Talk:Brighton and Hove

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[edit] &, not and

I suddenly realised that this article has spelt the name of the city wrongly throughout. the City was named Brighton & Hove when it gained city status, so should be refered to as such. however when the old administrative areas of Brighton and Hove are refered to it is ok to omit the ampersand. I have also added a line to mention that this naming is unique in as much as it contains an ampersand. sharing the distinction with westward ho! that also has a non alphabetic character in its name.

I will also make a duplicate of the page renamed Brighton & Hove so that links from other pages can be corrected. I hope that this is the correct way of going about it. DavidP 02:05, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

  • David, I've noticed you've changed the "In other languages" links to correctly use the "&" instead of "and". Unfortunately, the articles in other languages are still incorrect. Any idea how we can go about correcting the foreign-language articles as well? My Norwegian is non-existent! --A bit iffy 13:32, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

iffy - I dont have the faintest - I hoped to give some time to it yesterday but ended up chasing my own tail around the help pages trying to find a coherent explanation of how the categories work, or rather how to edit them. - I ended up sitting perplexed at 4:30 am wishing I'd never started. maybe soon I will put aside a couple of days to give it another try. just now though Ill check to see if youve already changed them back, if not ill do it. thanks for your note DavidP 01:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] categories?

attempted at length to change or add the category heading to also read Brighton & Hove rather than Brighton and Hove. it got the better of me - can anyone help to either correct the spelling of the category or add a new one... thanks DavidP 12:58, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ampersand considered harmful

No, the city does not have an Ampersand in its name, to my knowledge. If you read the actual law establishing the borough, you'll note it uses "Brighton and Hove" not "Brighton & Hove". Morwen - Talk 23:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Morwen. like you i too have spent a while trying to clear this little conundrum up, since you posted, I might add. The reason that I was so sure that the ampersand was policy, was that I had a conversation with an ex mayor of the city and they insisted that the proper useage was with an ampersand.
the 'actual law' that you give a link to, are only the notes to the statutory instrument that notifies transitional provision of authority from the two separate towns - in effect it disbands their separate local authorities and forms a transitional one. that lasted 5 years.
the actual royal charter of 2000 that confers city status is worded thus:
"ELIZABETH the SECOND BY THE GRACE OF GOD OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND & OF OUR REALMS & TERRITORIES QUEEN HEAD OF THE COMMON WEALTH DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.
To all to whom these Presents shall come Greeting. Whereas We for divers good causes and considerations Us thereunto moving are graciously pleased to confer on the Towns of Brighton and Hove the status of a city Now Therefore Know Ye that We of Our especial grace and favour and mere motion do by these Presents ordain declare and direct that the TOWNS OF BRIGHTON AND HOVE shall henceforth have the status of a CITY and shall have all such rank liberties privileges and immunities as are incident to a City. In witness whereof We have caused Our Letters to be made Patent Witness Ourself at Westminster the thirty first day of January in the fourty ninth year of our reign.
By Warrant under The Queens Sign Manual Phillips."
Quite a mouthfull, and not exactly common usage, but it does not refer to the name of the new city at all, simply that the towns currently known of as Brighton and Hove shall have the status of city.
the link to the charter is here
however if you take a look at the cities website I'm sure you will agree that there is a concerted effort to use the ampersand.
Finaly there is the matter of correct usage - an ampersand is the correct form for a proper noun in the UK. As Brighton universities Publication and corporate identity guidelines point out:
Ampersand (the & symbol)
Don’t use except where correct form of proper noun
• Brighton & Hove
• Marks & Spencer.
so although the ampersand may not be the most web friendly of characters (Brighton & Hove council simply replace it with a hyphen for their URL rather than replace it with 'and') most search engines ignore both the & and the word 'and'. It is correct. I dont quite see why you consider it 'harmful'?
DavidP 01:02, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Ampsersands in URLs are bad. But that's not really a problem. I think we ought to remove the claim that it "is the only city that has an ampersand in its name", since the ampersand is only used informally. Morwen - Talk 14:53, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
And of course, I meant to link to [1]. Whilst you may deride this as a 'transitional provision of authority from the two separate towns', it still forms the current legal basis for the council, and has not been entirely superseded - certainly not by the royal charter, which is an entirely ceremonial document. Morwen - Talk 14:56, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
And I'm fine with keeping the article here, by the way. As long as someone updates the template Template:South_East_England or whatever its called. Morwen - Talk 15:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm diving in a bit late in the day, but nevertheless... I also consider ampersands to be dangerous. I don't dislike them, and I think it's a pity that they're dangerous, but they have long been used a kind of "control character" in various computer systems, and I prefer web documents to err on the side of caution. If it were absolutely certain that the ampersand is the correct usage, that would modify my opinion, but that case hasn't been proved yet.
Also, I can't resist pointing out a flaw in the logic where the Brighton University document is referenced. I don't do this to be pedantic, but to prevent a flawed argument from being accepted by default, and adding weight to one side of the argument. Basically the document in no way suggests that the ampersand is proper usage for a proper noun; it merely states that they should not be used in any other way, which is a much "smaller" scope of statement. In any case, a University style guide is no guide to correct usage, it's merely a marketing guideline for a single organisation.
I'm sorry to stir this up, but my reading of this page suggests that we now have two people speaking in favour of the ampersand (David P and A bit iffy) and two against (Morwen and me). Would anybody else care to cast a vote? – Kieran T (talk | contribs) 00:33, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New evidence

