Talk:List of legislation in the United Kingdom

Should this list really be completed?

I've just added every Act passed since the middle of the 13th Century, beginning with the letter 'A', which is still in force, or partly in force. I've divided by century, and by decade for the 20th Century, because it would do my head in to arrange them by year as I go along. What I wanted to say is that if we include every single Act that has ever been passed, public or private, this list is going to be a monster, and not an especially useful one. Would it not be more prudent to limit it somehow? mholland 02:01, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Article location

I've moved this here as I feel that the term 'act' is used here as a proper noun, and hence should be capitalised accordingly.
James F. (talk) 15:15, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've only used as a proper noun in the phrase 'Act of Parliament', which is not used here. It would be ok to have a List of Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Morwen 15:17, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

Hmm. That would actually be more accurate a title, as the page refers to Acts passed before the "United Kingdom Parliament" came in to being. I'll move it.

James F. (talk) 19:31, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This has now been moved to "List of Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament" which is both ungainly (the repetition of "Parliament" especially) and wrong (it's not the UK Parliament's Acts alone, we have Acts listed from before 1801 (and, indeed, 1707).

I would suggest moving it back.

James F. (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, I now see that pre-1707 ones aren't here. So this is actually a "List of Acts of Parliament of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". How useful. Certainly, the current name is inaccurate. Also, I fail to see how the distinction is useful.

James F. (talk) 02:08, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Naming

Should we be aiming for consistency in the naming of acts, i.e. in the use of "... Act of 19XX" etc.. or similar? Mintguy (T) 17:21, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yes. Preferred form for modern acts is 'Foo Act 2004'. I don't know when this practice started. Morwen 17:23, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

1962. (what, a year late? me? Never...) [1] explains the citation style. Shimgray 13:55, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Er, long before 1962 I think. Basically the rule should be: if it has a short title, either by a statutory provision or by the Short Titles Act 1892, then use the short title, otherwise use the year/session/chapter notation, where year is either regnal or calendar year, depending on the date. Francis Davey 16:56, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I think I was a little confused when replying - 1962 or 1963 was when they stopped using regnal years. Lots of previous acts had short titles, but the formal citation only went to using calendar years rather than regnal years as a result of the Acts of Parliament Numbering and Citation Act, 1962 (10 & 11 Eliz. 2, c.34), effective 1963 onwards; laws were henceforth numbered by calendar years, not by parliamentary session and regnal years. If that makes sense... Shimgray 17:05, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Sort order

Is this meant to be in alphabetical order, it seems some things have been added higgledy piggledy Mintguy (T) 22:37, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It is in chronological order. Morwen 22:54, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

How did I not spot that... duhhh... Mintguy (T) 22:55, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It was the few that weren't that threw me. Mintguy (T) 22:59, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah. Many of these aren't articles about particular acts, but about series of them. Morwen 22:59, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

Summary of naming conventions

[This is AIUI; please correct. Also, of course, prescriptivism is a Bad Thing to apply blindly...]

• Main articles on Acts should be at [[Foo Bar Act 1234]] (yes, this sort-of contradicts the 'most commonly used name' rule, but...).
• In the case of uniquely-named Acts, there should probably be a redirect from [[Foo Bar Act]].
• In the case of similarly-named Acts, two approaches can be adopted:
  • If there is a particular Act of a series that is of note, then [[Foo Bar Act]] should redirect to [[Foo Bar Act 1234]], which can talk a brief about the other Acts involved; optionally, more detailed information specific to each Act could be placed at [[Foo Bar Act 1234]]. Example: the Data Protection Acts, where the 1984 one is far more important than the relatively small update made to it in 1998.
  • If the series is interesting overall, and no one Act stands out, then [[Foo Bar Act]] redirects to [[Foo Bar Acts]], which is a discussion of the series of Acts; optionally, more detailed information specific to each Act could be placed at [[Foo Bar Act 1234]]. Examples: the Reform Acts, the Representation of the People Acts, the Terrorism Acts, &c.
• If two Acts from different Parliaments are passed with the same name in the same year (this is a slightly artificial distinction, but I hope that it's clear what I mean):
  • If they're both referring to different enactments of the same piece of legislation, then there should probably be only one article, at [[Foo Bar Act 1234]]. Example: the Act of Union 1707 (yes, I know that it's sometimes refered to as the "Union with {England|Scotland} Act 1707") passed in both the English and Scottish Parliaments.
  • If they're somewhat different, or affect different legal entities, then there should be a jurisdiction or entity disambiguation in parantheses after the name for each, and the undisambiguated article serve as a disambiguation page. Example: the European Communities Act 1972 in the UK and RoI, with articles at "European Communities Act 1972 (UK)" and "European Communities Act 1972 (Ireland)".

