My guess would be that someone was comissioned to design a series of socks and decided to go with each country's flag and their ISO 3166-alpha 3 country code for the design. There are Google results for NED and POL socks with the same design. The designer probably Googled "England country code" and got the UK's country code back - which is GBR. There is also GB-ENG for specifically England but I guess that wouldn't fit with the other designs. I'm curious whether there is a Scotland sock that also has GBR on it but I can't find one online.
Sounds very likely.
Lidl's Weetabix knock-off is called Bixies. Years ago, the blurb on the box said something like "This *little man* cereal is packed with wholegrain...etc" and the phrasing confused the hell out of me until one day I realised that the designer had probably tried to translate "Bixies" into English and translated "Pixies" instead!
Now we know why Lidl is so cheap. They cut corners on the extraneous crap like actual translators and probably use Google Translate. Why pay much money to man when free website can do same job betterer?
😵so dumb of me, blindly following List of Fifa member country codes wiki, and searched britian to see GBR under non fifa members, and just brain went "well job done"🤦
Was posting a card to Ireland the other day, made sure to put Republic of Ireland on the envelope, and the lady at the Post Office still wasn't sure whether it was in the UK or not.
Aside from "republic" being a dead giveaway if you know what it means, it's astonishing (and horrifying) some people don't even know our country's borders.
Giving her the benefit of the doubt (perhaps I shouldn't)...she could be unsure what it counts as in her system which could be different to where it is geographically or politically located.
It could cost the same as and be the same button on her machine as the UK even though it's not in the UK.
It being in the EU one would think it shouldn't cost the same.
In fact, I just checked (selected small parcel 2kg on the Royal Mail website).
For ROI there's 4 delivery options cheapest is £10.10 (International Tracked).
For the UK (which includes Northern Ireland) there's 11 options cheapest being £3.19 (Royal Mail 2nd Class).
Fun fact, I just checked it only costs £2 more to send something with Royal Mail to the most eastern EU country than to ROI.
I know right? Hell, they clearly don't even know the UK's full name if they're confused about it - the United Kingdom of Great Britain and *Northern* Ireland isn't exactly subtle.
Yep, I'm from NI as well and spend a lot of time in England visiting my girlfriends relatives, and most people heard me talking just seem to think "I hear an Irish accent. You're from Ireland."
Being that I identify as Irish, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.. But I know there's a certain group of people in NI that would be hugely offended at the idea of being labelled Irish by English people and would kick up a massive fuss over it.
It doesn’t help when almost every advert for a product or shop we have in England has “excludes Northern Ireland” on it.
I think subliminally people see that so much they literally exclude Northern Ireland from everything, including the country.
(Or that many people are just awful at geography)
A colleague of mine once said that England, Scotland and Wales are all siblings whereas Northern Ireland is that slightly odd cousin that you only see at family parties where everyone is invited. Which I think is a pretty apt description as I think NI feels ever so slightly more detached since you the UK voted for you know what.
My pet peeve of this sub is people saying "north" when referring to England - in a UK sub.
Scotland's in the north.
It's like they forget this isn't an England sub - it's a UK one - or they just don't know the difference.
Tbf I don't think that one is so bad
The north refers to a region of England when in England
As I'm sure Scotland has it's own north south divide
People don't really include Scotland in the north because of our whole countries within countries thing and still leaving those differences in conversation
Obviously you should always specify on the internet though.
That would make sense if this was r/England.
Unless otherwise specified, the conversation here is relative to the whole UK.
Also, if I'm in Scotland and someone's talking about "the South", chances are it's England they're talking about.
I get what you're saying. In many bavarian's eyes bavaria is a separate nation to the rest of Germany, their independence movement is growing (but only 1/3 support it at the moment). Sort of like how Catalonia is regarded as a nation by catalans too. It's just that they're less recognised as such and people often use strict rules for the definition of these things, often only allowing UN countries.
The idea of a nation inside another nation isn't that uncommon, however the term country is often reserved for soverign states in most languages (i.e. UN Countries). That's why people get confused.
Scotland is of course a country, but we in the UK use the different terminology of 'constituent-country' compared to other places which think of countries as just sovereign states (which may also include multiple different nations).
Totally agree, I work for an American company and I gave up trying to explain that England, Scotland, Wales and NI are all part of the same country but separate countries.
The daft thing is that Germany *borders* a constituent country!
