). It's just an adjective.
I think you are confusing "national" with "nationalist". The latter is an ideology that isn't necessarily racist but usually is.
As a fellow native English speaker, I agree with this. Nationalist/nationalism is usually regarded as negative, but national is not. Even then in Northern Ireland and Scotland, Nationalists are part of the normal political system.
I usually associate with with something that was made/produced here in the country and it’s supposed to have a good connotation (as for supporting your own community, local businesses, artists, etc). I never saw it as a bad thing and I don’t associate it to politics, but that’s just my point of view.
In Cyprus it has been a contested term, but not for the reason you might think.
The (equivalent Greek) terms "national healthcare system" and "nationality" were avoided (instead: "general healthcare system" and "state-belongingness"/"citizenship") and the terms "national strategy for X" or "national Y team" have been controversial because the Republic of Cyprus is, in the eyes of many Cypriots, not a nation-state but rather a sovereign state entity that is supposed to house people belonging to two different nations, the Greek and the Turkish ones. The idea that a Cypriot Nation exists was a taboo, and in the late 20th century, suggesting that one exists would be seen as treasonous. (And, to be clear, the Republic of Cyprus has its own healthcare system, citizenship, and state-representing sports teams that aren't integrated with the respective organisations in Greece and/or Turkish, so those organisations are not "national" in their scope)
Now, I think that people stopped being *so* touchy about this in the last 10 years. People still mostly believe that the Republic of Cyprus is not a nation-state, and the idea of a Cypriot Nation is extremely fringe and suggesting that such a nation exists will upset a lot of people, but the identification with the Greek Nation has been becoming less and less relevant in the political realm (it's more of a private identification now). This has allowed the derivative terms from "nation" to became a bit more disconnected with the idea of the Nation, so that you can at least talk about "a national strategy against gambling" without being flamed for it.
> National would be εθνικός, yes?
Correct.
> What are the words you use instead?
For the healthcare system, they went with "γενικός", general. Other options are "κρατικός" (of the state), "δημόσιος" (public), "της Δημοκρατίας" (of the Republic [of Cyprus]), "Κυπριακός" (Cypriot), and "παγκύπριος" (all-Cyprus/pancyprian).
E.g. Cyprus does not have a *National* Library but a [*Cyprus* Library](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus_Library). [Most countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_and_state_libraries) call that institutional a National Library.
I'm now imagining a parallel universe, where the Junta of Greece fled from the Communists to Cyprus and founded a Republic (or Kingdom?) of Hellas there while both, Junta and Communists force the rest of the world to respect the One Hellas Policy... And Cyprus can't declare to be a new nation without angering the Hellenic People's Republic on the mainland. And also, it has to maintain claims over the borders of the entire Byzantine Empire.
Personally I wouldn't call anything "the government" without specifying which one, but that may be a difference between federal countries such as Switzerland and centralist countries such as Hungary.
We used to get excited when we heard the word national but now that comes to my mind when I hear the word national is “there comes the propaganda”
The government has big influence on that as you can imagine.
I doubt this is the general sentiment. But I know what you’re talking about. The word is now emptied out by current rulers. However, this is temporary. The word “national” will have a positive sentiment for a long time here.
If we go by literal translation, nazionale, the first meaning every Italian will think of is our football team.
Lemme tell you, right now it there's a big negative sentiment about them...
Not really aware of any negative connotations here of the word ‘national’. Even primary schools in Ireland are known as National Schools. Loads of institutions use the term.
I think in the UK part of the problem is that defining what is national at a UK wide level, or an English, Scottish, Welsh or (much less likely) Northern Ireland level is controversial.
If you called a BBC program the National Lunchtime News, which nation do you mean… whereas RTE or Today FM in Ireland has no such complications.
That being said there are UK institutions with the term national in their title, The National Trust, The National Gallery etc they’re frequently originally English in origin.
What you are seeing Ireland and its only very recent, is the use of the term by fringe far right parties - The National Party for example, who hold a just a single local council seat …and have no other reps.
In Northern Ireland the term “nationalist” is applied to people who are on the broader, democratic side of seeking a united Ireland, while “republicanism” tends to connote something harder line. So the term up there isn’t really particularly charged either, quite the opposite. Although those terms can be thrown around differently in different contexts.
There are 2 different meanings to "nation"/"national" in English.
The way most Americans perceive it, "nation" and "state" are synonymous. This is why so many of us misuse the term "nation-state". "National" does not have any ugly connotations in American English, at least.