Just want to make sure I'm doing what others think is a good idea, or at least a sensible one.
James F. (talk) 14:23, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I've just suggested (at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#UK Acts of Parliament) that this be formally codified in Wikipedia:Naming conventions, mainly because it just took me using Google to find this page. Can people go and express their opinions there, please? — OwenBlacker 23:14, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Two changes I would suggest.

• When dealing with elections, we use a comma, eg Irish general election, 1922 to distinguish name and year. I think it would be better to do so with Acts too. So rather than use the Minister and Secretaries Act 1924 we would have the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924 as that is the more normal way, certainly in academia, of writing an Act name.
• Acts should be italised. So instead of writing,

  Historians and journalists, and well as people who sat in Dáil Éireann, generally consider the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924 to be one of the most important enactments following Irish independence.

  it would read

  Historians and journalists, and well as people who sat in Dáil Éireann, generally consider the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924 to be one of the most important enactments following Irish independence.

It makes the Act stand out clearly in a sea of links and would enable it to be recognised visually. It would also mean that where initials are used later in a text to refer to an Act, they too could be italicised to clarify they refer to an Act. So the Representation of the People Act, 1918 could be seen as ROPA.

FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 23:32, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Umm. Commas aren't used of late in the UK, in the real-world, in Parliamentary documents, or in academia (that I've seen); perhaps their use continues in Ireland, James? Personally, I think using commas in the names of elections is a mistake enough, ugly and grammatically wrong to boot as it is, and compounding it by expanding its use is not something I'd agree to.

I like italicising them, though.

Thoughts?

James F. (talk) 23:40, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I have to say I normally see commas used. And I do think they are important to use because the year is actually only a disambigulation point. The Act is different. So I think it provides clarity to distinguish name from year by a comma. To be honest, I came across a major Act on Wikipedia last week without the comma and it made me cringe. And I realised the confusion caused when my non-legally interested flatmate misinterpreted the Act's name to think that it could be referred to as the (if I remember the year correctly) 1889 Act. I had to point out that many Acts were enacted in 1889. The key bit, I had to point out, was the name. The year was to diffrentiate between different Acts with the same name. His response was "So why is it written as though the year is the name then?" I ended up showing the same Act in a law textbook, which was written using a comma. His response was "It makes sense that way." I disagree, BTW, over the use of commas in elections. Again it helps to distinguish type of election from year, which was why it was used. There was a lot of agreement that without the comma the pages looked uglier and were potentially more confusing.

As to italicising Acts, I've done it whenever I have mentioned an Act and the impact is visually effective in highlighting the name of the Act in the text. I think it would be a good rule to follow. It also looks professional. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 23:53, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, I can pull down from the shelves around me the texts of a dozen or more texts of Acts right now. They don't have the comma in them. Honest. I strongly disagree with your assertion that "the year is actually only a disambigulation point", and that "the 1889 Act" would be wrong to use: most informal discussions by those who talk about Acts all the time will often call major Acts thusly in the area they are particular interested in (e.g. in education, "the 1988 Act", "the 1998 Act", etc.).

Further, if one cannot parse the text to the left and to the right of "election" or "Act" differently, one is likely to have far greater difficulties in life than confusion in our legal references. And last time I saw a proper discussion here, rather than mass-action, over elections having commas in their names was several years ago, and was generally against commas.

James F. (talk) 00:21, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

P.S.: Saying that Acts should be italicised when referenced would go in the MoS rather than the naming conventions, of course; the two are distinct.

