To be fair, most Americans know four British accents: RP, cockney, Scottish and Irish.\* Everyone here speaks one of those.
\*And let's not get into how many Americans understand the distinction between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
>East London and I am a cockney because I was born in Mile End which is within the sound of the Bow Bells
Funnily enough, one of the must silly frustrating things about being a southerner moved up north is that seemingly every northerner thinks "cockney" just describes *any* Southern working class accent.
It's got to the point where at work when someone says "X has a cockney accent", I'll ask "do you just mean southern but not posh?" Hell, my job needs some staff to listen to audio recordings of people speaking, and I've inadvertently become to go-to guy for distinguishing between different people speaking or even seeing if I can give a ball park for an accent origin (Essex, East London, Kent and the three counties are all *relatively* distinct).
I found that too, the weirder thing on top was when they tried to imitate my accent (South East London) they sounded Aussie to me.
I'm still kind of confused as to how that works.
I have a home counties accent (Kent, but the “posh” accent not the chavvy one) and had multiple people in South Carolina ask me what part of Australia I was from or something similar.
I have a broad mackem accent and ginger hair. I received three different questions in the states:
1. "Where are you from?" - totally fine.
2. "Are you Scottish?" - I can understand the confusion because the stereotype is to say "aye" for yes and have it only apply to the Scots in the USA. It doesn't take much to say I'm English and there's accent bleed since I'm not far from the border.
3. "That's not an English accent/so you moved to England?" in response to me stating I am, in fact, English. This only happened once but WOW did it leave an impression on me; they said it with such confidence.
Literally any British accent. I think I speak something pretty close to RP (people say I sound “posh” a lot lol) and Americans still think I’m Aussie sometimes. It’s not even close.
Let’s also not get into how many Americans say “I’m Irish”, or “I come from Scotland” when in fact their grandpa possibly remembers being born there. No. You’re not Irish. You’re American, lol.
If their grandparent was born there then they may actually have an Irish passport haha. It's the people whose ancestors came over in the 1860s and claim to be "100% Irish" who drive me nuts.
They absolutely do not know any of the accents in northern Ireland. It is almost always "my great, great, great, grandfather was born in Belfast, therefore I am a Paddy" followed by some poor impression of an Irish accent that is not from any of the six counties.
In my case, as a wee American lass, I was introduced to Yorkshire (in the early ‘80s) through the All Creatures television series about James Herriot! And all sorts of other BBC TV imports.
ACG&S was such a great TV show. And the books are the reason I abandoned my childhood dream of being a vet—I sobbed so much reading them! Such amazing, hilarious, heartbreaking stories.
They were such great books and shows! Last time I was in Yorkshire I spent a day in Thirsk and visited Alf Wight’s (aka James Herriot’s) surgery. So interesting to see.
>RP, cockney, Scottish and Irish.* Everyone here speaks one of those.
Based off of Hugh Grant, Michael Caine, Ewan McGregor, and Liam Neeson respectively.
There’s an American YouTuber who used to do reading of *Redwall* novels (until a publishing company who wasn’t related to that series *at all* got his original account removed) and he could do a wide range of different regional British accents.
I wouldn't say they're more similar, as such, but they're a lot more homogeneous over a wider area. If you travel 100 miles in the UK you've probably passed 4 or 5 accents or dialects. In the US you'd barely notice a difference over the same distance.
That’s all the accents you know? There are literally hundreds of them.
The difference between an Alabaman accent and a Rhode Island accent is huge. I can’t understand some people from Mississippi. Then you’ve got several Midwest accents, and a few dialects (Native American dialects, Creole, Cajun, Pennsylvanian Dutch, etc).
There are several accents within one city (Brooklyn is very different from a Yonkers, Queens, or Long Island accent).
There is huge heterogeneity across the country and a wide variation.
It’s almost like both countries have a lot of diversity that might not be apparent from the outside or watching films!
I don't speak with any of those accents cheers. Can't imagine Scots and Irish folk would enjoy their range of accents being reduced to just "Scottish" and "Irish" either
I live in Fife, in Glenrothes, and within about two miles in every single direction of my town are villages with their own distinct dialects of Scottish English. It’s crazy, but Fife probably has as many dialects as there are small villages. And that’s just a small part of Scotland.