Most everywhere else, "nation" and "ethnic group" are practically synonymous, so "national" can carry a bit of a racist sentiment.
In Polish, there are two words for nation, nacja and naród. Is there a nuance in meaning between those 2 words?
Noone uses the word "nacja" nowadays. It sounds very hmmm...militaristic and racist. Like if they translated Hitler's speeches they'd definitely use the word "nacja" in some instances. Or if we had Homelander from the boys he could use the word nacja when talking about supes in Polish 😂
It's associated with the far right in political parties (Front National, Rassemblement National) but is otherwise pretty neutral (Marine Nationale, Bibliothèque Nationale...).
I haven't noticed any shifts towards nationalism when it comes to the perception of 'nationaal/nationale' in Dutch. Maybe others have a different view on this, but I don't think I've ever seen it used in a different meaning than 'for the entire country' or 'appointed/issued by the state'.
The politicians love the word national (nasjonal) in norwegian.. So much used in documents etc. telling about stuff involving plans... like national health plans, national agricultural plan, national environmental plan, national transport plan, national action plan etc. Though in regular speech don't think the word resonates that much with anything.. think it's more like a bureaucratic word because of its frequent use related to the example mentioned.
In Germany, we have a national anthem (Nationalhymne) and a national flag (Nationalflagge), other than that, we use "Federal" instead of "National" (Bundes-). Some institutions use "National" such as National Museums, for example.
We use the term "national" for all sorts of things in the UK. We have the NATIONAL Health Service, we have the NATIONAL Theatre, the Royal NATIONAL Lifeboat Institution to name just three very respected institutions. We have a NATIONAL Lottery, The English NATIONAL Opera...
There is really no problem with using the term for its correct meaning. It's true Nationalism is not popular as a phrase but that is rather different.
It's pretty neutral here, maybe even positive. There are many institutions with *National-*, such as the Nationalbank and the Schweizer Nationalfonds. For political institutions, the prefix *Bundes-* "federal" is often preferred. It probably depends on when it was founded, I feel like National- is a bit more en vogue now. It sounds less bureaucratic.
It's when things start with *Volks-* that you should watch them closely. And if it uses the adjective "völkisch", it is pretty openly Naziesque.
No negative connotations in Dutch.
We use nationale & het rijk often. The latter one has negative connotations in Germany & Austria though.
The official recruitment website of the government is even called werken bij het Rijk.
For a last few years it was perceived badly, because the government tried to appropriate every hungarian symbol, important historical figure, etc., claiming fidesz voters are the only "true hungarians", which led to a lot of opposition voters not using national symbols anymore, not being proud of the country, etc.
Thankfully this is changing recently. People are slowly realizing we can't let Fidesz appropriate our symbols (especially since they are the biggest traitors of the country). Now more and more people are using the symbols again, the flag, the tricolor rosette, as well as celebrating our national days.
We can't let Orbán and his cronies take away our national pride, because that'd mean they have won. I personally don't want them to win, so I wear my hungarian national identity with pride and I have seen many people from the opposition starting to do the same.
Since federalism, in Belgium, "national" is more often associated with old institutions or sport such as the National Bank, the National Orchestra or the national football team. For current state institutions, we use “federal” more like federal ministry, federal government, federal police....
In politics, the “nationalist” on the other hand, especially when associated with a linguistic community (Flemish, French-speaking Walloon or German-speaking), is closely related to the secessionist or independence far right of these communities.
Belgian history: the Walloons call the Flemish anthem "Flemish national anthem" but do not call the Walloon anthem "national anthem" or "Walloon national anthem" but rather "regional anthem"...
I like to maintain meaning and context, especially when it comes to keeping words in regular usage. If we shy away from the word "national" on the basis that it has an alternative meaning with broader and less savoury connotations (along the lines of "nationalist"), the general usage will lean toward that alternative usage as being the norm, or that the lines blur.
There is a chasm of difference between "national" and "nationalist", and unless common usage maintains that difference we end up with "national" sounding negative by default. Not entirely unlike "race/racist" and "islam/islamist".
It's a very strange time that we live in, that we need to fight for the actual meaning of the words that we use in our languages when they are encroached upon by false connotation/implication, worse when people put specific effort into mischaracterising language based on meanings that were neither said nor meant. Crazy times man.
no negative connotations, 'national' mostly means something nation-wide (an association, a competition) or managed/funded by government (anything from hospitals to universities). Sometimes it's both.
A 'national' political party though? yeah that definitely smells of nationalism
I'm English and as you say, it's mostly used to denote bigots and racists.