James F. (talk) 00:23, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I heartily agree with User:Jdforrester's proposals here. With respect to commas, these are not generally used in referring to names of UK acts, the short names being specified in the acts themselves as excluded the commas. If we are going for titles legislation, then using the name the legislature uses seems reasonable, I don't think the comma issue can be demonstrated to be a case of "common names". Morwen - Talk 21:43, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes -- a lawyer speaks -- the short title of an act usually does not have a comma between the name and the year (both are significant, since there may be a large number of acts with the same name). This usage is therefore the correct legal usage, and it would be sensible to follow that in wikipedia, especially because it is the norm. Why lack of comma should make someone cringe I do not know, unless they don't read much law. Francis Davey 16:59, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

BTW, just added these to the official naming conventions as suggested. Given that they've been agreed upon for over a year, I doubt there will be any problems...

James F. (talk) 00:51, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

List of Bills?

Might it be useful to have a list of Bills that never made it to be Acts, but are interesting enough to have articles about them?
What about Bills that are currently making their way through Parliament?
James F. (talk) 00:09, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[Ed. Hmm. I wrote the above a while ago, and had forgotten, hence the below. Whoops. James F. (talk) 23:45, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)]

Should we wodge failed Bills here too (e.g. Lord Dobs' Succession to the Crown Bill)? What about current Bills (e.g. Prevention of Terrorism Bill)?

James F. (talk) 23:44, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Old-style citations

I've started adding the old-format citations to some pages - eg "1 Geo. 1, c. 5" for the Riot Act (1714) - does anyone have any objection to this, or feel there should be an explanatory note? I was thinking it might be useful to then go back and add them to the list here, after the link, so:

• Riot Act 1714

would become

• Riot Act 1714 (1 Geo. 1, c. 5)

Thoughts? Shimgray 14:12, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Pedantically the "Riot Act 1714" is incorrect, since the Short Titles Act 1896 provides that it should be cited as the "Riot Act". I suggest that we use the legal form of citation, minus the comma, where it is available. We should also supply the statute book citation as above. I will put a note to this effect in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law and possibly on the project page.

Francis Davey 20:34, 5 July 2005 (UTC)

Infobox template

I just saw Template:Infobox AU Legislation; thoughts?

James F. (talk) 08:24, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Seems they think it could easily be apply to other commonwealth countries too with minimal modifications. A good idea, IMO. Owain 15:21, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Acts Prior to 1988

It's easy to get the list of Acts of Parliament from 1988 to the present as they are presented in one place, ie the OPSI website. Earlier than that there are some acts that are very well known, such as the Consumer Credit Act 1974, the Parliament Act 1911 etc and a number of those are linked to on the page. However, it is now possible to find a list of all acts passed in all the years of the 20th century online. It only requires a little bit of work in the online archives of the London Gazette.

The key to finding the titles of the acts is to restrict the searches in their online archive to a particular calendar year and then enter the search term "royal assent". That will find all the acts notified as having received royal assent in that particular year. It covers both normal Acts of Parliament and local acts. The only slight wrinkle is that measures of the General Synod of the Church of England also get royal assent so if you just cut and paste the text from every list, then you will find that they slip into things. There are also occasional scannos that the OCR software used has introduced.

I've used that technique to fill in all the acts for 1939, 1970 and 1979 so far. David Newton 21:01, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

If you get given chapter numbers for them, it might be useful to add them - this will make it easier to pick out local acts later, if we want to list them seperately. We're also probably going to have to look at splitting the page up - it'll be hard to handle more than a decade or two at a time otherwise. Shimgray 02:05, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I can add chapter numbers for every Act which is still in force (such is the limitation of my source, which is "Acts in Force"). But it would be a chore, and while that in itself isn't a problem, I don't think it would be genuinely useful. I could go through a law library and find a Chapter number for, say, the Appropriation Act 1939, but it wouldn't add anything much to the 'pedia. I mean, the Act itself is only notable for its having been passed by Parliament - it's not in force any more, it will never be a statutory authority for any legal case and nobody will ever refer to it, except to find out how much money the Government appropriated in that year. mholland 02:24, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

You can find chapter numbers for the acts in the London Gazette. Simply use the search technique I outline above. I cut and pasted the act names without the chapter numbers. Thinking about it, it is probably a good idea to separate out the local acts and public acts. A lot of the public acts and local acts can be very easily spotted. The main reason I didn't include the chapter citations for the acts previous was because the acts are presented in alphabetical order, not in the order they occur in the statute book. David Newton 20:34, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Local and Private Acts

Today OPSI has put up a list of all private and public acts passed over the years. The local acts also have information on modification and repeals by later enactments. David Newton 21:24, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Move