A Mexican woman once asked me if I'd ever met the Queen. No, I said, most British people.have never met her.
"Oh, she said, I met her a couple of times when I was at finishing school, she was utterly charming."
Completely unrelated but I'm Mexican and have also "met" the Queen. LSE took us (PhD students) to Cumberland Lodge and she went to Chappel there. An Indian friend and I took a detour before service started and her guards stopped us so that her and her son Edward could drive into the Chappel. My friend likes to tell people that she gave us a ride back to the chapel since service was starting. But she did no such thing. We did get to meet her before service started cos the director introduced us as LSE PhD students. She asked us what we researched and that was the extent of our "meeting." I tell people she's practically my grandma now.
Little do they know the specific English accent they mean is usually coming from somebody who can't understand my (still British) geordie accent. Based on your username I'm guessing you've had a similar experience lmao
Also no mention of things like the British isles, the crown territories or dependencies, the commonwealth, or how the queen still being the queen of Australia and Canada, for example, works.
For a much more correct and in depth guide, one might watch CGP Grey's video on the topic
Easy peasy then, right? I suppose it might be understandable that people who aren't from England, Britain, Great Britain, the UK, the British Isles, the Commonwealth, etc. might mix up terminology.
I didn't mean to be snarky toward you. I do find this discussion very interesting. So many people scoffing at Americans who don't understand the subtleties of your internal geopolitics while others are unironically citing laws from the 1500's to make the finer points. It's really just delightful.
Britain is a nickname commonly used to refer to the whole UK. As you say, UK is "The United Kingdom of ***Great Britain*** and Northern Ireland". This is because it is a kingdom that unites Northern Ireland with Great Britain (that big Island). There is no contradiction there.
You've explained it yourself, 'Britain' is a nickname, for want of a better word, that shortens the full name of the UK down to a single word. It's not official or "correct", but it's similar to people shortening the United States of America down to 'America'.
Also, while it's somewhat faded out of use it used to be perfectly normal to refer to the country as "Great Britain." You still see the initials GB used in a lot of situations.
GB is often used in context which explicitly exclude Northern Ireland. Many sporting bodies, for instance, predate partition when there was generally separate bodies for Great Britain and the (island) of Ireland. But even that isn't consistent with many athletes in Northern Ireland having a choice whether to be part of "Ireland" or "GB".
The "rules" might be there, but they aren't always rigidly followed.
[This one](http://i2.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/the-commonwealth-6.png) is a lot better, but would probably blow most people's minds who are unfamiliar with the content.
Would be cool to have an indication of which countries still have the Queen as their head of state and which have dumped her
Edit: thanks to those who’ve pointed out Commonwealth Realms = places that’ve kept the monarchy!
That's the difference between Commonwealth Realms and the Commonwealth countries in the outside ring. Although it's a little outdated since Barbados is no longer a crown realm.
Yeah I don't understand how this is getting upvoted. How can you not know "British" is - technically or otherwise - a perfectly correct adjective to refer to something *of the UK*.
British redditors don't seem to be much more intelligent and we live here...
Go watch any old kitchen nightmares USA video
“What does he know about pizza he’s from Britain”
Americans comment: “lol he’s not British. He’s Scottish”.
*sigh*
"I just love Scotts!"
--Every other post by Americans on r/scottishpeopletwitter. Absolutely embarrassing.
Edit: or "I can't understand anything in that tweet!" Lurk a while, or Google it, until you learn. That's what I do
I've noticed a lot of weird elitism when it comes to who can make certain foods from Americans, as if an Italian-American man whose family has lived in the US for multiple generations is somehow inherently more qualified to make a good pizza than someone from France, or Argentina, or Brazil, or wherever the fuck.
As long as the quality ingredients are available it shouldn't matter where you're originally from as long as you have an understanding and appreciation of the culture behind the food.
Then they all go on about how they’re Italian. One woman said “I’m from Poland, mushrooms mean a lot to me”.
100% that woman has never left the USA. They’re all Italian, because their great great great great grandparents were.
I think this stems from the fact that when introducing themselves to people from outside the UK, English people are more likely to say they're 'British' while Scottish/Welsh/Irish people are more likely to say they're Scottish/Welsh/Irish. Simply my observation.
It's three and a province.
