How should one refer to the United Kingdom? Or is it
Britian??
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Britain refers to England, Scotland and Wales and is a geographical term to describe the island. Great Britain was originally used to differentiate it from Britainny in France. I think now Great Britain is used to describe Britain and all the little islands around Britain such as the Isle of Man.
The United Kingdom is a Political term to describe the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island. All this territory being governed from Westminster.
Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales.
The United Kingdom is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland.
The British Isles is England, Scotland, Wales, Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. (People in the
Republic of Ireland do not genreally appreciate this term.)
so what do you call someone from the UK?
British, or Ukish?
They really should do something about this. It gets
confusing when a country has so many different names. For
instance, I was in this pub in Glasgow and said "I really
love it here in England". For this complimentary gesture I
received a free beer - thrown into the back of my skull.
It's really not a difficult situation - mew (answer No 2)
had it right. Glasgow is not in England and never has been,
so it wasn't too clever announcing that it WAS in a
Scottish pub! And people from the UK are known as British,
although folks from Scotland, Wales, England and Northern
Ireland very often prefer to refer to themselves as
Scottish, etc, feeling affinity and pride for their own
country (England or Scotland), principality (Wales) or
province (Northern Ireland).
Of course, the UK is now more than ever in a process of
evolution (elections to the new Scottish parliament and
Welsh assembly take place this very day), and things could
start to change dramatically in the years ahead ...
I'd just like to point out that Wales is a country too, nto
just a 'principality'.
Cymru am byth
Well, over here in London, they do say two countries, a
province and a principality; Scotland and England are yoked
together in 'association' on quasi-equal terms (Act of Union,
1707) but Wales was subsumed in the 1500s in a more one-sided
move. You can see the results in the difference between the
Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.
I say British or Brits, or a particular ethnicity - English,
Scottish, Welsh, Irish. But never call a Protestant Ulsterman
Irish, he's a Brit; he'll take Irish as an insult.
only one woman referring to herself as british, actually she
immigrated about 20 years ago. The others have been English,
Welsh, Scottish or Irish.
It may be Britain but it ain't Great anymore
PS.
The term British Isles is a vain attempt by the English to
retain the last vestigas of Empire. There is no such place
and even if there was it would not include the Republic of
Ireland
Eire go brath
My girlfriend was in Penzance a few years ago and said to
her friends "I'll see you next time I'm in England." To
which they replied: "We're not f*cken English, we're
Cornish". I don't know about the technicalities of
Scotland, Wales & Ulster as 'countries', but I did always
think Cornwall was in England.
.
Australia is much better. We have six states & two
territories, but we're definitely all part of the same
country.
Cornwall is in England - it's a county, not a country. But is
has a rather silly scrappy little independence movement that
nobody takes seriously. "We're not English, we're Cornish" is
sort of like "We're not English, we're Yorkshiremen," or for
that matter, "I'm not American, I'm a New Yorker."
The difference between the UK and Australia, of course, is
that the UK has been inhabited by overlapping groups and
shifting kingdoms for the past 5,000 years, so of course it's
blurry, based on what part of history you choose to honor. In
Australia, you killed all your natives, so you got to
reinvent the country from scratch.
In Australia the "British" (mostly English) killed off most
of our natives. Australians have just had difficulty
accepting this as fact.
All of the above just highlights whats wrong with the world.
If people didn't give a razoo over whether they're called
English or Welsh, Serbian or Albanian etc, we would all be
able to really travel and enjoy this world. Get a life
people and worry about the fact that as soon as you insist
that you belong to some ethnic\secular group you have taken
the first step towards considering all outside that group
lesser human beings, and are contributing to the prejudices
that spawn ethnic cleansing and final solutions!
Amen to the above. But shouldn't it be UQ? Hasn't been a
king there as long as I've been alive.
I can confirm that Ireland is not part of the British
Isles, despite what the Brits might say, although perhaps
the Isle of Man is?
Also, Northern Ireland is not a province. It makes up 6
counties of the nine counties of the province Ulster.
Cornwall is IN England, but IS NOT England. In this county a
different language is spoken, the cornish. This celtic
language is almost desapeared, but there are a specificity
that makes conish people brave about their difference.
As a matter of interest, would your particular phrasing be
considered educated Cornish?
If you were born in England, Scotland, Wales, The North of
Ireland, Cornwall etc etc then your nationality is British -
you will get a British passport, not a Welsh one or Scottish
one or English one.
Obviously, we all have our own preferred way of looking at
things and but our lives are tangled up together. I am
English and always will be so and am also happy to be that.
But I am a Northerner and would prefer not to be associated
with those southern ponces from London - just like the
Welsh, Manx, Cornish, Scottish etc etc. But if you go back
a few generations I could be Irish or Manx. If it was left
to our stupidity, Serbia would be like a Boy Scouts outing
and we would have the people's republics of Newcastle,
Sunderland, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow etc etc. Lets
leave football to be our war and just get on with each
other. Britain is Great - come and try and "take us" if you
don't think so.
(burners on full)
Cornwall NOT England? What are you talking about, fool?
Hardly any bastard speaks Cornish anymore; it's a dead
language for all intents. And "conish people brave about
their difference" ??? The only thing that makes any of my
Cornish family different is that they realise that Ginsters
amke shit pasties.
(/rant)
Actually in response to 16 ANYONE born on the island of
Ireland is entitled to an Irish passport as is anyone born
in Scotland,Wales or England with one Irish born parent Or
one Irish born grandparent which would be around 20 million
people in the so called British Isles not to mention around
another 40 million in the U.S and yet more from our Celtic
cousins downunder in Australia and New Zealand
Great Britain is composed of England, Wales, Scotland, the
Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. England, Wales, and
Scotland are part of the UK, which also includes Northern
Ireland. The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man have their
own parliaments and attached directly to the Crown. Great
Britain is called that not because it is great, but because
it was bigger than the former Lesser Britain, which is now
Brittany in France.
i'm a Brit from UK. simple really and very economical on
vowels and stuff.
English when I'm with Scots or Welsh etc, British abroad and
European when I'm with Americans, but funnily enough not
when I'm with Asians. Not sure how I'd refer to myself with
anyone extraterrestrial yet.
Wales has NEVER been a country, just a princepality, the
last independent group there were the Ordivices, a tribe
which the Romans completely wiped out in around 100AD, so
drop the history guys.
Cornwall has NEVER been a country - that is like Wessex is a
country, or Mercia. They are all defunct tribal lands,
Cornwall just happens to have hung over as a name for a
county.
Stating 'we have our own anguage' is bollocks. The
'British' language is different from 'English', it just
happens to be dead. There still exists over 750 different
dialects in the British Isles, each linking back to an
origional proto-language.
So drop the jingoism - you have no choice 'who' you are. We
all have a ruling government that we must accept, like it or
not.
And last, the Repubilc of Ireland has nothing to do with UK,
to call it part of the British Isles makes as much sense as
calling Finland part of the United States. It just happens
to have a familiar name to another part of the Britsh Isles
(Nortehrn Island), and has a lot of English speakers.
this is a geographic (as opposed to political) definition of
the two large and many small islands on the continental
shelf off mainland europe - another geographic term.
the island of ireland is therefore one of the British Isles,
and we all know that the Shannon river is the longest one in
the BI.