Should this page be at List of acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom or List of Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom? Hiding T 12:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

1) Many of the articles (lists) themselves used both lowercase and uppercase for acts in general (in addition to uppercase for specific acts, which I of course left uppercase since these are proper nouns). 2) The term "act" is not a proper noun unless part of a specific act's name. 3) The UK parliament has a tradition of using uppercase for many common nouns, but this is based on an outdated style that is not followed by most publishing houses today. 4) Most dictionaries show this modern usage by listing only lowercase (unless giving an example of a specific act) or by listing the uppercase usage second, as an alternative and older usage.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The last 2 are the only major dictionaries I found that even mention uppercase usage, and both only as "also" or "often" (which would read "usually" if it were more common than lowercase.) 5) MOS:CAPS: Wikipedia's house style avoids unnecessary capitalization; most capitalization is for proper names, acronyms, and initialisms. It may be helpful to consult MOS: Proper names if in doubt about whether a particular item is a proper name. (And if you're worried about the next paragraph, remember that the first 2 dictionaries above are Oxford and Cambridge UP.) --Espoo (talk) 12:54, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

My automatic reaction is that it's an "Act of Parliament", capitalised phrase, and pluralises as "Acts of Parliament", FWIW. This is the way OPSI (formerly HMSO) seem to do it, and whilst I'm normally a great proponent of using sentence case in article titles, it just seems appropriate in this case to keep the capital. Shimgray | talk | 17:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I can see why lowercase looks wrong to you, but it's only a tradition in official UK institutions (which violates general, modern rules of capitalisation and) which is not followed by many UK publishers including dictionaries, which show what is most common in reputable sources. Encyclopedia like Britannica and Columbia also lowercase unless part of an an act's name. --Espoo (talk) 07:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that this is just a habit of "official institutions" - I agree it's idiosyncratic, but it always seemed very comprehensively used. Rules of capitalisation are general rules, and there being widely accepted exceptions to them is perfectly normal even if they seem illogical. I just asked a lawyer, who waved their hands in shock and demanded capital A (but, oddly, were happy on lowercase P.)

FWIW, I've checked the full OED, which is charmingly vague on the matter - it uses "act" in lowercase, but all the citations are in a very general sense, things like "...he knew not of an act against meetings"; the specific phrase "act of parliament" only appears once (in 1593), and the most recent citation is 170 years ago, so I'm not sure we can count it as a reliable guide to contemporary capitalisation practices.

As Mholland points out below, the main reason it looks wrong because it isn't even "normal" sentence case - we're keeping one word capitalised but not the other. I'd be less uncomfortable with "act of parliament", since that isn't visually inconsistent, but I still feel caps is the way to go. (Apart from anything else, it helps to be able to distinguish Act-the-noun from act-the-verb; when Parliament votes on something it does an act, but the thing they're voting about will be an Act...) Shimgray | talk | 20:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Capital A, I think, to match all of the relevant articles in {{British legislation lists}}. Espoo's rationale for moving it here is a sound argument, but if we'd like to follow Espoo's reasoning, then "parliament" in this context isn't a proper noun either: these are acts of parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. — mholland (talk) 14:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the Cambridge University Press does just that ("an act of parliament"), as you perhaps noticed at the link I gave above, but I didn't dare to touch the sacred cow Parliament :-) Seriously, it's already a big step ahead if we at least get rid of unnecessary and Medieval Capitalisation of "Important" normal Words (i.e. not of an institution like the UK Parliament), which never really died completely in the UK and which is creeping back in in the US too through Lawyer Speak in EULAs etc., which violates MOS:CAPS. The medieval uppercase spelling "Act" is not used by all UK publishers, so WP doesn't have to follow this outdated and illogical tradition of Parliament, which is blindly followed by most UK institutions and many but not all UK newspapers and other publishers. E.g., the Guardian uses lowercase for "act"[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]

The Times style guide, meanwhile, says "always capitalise", so there's a counterpoint. More pragmatically - yes, you've shown that some people don't use it, and you accept that lots of people do. I don't think we can, however, reasonably draw the conclusion that the people who do use it are all "blindly following ... outdated and illogical tradition" - this is just unilaterally condemning all those who don't agree with your stylistic opinions. Shimgray | talk | 22:10, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about the "blindly" - "simply", "loyally", "deferentially", or other adverbs would be more precise and polite. Perhaps it's not necessary to soften "outdated and illogic" because that seems to be a correct description, but "old-fashioned" or "no longer used by many of the most respected publishers" and "a traditional but unnecessary exception to the normal rule of capitalisation in English (and to MOS:CAPS)" would be more polite but less pithy. --Espoo (talk) 08:53, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