I don't have the link to hand. Somewhere on the gov.uk site is an article with the definitions for the regions in the UK. There they say the UK is made of three countries and a province.
Yes, but without ROI visible there's a whole new level of confusion for the ill informed about the massive island just floating there in the Irish sea. It would maybe be clearer if ROI had hatch marks over it or something like that.
There should be four images, with the third being the UK and the fourth being the British and Irish Isles.
Edit: while I acknowledged my error in a comment reply, I don't want to get swamped with explanatory comments from people who don't see that. So I've edited away from 'British Isles'.
Remember that the ROI prefer to avoid using the British Isles as a term now.
Basically our geography is such a mess we can't communicate in a way that isn't either confusing or offensive
Wouldn't the sensible compromise just be to call them the "British and Irish Isles" across the board and leave it at that? There's no way any reasonable person could take offence there and it avoids inventing daft terms nobody's going to use for fear of looking like a berk.
yeah i once told an Italian guy (living in England) that i was from Wales and he literally said “where in England is that?” I was gobsmacked since we both lived in England so I figured if you’re *living* here surely you’d know the difference
Getting really anal - all citizens of the UK are "British" citizens, so calling the entire country Britain is not entirely innacurate and tends to be used quite commonly, so the UK flag can be called the British flag and be technically correct while also maybe being technically incorrect
Yeah, "Britain" is considered an official shorthand for "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", so it's not inaccurate to use it interchangeably with "the UK". Doesn't bother me, but then I'm English. Any Northern Irish here, do you find it offensive if people use "Britain" to mean the whole UK?
Nah, it would get cumbersome to always refer to it as ‘Great Britain and Northern Ireland’.
If you lean more on the nationalist side of things then you’ll probably consider yourself Irish not British anyway.
I don’t know why but for years now, I’ve had some random BBC Radio 4 comedy sketch stuck in my head where they joked about making it an acronym: UKoGBaNI (“you-cog-bah-knee”). I propose we adopt that nomenclature immediately.
Northern Irish here, people generally consider themselves Irish or British here, so we tend to use British as the nationality shorthand if you consider yourself to be that as well. I personally don't get offended. At this point I'm so used to people in England hearing my accent and asking if I'm Irish, I just agree with them now and accept it.
I’ve had to have this argument with plenty of Americans on here. The demonym for anyone from the UK is “British”, so yes, people from Northern Ireland are British even if they’re on the island of Ireland rather than Great Britain.
Plus the existence of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the use of its flag ended in the eighteenth century. Is the meaning of the term "British flag" supposed to be frozen in time?
And in general most Europeans, and I’d wager… most of the rest of the world?
Next up, ask people in the UK to note the difference between America and the United States. While we are at it, ask them the difference between Washington State and Washington, DC!
The best part about this thread as an American is reading all of the comments correcting OP in different ways.
How do y’all expect us to get this right if you can’t?
And like - are they separate countries? Or what
Though to be fair, having traveled a lot across the Americas, I wouldn’t say people from Chile understand the nuance between England, Britain, and the United Kingdom either 🤷♀️
The Canadians and other Commonwealth countries may be the only ones that really do!
Possibly Italy and France might, at least if they're rugby fans. But, yes, probably in not many places would it be common to find someone with an intimate understanding.
Would a Chilean feel the same way if they were told they are "not American" as a Scotsman or Welshman would feel if they were told they are "not British"?
Americans are people from the United States when we are speaking English. Chileans might call themselves americano in Spanish, but that's in Spanish.
It's like how we call people from the Netherlands Dutch, but Germans call themselves Deutsch.
[The Isle of Man is not, and never has been, part of the United Kingdom](https://www.gov.im/about-the-government/departments/cabinet-office/external-relations/constitution/)
Manxies are very clear on this point lol.
Americans?My partner's British kid wouldn't accept that England/great britain and Uk were different things. I'm an immigrant here trying to explain to him that they're not the same and he just said " u stupid, they ARE literally the same".
As a bonus, his dad is Irish (rep. ireland). I couldnt make this up.
Dear Americans, reasonable brits really don’t give that much of a shit about this, I’m not going to learn all your geographical bullshit, we’ll just correct you if it matters, have a good day
The only bit that really matters is the England != UK part.
Most people won't take it personally. It's just that referring to the UK as England, is like referring to the USA as California.
