On Mar 26, 2:14*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 26 Mar 2009, John Rowland wrote:
Sam Wilson wrote:

We'd say "in Mallorca" (actually we'd say "in Majorca" but we'd
pronounce it as if it were a German word!). *We'd say "in Ireland"
too. We generally reserve "on" for islands you can see most of at the
same time: on the Isle of Wight, on Arran, on Lindisfarne, on Barra.
We might use "in" for islands that are also states of some kind so you
could use either "in" or "on" for the Isle of Man or Jersey. *The
phrase "in the island of Ireland" is common but then so is "on the
island of Ireland".

Size is irrelevant IMO. I find that if it's a country, you say "in",
otherwise you say "on". I would certainly say "on South Island" (NZ),
"on Baffin Island" and "on Hokkaido", even though these islands are way
too big to see the whole thing at the same time.

On Eurasia? That's an island too.

I think to an extent it depends about whether you're talking about the
island as a political or geological unit. You're in a polity, but on a
rock.

tom

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This is probably right up to a point, but this doesn't tell us what to
do when (1) a polity and an an island are coterminus, and (2) the
speaker doesn't want explicitly to refer to one or another. There
then doesn't seem to be a general rule: upthread it was suggested that
one might holiday on the Isle of White, but in Majorca. That sounds
right to me. In this case, I suspect that one uses on for the Isle
of White precisely because the word Isle is in the name, but I'm far
from convinced that this is a general rule.

--- Bill.