But conversely, I could describe it as "still used by many publishers, by Parliament, and by the legal profession as a whole, but you don't like it". I think this is the basic problem here - there is a variance in style, with some people adopting a different approach to the traditional one, and you want us to declare that one is Right and Proper and the other is Wrong and Obsolete, and I'm really not convinced there's much basis to state that last part as fact.

The MOS has always accepted that no rule of English grammar is absolute, and that there are myriad complex exceptions to everything; why are we trying to ensure standardisation with a vague general principle when there's a long-standing and widely-accepted practice among writers of treating this as a special case? Wikipedia is written using the language that exists, not the language that we feel ought to exist. Shimgray | talk | 18:39, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Modern dictionaries record the language that exists, not what they feel ought to exist, and they also make sure they also record how the majority of reputable sources, i.e. not just parliaments and the legal profession, write and talk about an issue such as legislation. We definitely need an explicit MOS policy on this to avoid use of both uppercase and lowercase in different articles on the same topic and even within the same articles, as was the case in the articles I corrected and moved. The main reason we need a policy on this is to avoid repeated and time-consuming discussions on many different talk pages. In response to some of your other points, please also see my answer at 09:18, 28 February 2009 here. --Espoo (talk) 10:10, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

• Capital A per naming conventions. Hiding T 12:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Despite this repeated claim of yours and your ironic and unhelpful comments here, the Wikipedia:Naming conventions say nothing to that effect; they speak only about the names of specific acts, which are of course capitalised since they're proper nouns. They say nothing about the spelling of "act" or "acts" (in the sense of statute) in general, when "act" is a common noun. On the contrary, MOS specifically states that unnecessary capitalisation should be avoided, and there is no compelling reason for capitalising the common noun "act of Parliament". On the contrary, almost all UK and US dictionaries specifically recommend lowercase unless used as part of the name of an individual act.--Espoo (talk) 09:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this might indicate an underlying problem, in that we're arguing at cross-purposes! My contention (and that of the others, AIUI) is not that "act" should always be capitalised ("...a number of nineteenth-century Acts...", "...they passed an Act..."); it seems perfectly sensible to use lowercase unless you know which act is being referred to, at which point it's "the Act".

Our argument is that it seems from general usage that the phrase "Act of Parliament" is in itself a specific exception to the broad rule on capitalising, and I'm still not convinced it isn't. Shimgray | talk | 15:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, some are arguing that "act" should always be uppercase when it means a law adopted by a parliament. Since however most dictionaries specifically use "act of Parliament" or "act of parliament", we have clear evidence that this is the most common spelling in reputable sources. The additions (Act of Parliament, act of parliament) at the beginning of the article act of Parliament are enough to show that other spellings are possible and used, and we should probably add a footnote explaining that the uppercase spelling is preferred by many legislatures and many members of the legal profession. We could also add a note explaining that some UK writers (and institutions) prefer to use uppercase "(the) Act" when referring to a specific act, and that US writers (and institutions) instead prefer using either "(the) act" or an abbreviation. In other words, it is common to see e.g. "the University" in UK texts on a specific university, which is specifically labeled incorrect in most US style guides but surprisingly often used by the office staff (but not usually professors!) of the US universities (even on their official websites) whose style guides proscribe and label this usage as old-fashioned/incorrect. US educated writers and journalists instead use "the <generic term>" or an acronym in referring to an organisation or other proper noun again in the same text after giving the full name in uppercase.--Espoo (talk) 11:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's try this again - we still have the fundamental point that a lot of sources, in common usage, do keep on capitalising "Act" whatever the dictionaries say. It doesn't make sense to say "we are going to use the spelling that reflects usage; dictionaries can be defined to reflect usage; therefore the form in the dictionaries should prevail over a form which is in use". That's prescriptivism, not descriptivism! I grant that they're both out there in the world, but I strongly dispute that one is right and one is wrong, which is where you and I differ.

