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British vs Irish/English/Scottish/Welsh (or What's in a name?)

23 posts · 1784 views · started 2014-08-22 12:00 UTC
MA
Matchstickman
2014-08-22 12:00 UTC
#1

As an Englishman I see fighting words there.

BR
Braithwhite
2014-08-21 17:37 UTC
#2

I'm not trying to give offence, and I apologize if I have. What I'm trying to say is that, as an outsider, "British" has a very specific locational meaning that might not bear any resemblance to how people who live in the area would use it. 

MA
Matchstickman
2014-08-21 18:15 UTC
#3

No offense taken.

UN
Under3
2014-08-21 18:47 UTC
#4

Careful there though, Irish is its own nationality, one which isn’t part of the UK and therefore certainly not part of Britain at all.
Northern Ireland isn’t part of the Republic of Ireland, nor is it part of Britain but is within the UK, for extra confusion it is part of the island of Ireland though.
Oh, and for even more added confusion of geography vs politics, Ireland despite as mentioned, not being part of Great Britain is however, part of the British Isles.

Much like all our other neighbours they don’t take kindly to having their nationality conflated with us English.

My head hurts after trying to clarify all that. Isn’t learning fun!

Anyway, I’m going to listen to the podcast now. Yay.

JA
jagarciao
2014-08-21 19:10 UTC
#5

A.B.E. 

SI
Silverleaf
2014-08-21 19:12 UTC
#6

I'm British, but I'm English first.

Unfortunately much of the rest of the world (most notably the US) use "British" when they mean "English" and so get confused when someone points out that England is only part of Britain and that Scotland and Wales also exist.

Describing someone as British can easily sound like "I can't work out whether you're English or Welsh or Scottish despite the accents being very different, but hey, you're all the same, right?" Like calling someone a hominid rather than a human - technically correct, but not terribly specific.

SP
Spiff
2014-08-21 19:55 UTC
#7

Wait, what?

That's totally not what an American means when he calls someone British.  He means they're English (or possibly Welsh because who can tell the difference?).  We've watched enough old James Bond movies and computer animated movies about dragons and redheaded archer girls to know when someone is Scottish.

Seriously, have you seen "Under the Skin"?  Whatever those Scotts were speaking, it sure wasn't English.  Probably Martian. Easy to tell who's a Scott from the accent.

CR
Craig
2014-08-21 20:08 UTC
#8

Gaird yer gab, ye laidron.

UX
UXM266
2014-08-21 20:41 UTC
#9

English Muffins!

AR
arenson9
2014-08-21 20:50 UTC
#10

Perhaps this will help:

The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10

MA
Matchstickman
2014-08-21 22:51 UTC
#11

I should say that in the same way that "British" is English inside America, outside America "Yank" is synonymous with American, sorry Texans.

SP
Spiff
2014-08-21 22:53 UTC
#12

Great point.  Being a Californian, I suppose I should have some kind of an opinion about all Americans being called Yanks, but I don't.

KA
Katsue
2014-08-21 23:28 UTC
#13

I think there are some people from Northern Ireland who would identify themselves as British, but not as being Irish. They might, at a push, describe themselves as Ulstermen or Ulsterwomen. (Not all of Ulster is in Northern Ireland, by the way.) And of course there are also people from Northern Ireland who would identify as being both British and Irish, and people from Northern Ireland who consider themselves Irish and not British.

VE
Veet
2014-08-21 23:29 UTC
#14

Thats because us Left Coasters are something completely diferent from the Northerners and the Southerners, so the divide is very lost on us.

VI
ViolentSilence
2014-08-21 23:38 UTC
#15

I'm not sure - I worked with a guy from Greenock (near Glasgow for people who don't know it) who definitely considered himself British. He was Scottish too, but he felt that both labels were OK

MI
MigrantP
2014-08-21 23:49 UTC
#16

I suppose "UnKies" is right out.

PY
Pydro
2014-08-21 23:57 UTC
#17

So, the 3 posts on Doctor Who was split, but this wasn't?

CM
cmschex
2014-08-21 23:59 UTC
#18

 

Seriously, with the amount of new posts I keep thinking that GtG posted another bio

PY
Pydro
2014-08-22 00:05 UTC
#19

I was really joking, but it really didn’t come out that way. So, I will fix it by saying:

MODS ARE THE BEST! GO MODS!

MA
Matchstickman
2014-08-22 00:07 UTC
#20

Jeez man, you're going to anger all the Rockers in here...

ME
Mezike
2014-08-22 10:29 UTC
#21

 

I love those videos. There is a really good one on voting systems and why First Past the Post is so horribly broken.

 

On another note, anyone familiar with the Imperial measurement system ought to fully understand why we like to keep our nationalities so complicated over here. I qualify for three different nationalities even though I was born in just the one country  :neutral_face:

And we haven't even started on the Cornish yet either…

GR
Greywind
2014-08-22 11:09 UTC
#22

UN
Under3
2014-08-23 19:29 UTC
#23

Oh dear, let us not start on the Cornish, the Kernowyon are a strange folk.