I can't believe I hadn't noticed before, but the official sign at the north of the city where the A23 enters says "Welcome to the city of Brighton and Hove" - with the ampersand only appearing in the logo above.

Another new thing is that certain versions of Firefox, with certain common enough extensions (including "linkify") are currently buggy, and prevent editing of Wikipedia articles with ampersands in the title.

Since we have a broad split in opinions (and the debate has gone cold), and since these are two reasonably strong new points, I think it's time to swing the balance of evidence the other way and rename the article without the ampersand. – Kieran T (talk) 13:57, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I would contest this - sorry Kieran! Is that A23 sign actually an official, formal statement by B&H council? Or, more likely, is it something knocked up by an inattentive person in the Highway Maintenance department? I would say that the B&H council's opinion of the city's name is what it itself uses on pretty well all its stationery and, above all, its website - these state "Brighton & Hove".
As for the Firefox problem with ampersands, which version of Firefox would that be? If it's an older version, I would guess that most Firefox users keep their versions pretty much up to date, so it's only a problem for a small proportion of articles for a small proportion of users of a browser which itself has a small proportion of Internet users. There are many, many articles with ampersands in their titles, and renaming them to fit in with a minority browser would be quite wrong - it's really a Mozilla issue, not a Wikipedia issue. There are even cases where they could not be renamed by replacing the ampersand with "and": In Sickness & In Health and Richard & Judy being just two examples.--A bit iffy 11:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I can see I'm never going to be happy about this one. ;-) How about, as a compromise, we come up with a form of words for the introduction, just after where the ampersand is first used, which makes it clear that this cannot be definitively established as the correct version (particularly with the legal documents mentioned far above in mind)? – Kieran T (talk) 16:34, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think that's best. Maybe something like Brighton & Hove (or Brighton and Hove) is a unitary authority and... I'm not totally comfortable with that, though, as I don't like to see lead sentences become cluttered. So maybe there should be a separate section "==Name==" devoted to it, and this would allow expansion on the topic. This could include such things as the wordings in the legal documents (even though those still don't say to me that the city's official name is "Brighton and Hove"!). Also, it could include, if someone can organise it, a photo of the A23 sign - that would be a nice touch to demonstrate the uncertainty. In addition, I have a feeling that the house style of the Argus is to use "and" instead of the ampersand, so that could be included. Of course, what should definitely be included is what the council calls the city via its stationery etc. What do you think?
Also, if you don't mind, I want to back to the earlier argument about Brighton University's style guidelines: that argument is valid, because the guidelines imply that the university believes the correct name of the city uses the ampersand, and hence overrides their normal style of not using ampersands. And looking at Marks & Spencer, the official name as registered with Companies House is "MARKS AND SPENCER P.L.C.", but they choose to be generally known as Marks & Spencer.--A bit iffy 12:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree about disliking unweildy intros. I'll put it in as you've written above for now, and we can try to refine it or move it into the article. On the company name argument, there is a subtlety to it: the company may "trade as" what it wishes, but it still has articles of memorandum (or a constitution, or charter, or what have you) that state its official name, which remains unchanged by what it puts on its stationery etc. Which gets us back to the infuriating complexity of the legal documents granting city status. – Kieran T (talk) 14:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The 'official' name of the City

The name of the city is 'Brighton and Hove' i.e. without the ampersand. This is the official name of the city. It appears in this way on the letters patent signed by the Queen in January 2001. There is also large road-sign on the A27 at the city boundary, welcoming people to 'Brighton and Hove'.