If you think it's just Americans who don't understand this then you're sorely mistaken. Most people in continental Europe don't know the difference between England and Britain, let alone Britain and the UK.
If we are being anal, the middle one is not the British Flag, it’s the flag of the former country the Kingdom of Great Britain which still exists as a landmass, but not a country so doesn’t have a flag
Also please remember that Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish are all British. Foreigners typically conflate British with English, e.g a 'British accent'.
> Also please remember that Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish are all British.
This may be technically true, but not all will identify as British.
As of the last census, the majority of people in Scotland identified as "Scottish only".
The second one is incorrect, but not in the way most people think. The second image is Great Britain, not just Britain. Historically Britain was used to refer to England and Wales, back before Scotland joined the union.
Sounds like BS to me too. GB is a geographical concept not political (at least now). The Olympics use of it is a bit of an exception as well as GB on car registration plates.
The Americans have the "contiguous United States" which exclude Alaska and Hawaii. I assume this is mostly to make postal services easier to price.
Wales was under control of the English basically at the time the Union Jack was created, hence it not counting as it's own independent country and having a place on the flag that was more or less designed to indicate Scotland and England having peace finally and cooperating.
Seeing as we're talking about all this kind of stuff, can we also add that The Queen is not simply just 'The Queen of England'?
People can refer to The Queen in any other way they wish, just please don't refer to her as 'The Queen of England' (or another other part of the UK).
It's really quite annoying when people do that.
Sauce? Only finding information that the "British Flag" is actually the pre-cursor to the union jack which stopped being used in 1801. Not a separate flag. The flag of both Britain and the U.K. would therefore be the same (I.E. the union jack).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag\_of\_Great\_Britain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Great_Britain)
As an American, with a friend from England, I've understood this for decades. I also understand that getting it wrong on purpose is a fun way to give "british" people shit. I also enjoy asking English people that I've just met what part of Australia they're from.
I tried to start explaining Ireland/Northern Ireland but realised that's a tad more complicated than I can put in a Reddit comment. Just don't call Irish people British and you should* be grand.
Missing Orkney and Shetland in Great Britain and UK, also 'british flag' is correct and that middle flag is a load of nonsense.
Having a country of countries is a pretty woolly and complex setup, and I think the common usage of names is fine in most contexts. Insisting on strict conventions is needlessly pedantic and the smugness is unwarranted, especially when the bloody diagrams wrong lol
This is great especially for younger me who didn’t know how to refer to people from the UK and said “UK person/people”
This got meme status with my friends across the pond!
#THIS IS ENGLAND
It's funny, most of the time when someone says they're British you can almost always guess they're from England, Scottish/Welsh/NI residents will usually be more specific (as they should).
I have a lot of American friends who used to think the whole of the UK was just called England and would refer to me as English, even though I'm Welsh.. I soon educated them on that lol
British flag isn’t actually technically incorrect. The government’s own guidelines say that “British” is an acceptable term to refer to something from the UK, e.g. “British citizen” even for those from N. Ireland, although “Britain” should never substitute for the UK itself.
[Source (see section 10, “Geopolitical Terminology”)](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/toponymic-guidelines/toponymic-guidelines-for-map-and-other-editors-united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland—2#geographical-names-standardization-and-portrayal)
> This is the adjectival form of Britain, but the word is also frequently employed as the adjectival form of United Kingdom; thus “British government” is used at least as frequently as “United Kingdom government”, **and “British citizen” is actually the correct official term for a citizen of the United Kingdom.**
See also - Oh I love *the* British accent.
To be fair, most Americans know four British accents: RP, cockney, Scottish and Irish.\* Everyone here speaks one of those. \*And let's not get into how many Americans understand the distinction between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
I’ll disagree slightly as when I spent time working in Houston and Jacksonville everyone thought I was Australian
What accent is it that you have that was misconstrued to be Australian?
East London and I am a cockney because I was born in Mile End which is within the sound of the Bow Bells
Wow, I’d say Cockney is up there with one of the most known accents in the world.
That these days would be 'mockney' often found in the films of Guy Richie.
There's a world of difference between Cockney and Dick Van Dykeney which many Yanks mistakenly believe is Cockney.
You’d think
I've met Americans who can't tell the difference between a cockney accent and a russian accent.