The Labour Party are about to win the election and have promised to use "Great British" in the titles of the public services they create. I don't think "national" would go down well outside of the 15-20% headcases who want Hitler.
So, expression "national dish" would only be used by bigots and racists? Only bigots and racists would ask "What's X's national currency?" Only bigots and racisits would say "first both teams sang their national anthem"?
Wdym, it wasn't the question?
OP's question:
>How is this word perceived in your language/culture?
Your answer
>I'm English and as you say, it's mostly used to denote bigots and racists.
>How is this word perceived in your language/culture?
is not "specific context" - it's as broad a question as it can get. "In your language/culture" =/= "in politics/names of institutions".
That's hard to misinterpet.
In some politcal scenarios yes as it's dependent on the person's affilation. The NHS, and the national parks, rail, grid, lottery, trust, express etc are all neutral despite having the word national.
That has negative connotations too. As an English person when I think of them I think of Scottish Brexit voters. Their independence schtick has the same sound bites as Brexit.
Aren't they pretty much the opposite of the Brexiteer? They're mostly progressive, pro-EU, and clearly one of the groups that are more repulsed by British nationalists.
>The Labour Party are about to win the election and have promised to use "Great British" in the titles of the public services they create.
Will the NHS be renamed to the Greate British Health Service?
Isn't the difference between British and Great British that the latter doesn't include Northern Ireland? Great Britain is an island, a geographical feature and not a state.
No, distinguishing between Britain and Great Britain is not a thing, they are one and the same. Yes, many people in Northern Ireland identify as British, but however you spin they don't live in Great Britain. They do however live in the UK.
No doubt as a result of focus groups that have shown that including the word 'Great' is more appealing to voters.
I don't understand your point though.
British Airways are the national carrier of the UK, changing its name to Great British Airways wouldn't mean it then includes N. Ireland, it already does.
Similarly British Telecom has always operated in Northern Ireland without needing to be called Great British Telecom.
On the other hand Great British Railways wouldn't apply in N. Ireland to my understanding as the railways there are devolved and they are already nationalised.
Currently the government operate the 'Great British Insulation Scheme', which does not apply in Northern Ireland.
So including the word Great really doesn't make a difference as to whether things apply to Northern Ireland or not.
I don't think the word itself has any particularly strong connotations, it'll depend on the context. > In Polish though e.g. many cultural institutions use our equivalent of "national" in their names and it just means that it's something that represents our nation and is the main institution of it's kind (contrary to local institutions) Plenty of Anglophone cultural institutions are also called "national …", such as the different *National Trusts* and *National Libraries*. And there are likewise plenty of agencies all over the Anglosphere called such, from the *National Institutes of Health* to the *National Indigenous Australians Agency*.
Yeah we have both in France. Many institutions use the term "national" because that's literally the nation's institutions, it doesn't need any interpretation. But the term "national" in politics is often seen as far right agenda because it is used as that. Op just confused both terms.
Negative connotations of the word "national" might be specific to the UK. I don't think there are any strong connotations in the US. It's a commonly used term for all sorts of organizations, from government to sports.
As is it in the UK. The National Theatre, the National Health Service, etc
I'm from England the term is neutral no negative connocations attached to the word. National\[e\] is reguarly used. I believe this is the same for the rest of the UK.
In Scotland 'national' can refer to both Scottish and British institutions, and nobody gets upset about either usage.
There are no negative connotations in the UK. Don't know where the OP gets his ideas from. There is one political party called the National Front which is quite right wing but we have things like the National Theatre, National Insurance, National Parks, National Botanic Gardens, National Westminster Bank etc etc etc.
The premise is wrong. The word national itself has no bad connotation. For example, the beloved NHS (national health service) in the UK. In the US there is the NSA, NASA, etc. It is true that right wing parties tend to use "national" and "nation" in their branding. Partly as an advertising opportunity to distance themselves and their politics from neoconservatives but also to create a narrative and distinct branding especially for topics like migration.
Same in the US. In addition to the organizational examples you provided it also applies to individuals. To be called, for example, a French national, just means the person has French nationality. Nothing negative about it. It’s more commonly used for people from certain countries but that’s just a linguistics issue.
Rightwingers saying we need to focus on "national" values and the "nation" are just racist undertones against immigrats and "the other"
I don't think that "national" has negative connotations in English at all. The National Trust, which is a charity, is one example. National Health Service is another. BBC gets called a national broadcaster, etc. In Britain at least, people like Darwin, Newton, Shakespeare, Attenborough, Dickens, etc. get called national treasures. And so on.