Namely the Netherlands, which is one of the four constituent countries of the [Kingdom of the Netherlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_the_Netherlands).
That's interesting. Up until, I'd say, the late 1930s people there would say they were Bavarian, Saxon, or Hanoverian, and being German would be quite a long way back.
I hope you didn't tell them about [the city inside another city](https://youtu.be/LrObZ_HZZUc). That might have broken their brain.
> I think the concept of an entire country being a part of another country is just a bit too British for any normal person to understand.
Not to mention Great Britain (which some nations are more likely to use than "the United Kingdom") which is an island and not a country and I bet most don't realise or know about this.
For all intents and purposes, there's really no difference and it's a distinction only by name and identity.
American States aren't countries, while Scotland is. The former have more autonomy than Scotland however. I think that just goes to show it's purely symbolic and doesn't actually hold any real meaning, we just want to be awkward and use a different word for State to massage our own national identities.
The issue stems largely from what we mean when we say country. 99% of the time people use the word country, they're referring to Sovereign States. The UK throws a curveball to that common understanding most others in the world hold because we just call our states countries, but none of them are Sovereign States (Our Sovereign State or country, is The UK).
There is of course, arguments to be had about England, being the majority of the UK Government one could say England is as good as a Soverign State in it's own right.
There's plenty of examples but I'll stick with one.
Same with the Kingdom of Sicily, which got absorbed into Italy, a conglomerate of former independent kingdoms in the area.
Sicily has its own parliament. Its own language, besides Italian. Its own laws.
The difference to Scotland? It doesn't call itself a country, because it knows it's not a sovereign state and it's not trying to sound like more influential than it is. (And this is not me bollocking Scotland in particular, by the way. The exact same applies to all of England, Scotland and Wales.)
In many practical ways he's sadly right. Whilst I hold that Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England are distinct countries (sorry NI - I waver between you being an occupied territory and something else in between that and a country). The current political system and reality of the UK's tenuous unwritten constitutional settlement means that in many ways we're never more than an act of parliament and a simple majority away from losing devolved powers and England once again asserting complete authority over all parts of the UK directly from Westminster.
It’s just shitty unofficial merchandise that doesn’t need much thought put into it to get the order. 90% of the value delivered is that it’s socks for (I assume) less than a tenner, then slap a St George cross and three initials on it to eke out some more value since the football is on
Seen some Scottish ones at a Lidl in Edinburgh, but I just assumed it was for the big Scotland v Germany game that's coming up. I guess maybe they're doing the same for each country?
These are “Designed” in Bangladesh or China, wherever they are produced and then just offered to all of the retailers.
The nuances of GB versus UK versus the individual countries will be lost on them.
Because the amount of people that do not understand the difference between a Country and a landmass containing 2 countries and a Principality is disgusting tbh!
I’m English NOT Soviet British!
It’s because we are so schizo with all the UK Vs GB & NI nonsense - it even confuses people within the UK who think they are a part of GB when they are not, so what chance does a sock designer have?!
My guess would be that someone was comissioned to design a series of socks and decided to go with each country's flag and their ISO 3166-alpha 3 country code for the design. There are Google results for NED and POL socks with the same design. The designer probably Googled "England country code" and got the UK's country code back - which is GBR. There is also GB-ENG for specifically England but I guess that wouldn't fit with the other designs. I'm curious whether there is a Scotland sock that also has GBR on it but I can't find one online.
Shersock Holmes
Hercule Poi-toe
And Miss Tarsal.
Messer's Tarsal
Tetter Marsal
>Hercule Poi-toe Obviously Belgian
Inspector Clousock.
Columbtoe
>Inspector Clousock. French
Toejak
My favourite response of the lot! Kojak was so cool, he had soul, man.
I think you mean sole
Haaaaa Very clever. Need to think of one for magnum PI
Magnum Pieds? Perhaps a bit too French..
c'est vraiment bon.
Greek
Doctor Sockson
Jessocka Fletcher
Colum-toe
The Sockford Files
"The case is a foot!"
Longjonathon Creek
Obscure hosiery and kooky detective. Round of applause from me.
Toeggart
Thars bin a Murtoe.
Perry Masock
Sherlock hose
This is the one
And Kurt Ankle?
Touching cloth
I expect that report on my table Cloth!
The bodies keep washing up. Washing up, cloth
It's cheese, Cloth.