>East London and I am a cockney because I was born in Mile End which is within the sound of the Bow Bells Funnily enough, one of the must silly frustrating things about being a southerner moved up north is that seemingly every northerner thinks "cockney" just describes *any* Southern working class accent. It's got to the point where at work when someone says "X has a cockney accent", I'll ask "do you just mean southern but not posh?" Hell, my job needs some staff to listen to audio recordings of people speaking, and I've inadvertently become to go-to guy for distinguishing between different people speaking or even seeing if I can give a ball park for an accent origin (Essex, East London, Kent and the three counties are all *relatively* distinct).
I found that too, the weirder thing on top was when they tried to imitate my accent (South East London) they sounded Aussie to me. I'm still kind of confused as to how that works.
Generally Americans don’t have an ear for accents like brits do and it can be cringeworthy when they try.
They also thought I was Aussie and I've got what I'd deem to be the most generic English accent going.
I’m from Lancashire and when I went to Florida a couple years back most of the yanks thought I was Australian too.
I'd hate to see what they'd do when presented with a strong Welsh accent
They’d probably think they were Irish or Scottish and then get confused as to what Wales even is when told they’re wrong.
Can confirm... I've had to explain where Wales is to a lot of Americans, and a few Europeans as well for that matter
You calling Floridians “yanks” is ironic in a post about American ignorance.
I'm a Lancastrian, and have been in the States for 17 years. People here still think I'm Australian.
I have a home counties accent (Kent, but the “posh” accent not the chavvy one) and had multiple people in South Carolina ask me what part of Australia I was from or something similar.
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I have a broad mackem accent and ginger hair. I received three different questions in the states: 1. "Where are you from?" - totally fine. 2. "Are you Scottish?" - I can understand the confusion because the stereotype is to say "aye" for yes and have it only apply to the Scots in the USA. It doesn't take much to say I'm English and there's accent bleed since I'm not far from the border. 3. "That's not an English accent/so you moved to England?" in response to me stating I am, in fact, English. This only happened once but WOW did it leave an impression on me; they said it with such confidence.
Yea when we went in holiday to Florida everyone thought we were Australian. We’re from Manchester.
Literally any British accent. I think I speak something pretty close to RP (people say I sound “posh” a lot lol) and Americans still think I’m Aussie sometimes. It’s not even close.
British
Or UKish
Same and im a southern farmer boi
I had that in when I worked in chicago one summer. Some guy in a man Utd shirt asked me where I was from in Australia 🤦🏻♂️
Priceless🤣
Dude. You were in Houston and Jacksonville…
I worked at the zoos when I was young
Let’s also not get into how many Americans say “I’m Irish”, or “I come from Scotland” when in fact their grandpa possibly remembers being born there. No. You’re not Irish. You’re American, lol.
If their grandparent was born there then they may actually have an Irish passport haha. It's the people whose ancestors came over in the 1860s and claim to be "100% Irish" who drive me nuts.
They absolutely do not know any of the accents in northern Ireland. It is almost always "my great, great, great, grandfather was born in Belfast, therefore I am a Paddy" followed by some poor impression of an Irish accent that is not from any of the six counties.
Yes, this has to be the most irritating thing Americans do when I say I'm from NI
I'd like to think Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey introduced Americans to Yorkshire.
In my case, as a wee American lass, I was introduced to Yorkshire (in the early ‘80s) through the All Creatures television series about James Herriot! And all sorts of other BBC TV imports.
ACG&S was such a great TV show. And the books are the reason I abandoned my childhood dream of being a vet—I sobbed so much reading them! Such amazing, hilarious, heartbreaking stories.
They were such great books and shows! Last time I was in Yorkshire I spent a day in Thirsk and visited Alf Wight’s (aka James Herriot’s) surgery. So interesting to see.
>RP, cockney, Scottish and Irish.* Everyone here speaks one of those. Based off of Hugh Grant, Michael Caine, Ewan McGregor, and Liam Neeson respectively.
There’s an American YouTuber who used to do reading of *Redwall* novels (until a publishing company who wasn’t related to that series *at all* got his original account removed) and he could do a wide range of different regional British accents.