No, "national" doesn't have negative connotations in English. It is used for positive things (the national cricket team), negative things (the British National Party), and neutral things (the national curriculum). It's just an adjective. I think you are confusing "national" with "nationalist". The latter is an ideology that isn't necessarily racist but usually is.
As a fellow native English speaker, I agree with this. Nationalist/nationalism is usually regarded as negative, but national is not. Even then in Northern Ireland and Scotland, Nationalists are part of the normal political system.
I usually associate with with something that was made/produced here in the country and it’s supposed to have a good connotation (as for supporting your own community, local businesses, artists, etc). I never saw it as a bad thing and I don’t associate it to politics, but that’s just my point of view.
It's not usually used in the names of national institutions, because those are usually named *Bundes*-something (federal).
In Cyprus it has been a contested term, but not for the reason you might think. The (equivalent Greek) terms "national healthcare system" and "nationality" were avoided (instead: "general healthcare system" and "state-belongingness"/"citizenship") and the terms "national strategy for X" or "national Y team" have been controversial because the Republic of Cyprus is, in the eyes of many Cypriots, not a nation-state but rather a sovereign state entity that is supposed to house people belonging to two different nations, the Greek and the Turkish ones. The idea that a Cypriot Nation exists was a taboo, and in the late 20th century, suggesting that one exists would be seen as treasonous. (And, to be clear, the Republic of Cyprus has its own healthcare system, citizenship, and state-representing sports teams that aren't integrated with the respective organisations in Greece and/or Turkish, so those organisations are not "national" in their scope) Now, I think that people stopped being *so* touchy about this in the last 10 years. People still mostly believe that the Republic of Cyprus is not a nation-state, and the idea of a Cypriot Nation is extremely fringe and suggesting that such a nation exists will upset a lot of people, but the identification with the Greek Nation has been becoming less and less relevant in the political realm (it's more of a private identification now). This has allowed the derivative terms from "nation" to became a bit more disconnected with the idea of the Nation, so that you can at least talk about "a national strategy against gambling" without being flamed for it.
National would be εθνικός, yes? What are the words you use instead?
> National would be εθνικός, yes? Correct. > What are the words you use instead? For the healthcare system, they went with "γενικός", general. Other options are "κρατικός" (of the state), "δημόσιος" (public), "της Δημοκρατίας" (of the Republic [of Cyprus]), "Κυπριακός" (Cypriot), and "παγκύπριος" (all-Cyprus/pancyprian). E.g. Cyprus does not have a *National* Library but a [*Cyprus* Library](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus_Library). [Most countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_and_state_libraries) call that institutional a National Library.
I'm now imagining a parallel universe, where the Junta of Greece fled from the Communists to Cyprus and founded a Republic (or Kingdom?) of Hellas there while both, Junta and Communists force the rest of the world to respect the One Hellas Policy... And Cyprus can't declare to be a new nation without angering the Hellenic People's Republic on the mainland. And also, it has to maintain claims over the borders of the entire Byzantine Empire.
Well, [something like that almost happened](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_Cypriot_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat). (I'm using "like" loosely)
The government loves to put "national" in the names of everything They even call themselves the national government
Well, they are the national government tho
Since governments are per definitionem national, adding it unnecessarily kinda creates a crazy right-wing vibe.
>Since governments are per definitionem national Definitely not, you have regional/state governments, municipal governments, etc.
Yeah, but we call municipial governments municipial governments, and county governments are county governments, never simply "government".
Personally I wouldn't call anything "the government" without specifying which one, but that may be a difference between federal countries such as Switzerland and centralist countries such as Hungary.
We used to get excited when we heard the word national but now that comes to my mind when I hear the word national is “there comes the propaganda” The government has big influence on that as you can imagine.
I doubt this is the general sentiment. But I know what you’re talking about. The word is now emptied out by current rulers. However, this is temporary. The word “national” will have a positive sentiment for a long time here.
If we go by literal translation, nazionale, the first meaning every Italian will think of is our football team. Lemme tell you, right now it there's a big negative sentiment about them...