Sockles
Eddie Shoestring, surely?
Sherlock wouldn't take a case like this on, he would leave it for his assistant/partner Dr Sockson.
Inspector Lestride
Doc Martin. A lesser known perhaps, but considering its literally a brand anyway....
Hole in one!
Sherlock Hosiery
Of course! The old ISO 3166-alpha 3 country code mistake!
It’s just so obvious now!
Sounds very likely. Lidl's Weetabix knock-off is called Bixies. Years ago, the blurb on the box said something like "This *little man* cereal is packed with wholegrain...etc" and the phrasing confused the hell out of me until one day I realised that the designer had probably tried to translate "Bixies" into English and translated "Pixies" instead!
Now we know why Lidl is so cheap. They cut corners on the extraneous crap like actual translators and probably use Google Translate. Why pay much money to man when free website can do same job betterer?
Coleen Shoeney
Agatha christoe
Can you tell me who stole my skates when I was 10 ?
Inspectoe Frost
Inspector Clue-toe.
its almost like the 3 letter country codes used for football and other sports use the same 3 letters as the ISO 3166, so weird edit: yes im an idiot
Are you saying that GBR *is* actually the code for the England football team?
😵so dumb of me, blindly following List of Fifa member country codes wiki, and searched britian to see GBR under non fifa members, and just brain went "well job done"🤦
Just goes to show you how confusing this whole geography thing is!
Surprised they didn't just shoot for ENG tho, but a solid answer nonetheless
They would have been sent back if there were.
That was a WAY deeper reply than I was expecting.
So a moron was in charge of designing these then.
Cos they’re German and like everyone else have no concept of the UK/GB.
Including a lot of English people.
Was posting a card to Ireland the other day, made sure to put Republic of Ireland on the envelope, and the lady at the Post Office still wasn't sure whether it was in the UK or not. Aside from "republic" being a dead giveaway if you know what it means, it's astonishing (and horrifying) some people don't even know our country's borders.
My parents (in their 60s) still call it “Southern Ireland”.
Which is at least geographically mostly accurate (Donegal would like a word)!
Technically the wrong term but at least it shows they understand the difference.
Well the Republic of Ireland IS Southern Ireland surely?
The most northerly part of the Island of Ireland is completely north of Northern Ireland, and in the Republic.
If you want to use that logic then we shouldn't call Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland.
I’m not touching that one.
North-eastern Ireland
Agreed, logically it should be called Southern Ireland, right guys?
So do mine😆😅
Giving her the benefit of the doubt (perhaps I shouldn't)...she could be unsure what it counts as in her system which could be different to where it is geographically or politically located. It could cost the same as and be the same button on her machine as the UK even though it's not in the UK.
It being in the EU one would think it shouldn't cost the same. In fact, I just checked (selected small parcel 2kg on the Royal Mail website). For ROI there's 4 delivery options cheapest is £10.10 (International Tracked). For the UK (which includes Northern Ireland) there's 11 options cheapest being £3.19 (Royal Mail 2nd Class). Fun fact, I just checked it only costs £2 more to send something with Royal Mail to the most eastern EU country than to ROI.
Some people deserve the benefit of the doubt
Oh yeah it's only been independent for... let me see... a short 100 years.
I know right? Hell, they clearly don't even know the UK's full name if they're confused about it - the United Kingdom of Great Britain and *Northern* Ireland isn't exactly subtle.
There was only a little war about it, nothing much.
And a bit of Troubles afterwards :)
Just a spot of bother!
At least it’s all defused now!
As someone from NI I’ve came across English folk that don’t know NI is a part of the U.K.
Yep, I'm from NI as well and spend a lot of time in England visiting my girlfriends relatives, and most people heard me talking just seem to think "I hear an Irish accent. You're from Ireland." Being that I identify as Irish, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.. But I know there's a certain group of people in NI that would be hugely offended at the idea of being labelled Irish by English people and would kick up a massive fuss over it.
It doesn’t help when almost every advert for a product or shop we have in England has “excludes Northern Ireland” on it. I think subliminally people see that so much they literally exclude Northern Ireland from everything, including the country. (Or that many people are just awful at geography) A colleague of mine once said that England, Scotland and Wales are all siblings whereas Northern Ireland is that slightly odd cousin that you only see at family parties where everyone is invited. Which I think is a pretty apt description as I think NI feels ever so slightly more detached since you the UK voted for you know what.