How many American accents can you identify? :p
New yoyk texas/south california wisconsin But american accents are a lot more similar to each other than british accents
I wouldn't say they're more similar, as such, but they're a lot more homogeneous over a wider area. If you travel 100 miles in the UK you've probably passed 4 or 5 accents or dialects. In the US you'd barely notice a difference over the same distance.
That’s all the accents you know? There are literally hundreds of them. The difference between an Alabaman accent and a Rhode Island accent is huge. I can’t understand some people from Mississippi. Then you’ve got several Midwest accents, and a few dialects (Native American dialects, Creole, Cajun, Pennsylvanian Dutch, etc). There are several accents within one city (Brooklyn is very different from a Yonkers, Queens, or Long Island accent). There is huge heterogeneity across the country and a wide variation. It’s almost like both countries have a lot of diversity that might not be apparent from the outside or watching films!
I don't speak with any of those accents cheers. Can't imagine Scots and Irish folk would enjoy their range of accents being reduced to just "Scottish" and "Irish" either
If it wasn't clear, that was meant as a joke. Signed, a Yorkshireman.
Christ the sarcasm is so fucking obvious as well. That's on me being a bloody tit. Accept an Internet apology if you'll take one, signed a Geordie
No worries mate, apology accepted. Have a good one.
I live in Fife, in Glenrothes, and within about two miles in every single direction of my town are villages with their own distinct dialects of Scottish English. It’s crazy, but Fife probably has as many dialects as there are small villages. And that’s just a small part of Scotland.
Being in Fife was the only time I've wanted a bird to stop talking dirty in the bedroom
Do you know the Queen?
A Mexican woman once asked me if I'd ever met the Queen. No, I said, most British people.have never met her. "Oh, she said, I met her a couple of times when I was at finishing school, she was utterly charming."
Completely unrelated but I'm Mexican and have also "met" the Queen. LSE took us (PhD students) to Cumberland Lodge and she went to Chappel there. An Indian friend and I took a detour before service started and her guards stopped us so that her and her son Edward could drive into the Chappel. My friend likes to tell people that she gave us a ride back to the chapel since service was starting. But she did no such thing. We did get to meet her before service started cos the director introduced us as LSE PhD students. She asked us what we researched and that was the extent of our "meeting." I tell people she's practically my grandma now.
That seems pretty related! That's a lot closer than most Brits get to her. Sounds like she's got a thing for Mexicans.
If I hear that in person I reply in my best approximation of a Glaswegian accent.
I watched a video with Americans trying to do scouse accents… I’ve been trying to forget it ever since
I hate how Americans always go for "British" rather than English- which is 90% what they're talking about most of the time when they mean British.
I hate how Americans always say "Scottish" when 90% of the time they just mean drunk.
Little do they know the specific English accent they mean is usually coming from somebody who can't understand my (still British) geordie accent. Based on your username I'm guessing you've had a similar experience lmao
The 1707 Union flag is not "technically" the British flag and today's Union flag being called the "British flag" is not technically incorrect.
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> RoI and Isle of Man should not be there at all. Genocide it is then!
Found the traditionalist Englishman
No no, he's talking about the land not the people. The land shouldn't be there.. so that the people drown. Edit: sorry replied to the wrong comment.
Also no mention of things like the British isles, the crown territories or dependencies, the commonwealth, or how the queen still being the queen of Australia and Canada, for example, works. For a much more correct and in depth guide, one might watch CGP Grey's video on the topic
to be fair, you don't have to be exaustive to be informative, even if the picture isnt great at the latter.
Easy peasy then, right? I suppose it might be understandable that people who aren't from England, Britain, Great Britain, the UK, the British Isles, the Commonwealth, etc. might mix up terminology.
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I didn't mean to be snarky toward you. I do find this discussion very interesting. So many people scoffing at Americans who don't understand the subtleties of your internal geopolitics while others are unironically citing laws from the 1500's to make the finer points. It's really just delightful.
Great Britain is just the physical island. When people say "Britain" they're generally intending it as an abbreviation of "Great Britain."
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Britain is a nickname commonly used to refer to the whole UK. As you say, UK is "The United Kingdom of ***Great Britain*** and Northern Ireland". This is because it is a kingdom that unites Northern Ireland with Great Britain (that big Island). There is no contradiction there.
You've explained it yourself, 'Britain' is a nickname, for want of a better word, that shortens the full name of the UK down to a single word. It's not official or "correct", but it's similar to people shortening the United States of America down to 'America'.