Where we have two coexistent styles, Wikipedia should not make a firm decision between either, but use the one which is contextually appropriate or the one preferred by a majority of editors on the topic. Neither of these approaches seem to be being applied here; you seem to be trying hard to ensure systematic use of lowercase throughout a wide range of articles despite clear discomfort with the style among other editors, and I wish you'd stop making these changes (http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Acts_of_Parliament_in_the_United_Kingdom&diff=275584331&oldid=273260531 ex]) until we have some kind of consensus on what to do. Shimgray | talk | 13:33, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The whole point is that modern dictionaries describe usage and do not prescribe it, so editing decisions based on the usage described as most common by a modern dictionary are not prescriptivism. Since in addition in this case most dictionaries agree, this is a very clear case. The dictionaries linked to are well aware of the older usage still followed by many legislatures and many members of the legal profession, so apparently most other reputable sources such as academic and journalistic writing use lowercase; otherwise, all dictionaries I've found wouldn't have decided that lowercase is the most common usage in reputable sources by listing lowercase first or only. My footnote in addition included information about the other, more traditional usage, so I really don't understand why you removed it. Please respond to this attempt to find out what you actually object to. Thanks, Espoo (talk) 22:47, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I apologise if, in this infinitely splintered debate, you've lost track of my original objection. Let's try yet again.

We have here a situation where we need to determine "common usage". One way of doing this is, yes, by looking in dictionaries. And those dictionaries suggest that lowercase is more common.

But, there is another - simpler - way of determining common usage, and it's to actually go and look at how people use the term, not at how secondary sources imply they use it. When we do this, we find that uppercase is used vastly more often than you'd guess from looking at the dictionaries.

There are two ways of interpreting this. One is from a prescriptivist perspective - people aren't doing what's in the dictionaries, they're wrong, let's go with the right one. The other is from a descriptivist perspective - the dictionaries don't exactly reflect the way it's used, they must be slightly inaccurate.

And here we have the crux. You want to interpret the discrepancy as a sign we should go with the dictionaries - the people using uppercase are doing it as "tradition", they "violate general modern rules", it's "outdated and illogical", "old-fashioned", etc, etc. This is classic prescriptivism - it differs from the official reference works, fix it, get up-to-date.

The rest of us (and there were several of us who objected) feel that actual usage wins out over second-hand reporting of usage, and we should interpret it as "no clear rule"; I am surprised to see lowercase in so many dictionaries, because it is not what I use on a day-to-day basis, it is not what people who routinely deal with Acts of Parliament encounter on a day-to-day basis, and when I go looking for third-party usage, it's only a part of what I find. It just doesn't make sense to claim we're being descriptivist and then say that what people are actually wanting to use is wrong; it goes entirely against the way we approach these things, to my mind. Shimgray | talk | 01:56, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry but your claims are simply and very blatantly WP:OR.

1. You are claiming that the most reputable UK dictionaries "don't exactly reflect the way it's used, they must be slightly inaccurate" i.e. claiming that they engage in prescriptivism instead of descriptivism. That is pure nonsense, but even if it were true, you'd have to get a secondary, not primary source to prove a claim that would make you famous overnight if successfully proved.
2. You are claiming that your contact with texts using the word "act" in the sense of law is so extensive that you know what is the most common usage and that your knowledge of primary sources is so extensive that you are qualified to make more qualified decisions on what is the most common usage in English than the most reputable UK dictionaries. Even if this were true, you cannot use that expertise of yours to edit WP unless you can find a secondary source that favorably reviews your opinion.

Basically, you didn't carefully read or understand what I wrote above: The dictionaries linked to are well aware of the older usage still followed by many legislatures and many members of the legal profession, so apparently most other reputable sources such as academic and journalistic writing use lowercase; otherwise, all dictionaries I've found wouldn't have decided that lowercase is the most common usage in reputable sources by listing lowercase first or only. My footnote in addition included information about the other, more traditional usage, so I really don't understand why you removed it.

You didn't respond to this attempt to find out what you actually object to, and your edit "legal contexts" is too vague and in fact misleading/incorrect because apparently the majority of reputable texts found by the editors of the most reputable UK dictionaries using "act" in the sense of law obviously used it in a legal context and apparently spelled it lowercase. the majority of reputable texts found by the editors of the most reputable UK dictionaries using "act" in the sense of law and spelling it lowercase obviously used it in a legal context. --Espoo (talk) 18:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not claiming I have some special ability to determine what's right and wrong - my objection is that you are behaving as though you do, despite the fact that there is strong opposition to your interpretation, and you are trying to force that interpretation of the language into the text of several different articles.