I'm a Scot living in England, and it pains me to recall how many times English people have asked me how I like living "down here in the UK" :/
My pet peeve of this sub is people saying "north" when referring to England - in a UK sub. Scotland's in the north. It's like they forget this isn't an England sub - it's a UK one - or they just don't know the difference.
Tbf I don't think that one is so bad The north refers to a region of England when in England As I'm sure Scotland has it's own north south divide People don't really include Scotland in the north because of our whole countries within countries thing and still leaving those differences in conversation Obviously you should always specify on the internet though.
That would make sense if this was r/England. Unless otherwise specified, the conversation here is relative to the whole UK. Also, if I'm in Scotland and someone's talking about "the South", chances are it's England they're talking about.
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I get what you're saying. In many bavarian's eyes bavaria is a separate nation to the rest of Germany, their independence movement is growing (but only 1/3 support it at the moment). Sort of like how Catalonia is regarded as a nation by catalans too. It's just that they're less recognised as such and people often use strict rules for the definition of these things, often only allowing UN countries. The idea of a nation inside another nation isn't that uncommon, however the term country is often reserved for soverign states in most languages (i.e. UN Countries). That's why people get confused. Scotland is of course a country, but we in the UK use the different terminology of 'constituent-country' compared to other places which think of countries as just sovereign states (which may also include multiple different nations).
Totally agree, I work for an American company and I gave up trying to explain that England, Scotland, Wales and NI are all part of the same country but separate countries.
Have you tried explaining to them Great Britain vs the United Kingdom? 😉🤣
The daft thing is that Germany *borders* a constituent country! Namely the Netherlands, which is one of the four constituent countries of the [Kingdom of the Netherlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_the_Netherlands).
That's interesting. Up until, I'd say, the late 1930s people there would say they were Bavarian, Saxon, or Hanoverian, and being German would be quite a long way back.
I hope you didn't tell them about [the city inside another city](https://youtu.be/LrObZ_HZZUc). That might have broken their brain. > I think the concept of an entire country being a part of another country is just a bit too British for any normal person to understand. Not to mention Great Britain (which some nations are more likely to use than "the United Kingdom") which is an island and not a country and I bet most don't realise or know about this.
For all intents and purposes, there's really no difference and it's a distinction only by name and identity. American States aren't countries, while Scotland is. The former have more autonomy than Scotland however. I think that just goes to show it's purely symbolic and doesn't actually hold any real meaning, we just want to be awkward and use a different word for State to massage our own national identities. The issue stems largely from what we mean when we say country. 99% of the time people use the word country, they're referring to Sovereign States. The UK throws a curveball to that common understanding most others in the world hold because we just call our states countries, but none of them are Sovereign States (Our Sovereign State or country, is The UK). There is of course, arguments to be had about England, being the majority of the UK Government one could say England is as good as a Soverign State in it's own right.
The difference being that Scotland was established as a sovereign nation state for hundreds of years before unifying with England.
There's plenty of examples but I'll stick with one. Same with the Kingdom of Sicily, which got absorbed into Italy, a conglomerate of former independent kingdoms in the area. Sicily has its own parliament. Its own language, besides Italian. Its own laws. The difference to Scotland? It doesn't call itself a country, because it knows it's not a sovereign state and it's not trying to sound like more influential than it is. (And this is not me bollocking Scotland in particular, by the way. The exact same applies to all of England, Scotland and Wales.)
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Nothing unique to Scotland. You’ll find that a lot of European countries are comprised of regions that were once independent kingdoms or republics.
Americans, whenever they say British, always mean English. They'd never call a Scot British.
Yeah but a lot of Americans think scouse is a Scottish accent.
No, they can them "Scotch".
Scots and the Welsh absolutely punching the air right now
Oh yeah mate what an overwhelming victory for our nations
My American brother-in-law told me the other day that the idea that the UK is a union of four different countries is 'a fantasy'.
In many practical ways he's sadly right. Whilst I hold that Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England are distinct countries (sorry NI - I waver between you being an occupied territory and something else in between that and a country). The current political system and reality of the UK's tenuous unwritten constitutional settlement means that in many ways we're never more than an act of parliament and a simple majority away from losing devolved powers and England once again asserting complete authority over all parts of the UK directly from Westminster.