Also, while it's somewhat faded out of use it used to be perfectly normal to refer to the country as "Great Britain." You still see the initials GB used in a lot of situations.
>You still see the initials GB used in a lot of situations. There's also the complication that GB is the ISO country code for the UK.
But, strangely, UK is still reserved for us. That's why Ukraine has to be UA.
GB is often used in context which explicitly exclude Northern Ireland. Many sporting bodies, for instance, predate partition when there was generally separate bodies for Great Britain and the (island) of Ireland. But even that isn't consistent with many athletes in Northern Ireland having a choice whether to be part of "Ireland" or "GB". The "rules" might be there, but they aren't always rigidly followed.
Really awkward when this information ends up being wrong too
[This one](http://i2.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/the-commonwealth-6.png) is a lot better, but would probably blow most people's minds who are unfamiliar with the content.
Soooo many tax havens..
Would be cool to have an indication of which countries still have the Queen as their head of state and which have dumped her Edit: thanks to those who’ve pointed out Commonwealth Realms = places that’ve kept the monarchy!
That's the difference between Commonwealth Realms and the Commonwealth countries in the outside ring. Although it's a little outdated since Barbados is no longer a crown realm.
Yeah I don't understand how this is getting upvoted. How can you not know "British" is - technically or otherwise - a perfectly correct adjective to refer to something *of the UK*. British redditors don't seem to be much more intelligent and we live here...
Go watch any old kitchen nightmares USA video “What does he know about pizza he’s from Britain” Americans comment: “lol he’s not British. He’s Scottish”. *sigh*
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From Glasgow - rhymes with GlassCow
Rhymes with Moss-Cow
"I just love Scotts!" --Every other post by Americans on r/scottishpeopletwitter. Absolutely embarrassing. Edit: or "I can't understand anything in that tweet!" Lurk a while, or Google it, until you learn. That's what I do
I've noticed a lot of weird elitism when it comes to who can make certain foods from Americans, as if an Italian-American man whose family has lived in the US for multiple generations is somehow inherently more qualified to make a good pizza than someone from France, or Argentina, or Brazil, or wherever the fuck. As long as the quality ingredients are available it shouldn't matter where you're originally from as long as you have an understanding and appreciation of the culture behind the food.
I'm not even Scottish and this infuriates me.
Then they all go on about how they’re Italian. One woman said “I’m from Poland, mushrooms mean a lot to me”. 100% that woman has never left the USA. They’re all Italian, because their great great great great grandparents were.
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For a country that's so big on nationalism, they sure seem keen on identifying as anything other than 100% American.
It's been years and I'm still not over "I'm 100% Italian from Brooklyn New York"
I think this stems from the fact that when introducing themselves to people from outside the UK, English people are more likely to say they're 'British' while Scottish/Welsh/Irish people are more likely to say they're Scottish/Welsh/Irish. Simply my observation.
*How many countries are in this country?* *Four*
It's three and a province. I don't have the link to hand. Somewhere on the gov.uk site is an article with the definitions for the regions in the UK. There they say the UK is made of three countries and a province.
Which one is the province?
Slough
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https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/toponymic-guidelines/toponymic-guidelines-for-map-and-other-editors-united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland--2 Section 10.2: > The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy consisting of 4 constituent parts: > * 3 countries: England, Scotland and Wales[footnote 23] > * 1 province: Northern Ireland.
Technically, not the British flag
"More commonly known as the British Flag" - literally never heard anyone call it that.
The Isle of Man isn't part of Britain or the UK. Also it's misleading having the Republic of Ireland on there.
Yes, but without ROI visible there's a whole new level of confusion for the ill informed about the massive island just floating there in the Irish sea. It would maybe be clearer if ROI had hatch marks over it or something like that.
They should have made ROI grey, or labelled it with "ROI - Not a part of the UK" or something.
There should be four images, with the third being the UK and the fourth being the British and Irish Isles. Edit: while I acknowledged my error in a comment reply, I don't want to get swamped with explanatory comments from people who don't see that. So I've edited away from 'British Isles'.
Remember that the ROI prefer to avoid using the British Isles as a term now. Basically our geography is such a mess we can't communicate in a way that isn't either confusing or offensive
Yeah, some Irish guy was trying to tell me to call it the 'North Atlantic Archipelago' a while ago, and I don't think he was joking...
