mudhook

Julia Goldsworthy, the Libdem MP for Falmouth and Camborne, recently presented a petition to parliament looking for Facebook to recognise Cornwall as a networking region (Hansard 14 May 2008, column 1510). I have no interest in the ins and outs of this and I cannot even fret about the silliness of a petition which urges a government minister to “put pressure on the owners” of a private company to reorganise its geography.

What does interest me is that in introducing the petition to the Commons Julia Goldsworthy used the c-word and called Cornwall a “county.”

Can you hear the Cornish nationalist howls? It is de rigueur among many nationalists not to refer to Cornwall as a county; they earnestly say duchy or region. It is a matter of cpc, cornat political correctness, to avoid the c-word. I am agreeably amused to hear republican nationalists deliberately call Cornwall a duchy.

Incidentally, the topic in the Commons straight after Goldsworthy’s Cornwall Facebook petition was to do with the sufferers from muscular dystrophy.

May I suggest a slight amusement? Look at the things Cornwall MPs say and see how they deal with the c-word. Do they say county or use some other word or circumlocution? Is there a pattern? Who never says county?