Epiphany

[Iceglow]

Small towns in America are villages, just different symantics. There's loadsa villages here in Ireland but they are usually called by the Irish word for town which is 'Baile' or 'Bally'.

Village is mostly an english thing, the next smallest to that would be a hamlet.

You're wrong on that last part Cuch, a Hamlet is smaller than a village.

A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. The name comes from Anglo-Norman hamelet(t)e; Old French hamelet, the diminutive of Old French hamel. Another diminutive of Old French ham is possibly a cognate with similar words of Germanic origin. Compare with Dutch heem, German Heim, Swiss German cham or -kon, Old English hām and Modern English home, all derived from the Proto-Germanic *kham-.[1] Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village. One example of a hamlet is a small cluster of houses surrounding a mill.

In the United Kingdom, the word 'hamlet' has no defined legal meaning, although hamlets are recognised as part of land use planning policies and administration. A hamlet is traditionally defined ecclesiastically as a village or settlement that usually does not have its own church, belonging to a parish of another village or town. In modern usage it generally refers to a secondary settlement in a civil parish, after the main settlement (if any). Hamlets may have been formed around a single source of economic activity such as a farm, mill, mine or harbour that employed its working population. Some hamlets, particularly those that have a medieval church, may be the result of the depopulation of a village.

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousands (sometimes tens of thousands), Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in Beirut, Lebanon, as well as Hampstead Village in the London conurbation. Villages are normally permanent, with fixed dwellings; however, transient villages[1] can occur. Further, the dwellings of a village are fairly close to one another, not scattered broadly over the landscape, as a dispersed settlement.

Historically, villages were the usual form of community for societies that practise subsistence agriculture, and also for some non-agricultural societies. In Great Britain, a hamlet earned the right to be called a village when it built a church.[2] In many cultures, towns and cities were few, with only a small proportion of the population living in them. The Industrial Revolution attracted people in larger numbers to work in mills and factories; the concentration of people caused many villages to grow into towns and cities. This also enabled specialization of labor and crafts, and development of many trades. The trend of urbanisation continues, though not always in connection with industrialisation. Villages have been eclipsed in importance as units of human society and settlement.

In the UK, the main historical distinction between a hamlet and a village was that the latter had a church,[citation needed] and so usually was the centre of worship for an ecclesiastical parish. However, some civil parishes may contain more than one village. The typical village had a pub or inn, shops, and a blacksmith. But many of these facilities are now gone, and many villages are dormitories for commuters. The population of such settlements ranges from a few hundred people to around five thousand. A village is distinguished from a town in that:

A village should not have a regular agricultural market, although today such markets are uncommon even in settlements which clearly are towns.
A village does not have a town hall nor a mayor.
If a village is the principal settlement of a civil parish, then any administrative body that administers it at parish level should be called a parish council or parish meeting, and not a town council or city council. However, some civil parishes have no functioning parish, town, or city council nor a functioning parish meeting. In Wales, where the equivalent of an English civil parish is called a Community, the body that administers it is called a Community Council. However, larger councils may elect to call themselves town councils.[11] Unlike Wales, Scottish community councils have no statutory powers.[12]
There should be a clear green belt or open fields surrounding its parish borders. However this may not be applicable to urbanised villages: although these may not considered to be villages, they are often widely referred to as being so; an example of this is Horsforth in Leeds.

As for something what annoys me. I often hear American tourists when they're not getting their own way say "Oh I'm sorry I keep forgetting that this isn't America!" I end up getting really pissed off. Lets not forget that the American rebels won the civil war against their English lords in part due to the involvement of French soldiers and naval forces. But it's not the historical aspect what pisses me off mostly. What really gets my goat is if I were to go to the USA and not get my way with something and simply state "Oh I'm sorry I keep forgetting this isn't the UK!" I would not only get abuse thrown my way but possibly even violence especially with some southern states and redneck mentality.

[Cuchulainn]

[QUOTE=Iceglow;2885756]

Small towns in America are villages, just different symantics. There's loadsa villages here in Ireland but they are usually called by the Irish word for town which is 'Baile' or 'Bally'.

Village is mostly an english thing, the next smallest to that would be a hamlet.

that's what i said you madman.The next smallest to a village is a hamlet.

[Iceglow]

[QUOTE=Cuchulainn;2885763]

Small towns in America are villages, just different symantics. There's loadsa villages here in Ireland but they are usually called by the Irish word for town which is 'Baile' or 'Bally'.

Village is mostly an english thing, the next smallest to that would be a hamlet.

that's what i said you madman.The next smallest to a village is a hamlet.

I misread you you crazy irish man! (because face it an english man is mad and a scots man is insane and the irish are crazy...the welsh are just well welsh? there is no helping them!)

[Hythloday]

Jeff Bridges was the original Tron guy, and now he's the daddy in the new one.

And in general the revelation that Jeff Bridges is a bamf.

[Psychotic]

when I think of the word "village" I think of "villagers" which in turn makes me think of "ablaze; dragon-related".

That or the plague. Villagers always have the smurfing black death.

There's a village near me where they race toads in little wooden carts for entertainment.