One may also wish to consult the Statutory Instrument 2001 No. 4055, The City of Brighton and Hove (Electoral Changes) Order 2001 ISBN 0 11 039106 3, where the city designation is shown as 'Brighton and Hove' fourteen times.
Of particular note is section 1.(3) of the Order, which states:- 'In this Order - "city" means the city of Brighton and Hove'.(See [2])

Similarly, the constitution of the council, adopted on 25th April 2002, says:
"Article 1 of the constitution commits the Council to exercising all its powers and duties in accordance with the law and this constitution in pursuit of the Council’s vision which is: “The Council wants Brighton and Hove to be a cosmopolitan, successful city by the sea, where people have a high quality of life in a decent environment.”

So the Queen, in legal documentation, calls it Brighton and Hove, an Act of Parliament calls it Brighton and Hove, and the council, by its constitution , clearly accepts and refers to the city as 'Brighton and Hove'.

However, the ampersand is often used. Even so, the ampersand is only a symbol, an abbreviation used to represent the word 'and' (latin et).
Therefore, in summary, the 'official' name of the town uses three full words, not two words and a symbol. But there is also no objection to the use of the abbreviated form. --Observer29 (talk) 14:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm very happy to read this clear explanation. The name of this article continues to strike me as unjustifiable. (Just because there's no official objection stated to using an abbreviation, doesn't mean we should use it. Countless articles on Wikipedia use the full name for entities which are often referred to with abbreviations. If the entity has an official name, that's the name to use.) In the light of how clearly Observer29 has outlined the case for "Brighton and Hove" being the correct name for the city, I once again propose renaming the article to match. – Kieran T (talk) 14:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense. It's the way it is on that sign by the roadside. The Council has a logo, the city has a name. Why should they be the same? Which is the article about, anyway? 90.203.123.212 (talk) 00:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stub?

I wonder why this article is still stubbed? There seems a fair amount here now, and some of what might be added could more properly be put in the separate articles on the towns themselves, surely? I've de-stubbed, although I expect to be taken to task with all the things that could be put in!!! But do we not have enough stubs as it is? Peter Shearan 10:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Division into areas

Does this division into four areas makes sense? I am in particular concerned by the fact that Rottingdean is an area in itself, but that Saltdean is part of the Brighton area. Looking at a map, it might make sense to divide all the deans off, but hiving just Rottingdean off (persumably because it has a parish council) seems odd. Morwen - Talk 15:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jedi census statistics

Brighton & Hove ranks top in the Jedi census statistics, according to the 2001 census. Of course, this is more of a fun fact, but maybe someone cares to incorporate it into the article. Subversive element 16:43, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree; one line about it coming top in any area of census data may well be worth a mention.mr_happyhour 16 Nov 2006

Done. I wonder why nobody has done it before, or whether it has always been commented out. Wikipeditor 09:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
It has been done before: diff Wikipeditor 09:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Info

I hhave added a lot of info on this page to make it useful (so you dont have to look at the Brighton "and" hove articles)Blackwave...... (talk) 10:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello Blackwave (actually User:Kentem). I've undone this entire change. Whilst one the one hand it's a fair point that the city includes the features of both towns, it's not a good idea to duplicate content on Wikipedia because it gets out of synch and is harder to keep correct. Therefore if the case were made to have all the info here, the other articles should become redirects. But that would never fly since the two towns have very distinct histories up until the (not uncontroversial) merger. – Kieran T (talk) 12:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stoke on Trent

Stoke on Tent was formed in the same way and Stoke-on-Trent IS the main article.

[edit] 2000 or 2001? When were 'city status' letters patent granted?

The main article says that "Brighton and Hove" was awarded city status 'by letters patent in 2000,' but the 'letters patent' in this case was actually signed by Queen Elizabeth II on January 31st 2001 !
This matter should be re-worded to remove the inaccuracy. --Observer29 (talk) 22:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] City status 'Joint winner'?

In 2000 it was announced that four British towns would be elevated to city status by the Monarch, i.e. Inverness, Wolverhampton, Brighton and Hove. Inverness became a city, Wolverhampton became a city, and the unitary authority of the two towns/districts of Brighton anf Hove would become one city, namely 'Brigton and Hove City' (also known as the city of Brighton and Hove). So, in what sense was Brighton and Hove 'the joint winner' of the competition? --Observer29 (talk) 17:53, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

After careful thought, I have removed 'the joint winner', and modified the wording to include reference to other towns also awarded city status at this time.--Observer29 (talk) 14:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)