Talk:Governor-general
OK, I'm going to start the discussion here, so we don't keep moving back and forth between my, Jtdirl, and Cafemusique's talk pages. It appears that sometimes the hyphen is used, and sometimes it's not; in Canada it is apparently official that there is no hyphen. I'm not convinced that it would be an error by the people who made the webpage to leave out the hyphen...and while it may be official to use the hyphen in Ireland or Australia, I don't think that means it is necessarily official in Canada.
Personally, I don't think it matters, as long as one redirects to the other, since searching for governor general with or without a hyphen makes no difference (either on Wikipedia, or Google). Perhaps we could just make a note about the hyphen use on this article's page, if it turns out Canada doesn't use the hyphen. Adam Bishop 23:09 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Certainly if Canada dropped the hypen it is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) the Irish "Representative of the Crown" was modelled on the Canadian Governor-General. In the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922 the term governor-general was used and it was taken exactly from Canada. If Canada had no hypen then, Ireland wouldn't have had one either.
I'll check with Buckingham Palace to see if they know whether the Letters-Patent governing the GG were varied to drop the hypen. The Letters-Patent are the definitive source because they define the office and are drafted by the Canadian Government. If they use a hypen, then the GG is hypenated. If they don't anymore then it no longer is. What is the GG called by French canadians? Might the hypen have been dropped to suit the linguistic needs of Quebec? FearÉIREANN 23:33 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- In French it's just Gouverneur Général, with no hyphen. But there are French words with hyphens, so I don't think that is a problem. Adam Bishop 23:40 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
In NZ ...
it's Governor-General
[[LETTERS PATENT CONSTITUTING THE OFFICE OF GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF NEW ZEALAND]]
Cleanup needed
This edit needs to be cleaned up! - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Governor-General&diff=0&oldid=4957227 -- Chuq 01:41, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
NO SECOND-IN-LINE IN AUSTRALIA
I can't speak for other countries, but in Australia it is most definitely not the case that there is any "second-in-line" to the GG. Where the GG goes overseas in an official capacity, dies in office, goes on leave, or is prevented by illness from performing his duties, the convention is that the most senior state Governor is appointed Administrator of the Commonwealth. However that appointment is an explicit appointment made by the government of the day; it is not some sort of automatic succession to the office like the US V-P succeeding to the Presidency on the death of the President. The government is under no obligation to appoint the most senior state governor. In fact Gough Whitlam removed the capacity of the then Queensland governor Sir Colin Hannah to be appointed Administrator in such circumstances, due to Hannah's grossly inappropriate partisan political public comments. Hannah wasn't the senior governor at the time, but he was prevented from ever being made Administrator in the event that he were ever to become the senior governor. The subsequent Fraser government (and of course Gough himself) could have reversed that decision, but to my knowledge never did. But the point is that the government decides who the GG is, and the governemnt decides who the Administrator is. I even doubt that a government is under any obligation to appoint any state governor at all. What's to prevent, say, a Chief Justice or indeed any eminent person from being appointed Administrator? Nothing as far as I'm aware. JackofOz 04:13, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)