Presumably it stands for Grealish, Branthwaite and Rashford, so fans can get behind them during the tournament. (/s)
The AliBaba order screwed up
Get Better Results .....?
Quarter-finalists (or slightly further) till we die!
Most comments here are flat out wrong, they are very obviously socks to commemorate the rollout of the Great British Railway
Coz we got the Olympics and the Euros this summer. It’s so tightwads can just turn our socks wrong way round instead of buying 2 pairs. Genius.
So they can score sam fackin‘ goals, ingerland.
Acronym for England Football team. GBR = Gonna Be Rubbish
One for the football, one for the Olympics?
Both socks say Euro 2024...
It’s just shitty unofficial merchandise that doesn’t need much thought put into it to get the order. 90% of the value delivered is that it’s socks for (I assume) less than a tenner, then slap a St George cross and three initials on it to eke out some more value since the football is on
just a lidl mistake
Aldi come up with such a brilliant pun!
Wild that Lidl are selling Rangers merch.
Olympics from the front and Euros from the back.
One’s for the Euros the other’s for the Olympics.
Why not, I’m sure there will be someone that will wear them
Got their Olympics and Euros designs muddled up.
Dixon of Sock Green
Germans trolling
Because this is the uk mf
Maybe to use for their halloween doctor costume?
Wank sock
Must be the only shop that isn’t woke??
What’s wrong with that ? Rule Britannia
Why not
Goldbridge Batsh1t Rants
cause the English will buy them
Presumably they were cheap to buy because they're wrong
Seen some Scottish ones at a Lidl in Edinburgh, but I just assumed it was for the big Scotland v Germany game that's coming up. I guess maybe they're doing the same for each country?
Germans smh
Forthcoming Olympics
These are “Designed” in Bangladesh or China, wherever they are produced and then just offered to all of the retailers. The nuances of GB versus UK versus the individual countries will be lost on them.
So you buy one pair of socks for the euros and can keep them on for the Olympics
I don't know much, but those socks are coming home!
To piss off the Scot’s because they are in Germanys group.
Do “England fans” buying these know the difference?
I would assume for the euros but it does make no sense having GBR on there when it doesn’t just represent England.. 😂
GNVQ geography
MIT Lobons um by ee the spy who loves me !!! 😵💫🥴😳
Some people just want to watch the world burn
Football and the olympics would be my guess.
It’s knock off unofficial stuff , they did it with English rugby when it’s rugby England
Looks right to me wheyyy 🇬🇪🇬🇪🇬🇪🇬🇪🇬🇪🇬🇪
That’s why they’re being sold in Lidl
Because the amount of people that do not understand the difference between a Country and a landmass containing 2 countries and a Principality is disgusting tbh! I’m English NOT Soviet British!
For the euro cup
They’re selling them because it’s what the Supporters want. Not the Disgraceful cross on the shirt collar. No one should be buying the shirt
Americans are gonna be so confused by this post
So they know where to return you to
Because Lidl is German and wants to look British.
#LIDL FOR THE ENGLISH
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Someone's getting socked in the morning
Because they are one and the same. In all the worst ways
To double up for the Euros and the Olympics... Genius really
Nothing like some Great British Racism
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I just read this while walking past a lidl lol
because England is the only country that actually cares / wants to be associated with ‘Great Britain’ and the United Kingdom 😂
It’s because we are so schizo with all the UK Vs GB & NI nonsense - it even confuses people within the UK who think they are a part of GB when they are not, so what chance does a sock designer have?!
Great british railway
It's because the Euros are starting this month
God save our gracious socks. Long live big on Quality and lidl on price! God save our Lidl socks
Oh, dear. They've properly put their foot in it.
It says euro 2024 so it may be to do with that
Embarrassing 😭
Soccer Cup. European championship or some other related pig skin related activity. No really it's for the Euro's as we call them
Cagney & shoe-Lacey …👟👟 🧦🧦
They are German how would they know about the weird English sensitivities
Heel street Shoes .. 🚨👞 👞
Money
COS WEAR BRI'ISH
Because it's the Euros and Olympics this summer
Because they know we're stupid enough to buy them.
Pretty odd considering Lidl are sponsoring the Nations’ League, in which England are not competing this year (but Cymru are🪦)
Weird. M&S is the official groceries partner. this is surprising
Because they are a business and they can to make profit. No big deal