idioms - Words confuse- prefecture, county and shire.


How could I distinguish the usage between the prefecture and county?
In my opinion, I think "shire" is smaller than a county or prefecture.
Is there any problem with my concept?



Answer



In the UK, county and shire mean the same thing - a primary division of a country - but we use them slightly differently. Shire is suffixed to (usually) the county town name, as in Yorkshire, tho it sometimes gets merged somewhat: Lancaster plus shire = Lancashire. County is used for some county-names (who knows why?) and in deference to French syntax comes before the town name, as in County Durham. But unless we want to sound cute, we no longer use shire generically: "all over the county", not "all over the shire."


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