Not really aware of any negative connotations here of the word ‘national’. Even primary schools in Ireland are known as National Schools. Loads of institutions use the term. I think in the UK part of the problem is that defining what is national at a UK wide level, or an English, Scottish, Welsh or (much less likely) Northern Ireland level is controversial. If you called a BBC program the National Lunchtime News, which nation do you mean… whereas RTE or Today FM in Ireland has no such complications. That being said there are UK institutions with the term national in their title, The National Trust, The National Gallery etc they’re frequently originally English in origin. What you are seeing Ireland and its only very recent, is the use of the term by fringe far right parties - The National Party for example, who hold a just a single local council seat …and have no other reps. In Northern Ireland the term “nationalist” is applied to people who are on the broader, democratic side of seeking a united Ireland, while “republicanism” tends to connote something harder line. So the term up there isn’t really particularly charged either, quite the opposite. Although those terms can be thrown around differently in different contexts.
There are 2 different meanings to "nation"/"national" in English. The way most Americans perceive it, "nation" and "state" are synonymous. This is why so many of us misuse the term "nation-state". "National" does not have any ugly connotations in American English, at least. Most everywhere else, "nation" and "ethnic group" are practically synonymous, so "national" can carry a bit of a racist sentiment. In Polish, there are two words for nation, nacja and naród. Is there a nuance in meaning between those 2 words?
Noone uses the word "nacja" nowadays. It sounds very hmmm...militaristic and racist. Like if they translated Hitler's speeches they'd definitely use the word "nacja" in some instances. Or if we had Homelander from the boys he could use the word nacja when talking about supes in Polish 😂
It's associated with the far right in political parties (Front National, Rassemblement National) but is otherwise pretty neutral (Marine Nationale, Bibliothèque Nationale...).
I haven't noticed any shifts towards nationalism when it comes to the perception of 'nationaal/nationale' in Dutch. Maybe others have a different view on this, but I don't think I've ever seen it used in a different meaning than 'for the entire country' or 'appointed/issued by the state'.
The politicians love the word national (nasjonal) in norwegian.. So much used in documents etc. telling about stuff involving plans... like national health plans, national agricultural plan, national environmental plan, national transport plan, national action plan etc. Though in regular speech don't think the word resonates that much with anything.. think it's more like a bureaucratic word because of its frequent use related to the example mentioned.
In Germany, we have a national anthem (Nationalhymne) and a national flag (Nationalflagge), other than that, we use "Federal" instead of "National" (Bundes-). Some institutions use "National" such as National Museums, for example.
We use the term "national" for all sorts of things in the UK. We have the NATIONAL Health Service, we have the NATIONAL Theatre, the Royal NATIONAL Lifeboat Institution to name just three very respected institutions. We have a NATIONAL Lottery, The English NATIONAL Opera... There is really no problem with using the term for its correct meaning. It's true Nationalism is not popular as a phrase but that is rather different.
National. Bigger than local. Smaller than elsewhere.
Yeah, in my mind too "national" means just that it's is not international but still is something more than local.
It's pretty neutral here, maybe even positive. There are many institutions with *National-*, such as the Nationalbank and the Schweizer Nationalfonds. For political institutions, the prefix *Bundes-* "federal" is often preferred. It probably depends on when it was founded, I feel like National- is a bit more en vogue now. It sounds less bureaucratic. It's when things start with *Volks-* that you should watch them closely. And if it uses the adjective "völkisch", it is pretty openly Naziesque.
No negative connotations in Dutch. We use nationale & het rijk often. The latter one has negative connotations in Germany & Austria though. The official recruitment website of the government is even called werken bij het Rijk.
Are the Netherlands actually the hidden Fourth Reich?
Same as Sweden I think. Just means realm, like Austria's name
For a last few years it was perceived badly, because the government tried to appropriate every hungarian symbol, important historical figure, etc., claiming fidesz voters are the only "true hungarians", which led to a lot of opposition voters not using national symbols anymore, not being proud of the country, etc. Thankfully this is changing recently. People are slowly realizing we can't let Fidesz appropriate our symbols (especially since they are the biggest traitors of the country). Now more and more people are using the symbols again, the flag, the tricolor rosette, as well as celebrating our national days. We can't let Orbán and his cronies take away our national pride, because that'd mean they have won. I personally don't want them to win, so I wear my hungarian national identity with pride and I have seen many people from the opposition starting to do the same.
o que é nacional é bom (what is national is good) is literally a saying lol (pretty sure it came from advertising)
National has no negative connotations in Ireland. Nationalist would be moreso the word that would have negative associations.
Nationale Nederlanden is a Insurance company
Since federalism, in Belgium, "national" is more often associated with old institutions or sport such as the National Bank, the National Orchestra or the national football team. For current state institutions, we use “federal” more like federal ministry, federal government, federal police.... In politics, the “nationalist” on the other hand, especially when associated with a linguistic community (Flemish, French-speaking Walloon or German-speaking), is closely related to the secessionist or independence far right of these communities. Belgian history: the Walloons call the Flemish anthem "Flemish national anthem" but do not call the Walloon anthem "national anthem" or "Walloon national anthem" but rather "regional anthem"...