...in fact, I give in. For the record: I strongly object to this unilateral attempt to impose a personal stylistic preference, and I feel that the inclusion of verbose footnotes about it is entirely inappropriate, but given that we're going to continue in the same circles, I just don't feel strongly enough about this to justify continuing to spend time and energy arguing over it. Shimgray | talk | 19:03, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you're upset and feel that the most reputable UK dictionaries are wrong in claiming that lowercase is more common, but it is quite unfair and incorrect to keep claiming that professional copyediting according to professional sources is a "unilateral attempt to impose a personal stylistic preference". The main problem seems to be that you don't understand that the word "act" in the sense of law is used by very many more people than members of the legal profession and other "people who routinely deal with Acts of Parliament on a day-to-day basis" and that these legal and legislative experts cannot tell the majority of English speakers how to spell nor are they even experts on how to spell "act". Modern dictionaries record the collective opinion on spelling of all reputable sources, and this opinion outweighs that of even the majority of members of a profession if a certain word is widely used in that restricted, technical sense outside of that profession. I can see that lowercase upsets you personally and that it looks unprofessional to you, but English spelling is a very democratic thing and the majority rules even if Parliament and the legal profession apparently still need much more time to adapt. --Espoo (talk) 19:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I'm willing to consider that there might be a distinction here that escapes me as a Canadian, and to don a hairshirt if I'm missing something, but I'm not all that clear on why List of Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom and List of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom exist as two separate articles with roughly the same list of content. Does British English actually have a meaningful distinction between these two things that isn't obvious to a speaker of Canadian English, or did we just somehow end up with two functionally identical articles for no real reason?

I want to add that I'm also perfectly fine with merging the other way if that would be preferred — but I'm just not seeing a real reason why there are two lists instead of one. Bearcat (talk) 21:19, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

So my understanding is that the list of Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom includes the Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom (extant since 1801), but also the Acts of Parliament of Great Britain (extant 1707-1800), Acts of the Parliament of England (extant until 1707), Acts of the modern Scottish Parliament (extant since 1999), Acts of the old Parliament of Scotland (extant until 1707), Acts of Senedd Cymru (able to pass Acts since 2012), Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly (extant since 1999), Acts of the Parliament of Northern Ireland (extant 1921 until 1972) and Acts of the old Parliament of Ireland [1 & 2] (extant until 1800).

They do serve two different purposes, but I don't think that this page ("list of Acts in") is particularly fit for purpose, because it omits other forms of primary legislation which technically aren't Acts due to procedural differences in how they're passed, but have the same force as Acts once passed into law, such as Measures of the National Assembly for Wales and Church of England Measures. There are others.

What I would suggest is that the "list of Acts in" page is moved to something like "List of legislation in the United Kingdom", with links to equivalent pages for each type of legislation such as those I've linked above, which themselves contain links to the annual lists that (will eventually) exist for all of them. This allows us to also incorporate secondary legislation (such as statutory instruments, Scottish statutory instruments etc.), which would be helpful given that certain forms of legislation such as Orders in Council can blur the lines between primary and secondary legislation. Ultimately, we want to make things as easy as possible for the average user, who may not know the nuances of how legislation in the UK works. Theknightwho (talk) 15:02, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree that this page is completely unsatisfactory for the reasons given by User:Theknightwho. I also agree that the page move he proposes would be preferable to the merger proposed by Bearcat. In addition to that the redundant material needs to be eliminated from this page. The recently added section "by year" should be replaced with a link to List of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The lead section is also factually inaccurate as neither Acts of the pre-union Parliaments, nor Acts of the post-union devolved Parliaments, are "Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom" (emphasis added). James500 (talk) 04:27, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I have tried to improve the page, but it needs further editing. I am not convinced that Acts of the Northern Ireland Assemby are Acts of Parliament, or that the Assembly is a Parliament (as opposed to being a legislature or an assembly). No source is cited in support of either of those propositions. James500 (talk) 05:12, 12 September 2021 (UTC)