Re: OT: UK Counties (was OT: baloney and cheese)

Staving Dan Jones:
>John Cowan wrote:
>
>>Here's the total list of 39:
>>
>>Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire,
>>Cornwall, Cumberland, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Durham, Essex,
>>Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire,
>>Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Middlesex, Norfolk,
>>Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire,
>>Rutland, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex,
>>Warwickshire, Westmorland, Wiltshire, Worcestershire, Yorkshire.
>>(The ridings [historically "thridings", 1/3-parts] of Yorkshire are also
>>very old, but not technically geographical counties.)
>
>You missed out the West Midlands. And "Durham" is generally called "County
>Durham", to distinguish it from the town.
West Midlands isn't a traditional one - definitely a Boundaries commission
fiction. I come from Bolton in Lancashire, where we have never recognised
the existence of "Greater Manchester".

Pete Bleackley