It's a newspaper here.
Negatively. In Slovakia it is used by stupid and far right politicians.
I like to maintain meaning and context, especially when it comes to keeping words in regular usage. If we shy away from the word "national" on the basis that it has an alternative meaning with broader and less savoury connotations (along the lines of "nationalist"), the general usage will lean toward that alternative usage as being the norm, or that the lines blur. There is a chasm of difference between "national" and "nationalist", and unless common usage maintains that difference we end up with "national" sounding negative by default. Not entirely unlike "race/racist" and "islam/islamist". It's a very strange time that we live in, that we need to fight for the actual meaning of the words that we use in our languages when they are encroached upon by false connotation/implication, worse when people put specific effort into mischaracterising language based on meanings that were neither said nor meant. Crazy times man.
no negative connotations, 'national' mostly means something nation-wide (an association, a competition) or managed/funded by government (anything from hospitals to universities). Sometimes it's both. A 'national' political party though? yeah that definitely smells of nationalism
You are confusing National and Nationalism.
I'm English and as you say, it's mostly used to denote bigots and racists. The Labour Party are about to win the election and have promised to use "Great British" in the titles of the public services they create. I don't think "national" would go down well outside of the 15-20% headcases who want Hitler.
So, expression "national dish" would only be used by bigots and racists? Only bigots and racists would ask "What's X's national currency?" Only bigots and racisits would say "first both teams sang their national anthem"?
No but that wasn't the question. They removed the word national from official institutions.
Wdym, it wasn't the question? OP's question: >How is this word perceived in your language/culture? Your answer >I'm English and as you say, it's mostly used to denote bigots and racists.
In the specific context mentioned in OP's post.
>How is this word perceived in your language/culture? is not "specific context" - it's as broad a question as it can get. "In your language/culture" =/= "in politics/names of institutions". That's hard to misinterpet.
The specific context of OPs example.
It's less about the word and more about the person using it. "National" itself is a neutral term.
Indeed. And it mostly gets used by that type of person so has negative connotations.
In some politcal scenarios yes as it's dependent on the person's affilation. The NHS, and the national parks, rail, grid, lottery, trust, express etc are all neutral despite having the word national.
What about the use of the word in cases such as the Scottish National Party?
That has negative connotations too. As an English person when I think of them I think of Scottish Brexit voters. Their independence schtick has the same sound bites as Brexit.
Aren't they pretty much the opposite of the Brexiteer? They're mostly progressive, pro-EU, and clearly one of the groups that are more repulsed by British nationalists.
Yeah kind of. Scottish independence is exactly Brexit though.
Independence from a country is not exactly the same as a country leaving an alliance.
That's interesting, because without context I would have guessed "Great British" would be the more right-wing terminology
Yeah I think it's the word "great" that gives that impression. I don't think many of us think of it to literally mean great, it's just a name.
It literally means that it's to be distinguished from Britanny, which has the same name in many languages.
What are you telling me?
I'm just adding to your point that that's its actual name, so it doesn't really have any right wing connotations.
>The Labour Party are about to win the election and have promised to use "Great British" in the titles of the public services they create. Will the NHS be renamed to the Greate British Health Service?
No it already exists. They're not creating the NHS. Great British Energy and Great British Rail are two I've heard.
Isn't the difference between British and Great British that the latter doesn't include Northern Ireland? Great Britain is an island, a geographical feature and not a state.
Yeah that's the difference...
No, distinguishing between Britain and Great Britain is not a thing, they are one and the same. Yes, many people in Northern Ireland identify as British, but however you spin they don't live in Great Britain. They do however live in the UK.
Then why is Labour calling things "Great British" instead of just "British"?
No doubt as a result of focus groups that have shown that including the word 'Great' is more appealing to voters. I don't understand your point though. British Airways are the national carrier of the UK, changing its name to Great British Airways wouldn't mean it then includes N. Ireland, it already does. Similarly British Telecom has always operated in Northern Ireland without needing to be called Great British Telecom. On the other hand Great British Railways wouldn't apply in N. Ireland to my understanding as the railways there are devolved and they are already nationalised. Currently the government operate the 'Great British Insulation Scheme', which does not apply in Northern Ireland. So including the word Great really doesn't make a difference as to whether things apply to Northern Ireland or not.