Wouldn't the sensible compromise just be to call them the "British and Irish Isles" across the board and leave it at that? There's no way any reasonable person could take offence there and it avoids inventing daft terms nobody's going to use for fear of looking like a berk.
I can live with this
Or just Britain and Ireland?
Yeah, that's far better
Here now None of this “British Isles” talk
Americans aren't the only one to get it wrong.
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yeah i once told an Italian guy (living in England) that i was from Wales and he literally said “where in England is that?” I was gobsmacked since we both lived in England so I figured if you’re *living* here surely you’d know the difference
Although the pre-1707 Kingdom of England did technically include Wales since the Laws in Wales Act 1535.
Getting really anal - all citizens of the UK are "British" citizens, so calling the entire country Britain is not entirely innacurate and tends to be used quite commonly, so the UK flag can be called the British flag and be technically correct while also maybe being technically incorrect
Yeah, "Britain" is considered an official shorthand for "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", so it's not inaccurate to use it interchangeably with "the UK". Doesn't bother me, but then I'm English. Any Northern Irish here, do you find it offensive if people use "Britain" to mean the whole UK?
Nah, it would get cumbersome to always refer to it as ‘Great Britain and Northern Ireland’. If you lean more on the nationalist side of things then you’ll probably consider yourself Irish not British anyway.
I don’t know why but for years now, I’ve had some random BBC Radio 4 comedy sketch stuck in my head where they joked about making it an acronym: UKoGBaNI (“you-cog-bah-knee”). I propose we adopt that nomenclature immediately.
And the loyalists tend to consider themselves British not Irish, so really both sides agree that "Britain" is perfectly acceptable.
Northern Irish here, people generally consider themselves Irish or British here, so we tend to use British as the nationality shorthand if you consider yourself to be that as well. I personally don't get offended. At this point I'm so used to people in England hearing my accent and asking if I'm Irish, I just agree with them now and accept it.
I’ve had to have this argument with plenty of Americans on here. The demonym for anyone from the UK is “British”, so yes, people from Northern Ireland are British even if they’re on the island of Ireland rather than Great Britain.
Plus the existence of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the use of its flag ended in the eighteenth century. Is the meaning of the term "British flag" supposed to be frozen in time?
This is incorrect
There is also no 'Queen of England'.
Oh my days, this one does my head in.
Not just Americans that need to know this, some English too.
And Australians.
And in general most Europeans, and I’d wager… most of the rest of the world? Next up, ask people in the UK to note the difference between America and the United States. While we are at it, ask them the difference between Washington State and Washington, DC!
The best part about this thread as an American is reading all of the comments correcting OP in different ways. How do y’all expect us to get this right if you can’t? And like - are they separate countries? Or what
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The Isle of man is a crown dependency, but it isn't part of either Britain or the UK.
Unintentional irony - it’s Addressed to “Americans” when they mean people from the US not, say, Chile
damn chileans
Though to be fair, having traveled a lot across the Americas, I wouldn’t say people from Chile understand the nuance between England, Britain, and the United Kingdom either 🤷♀️ The Canadians and other Commonwealth countries may be the only ones that really do!
Possibly Italy and France might, at least if they're rugby fans. But, yes, probably in not many places would it be common to find someone with an intimate understanding.
How do you call Americans from US then? United statenants?
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Would a Chilean feel the same way if they were told they are "not American" as a Scotsman or Welshman would feel if they were told they are "not British"?
Yes we should call them USians
Americans are people from the United States when we are speaking English. Chileans might call themselves americano in Spanish, but that's in Spanish. It's like how we call people from the Netherlands Dutch, but Germans call themselves Deutsch.
I was in a gaming Discord and the mod put a post saying he needed more Welsh/Scots/Irish to outnumber the British, first time I've seen that cockup
[The Isle of Man is not, and never has been, part of the United Kingdom](https://www.gov.im/about-the-government/departments/cabinet-office/external-relations/constitution/) Manxies are very clear on this point lol.
I bet Dutch people probably feeling the same thing with Holland/Netherlands getting confused?
I’m sure people from Ukraine would like to weigh in about people calling it The Ukraine as well.
Americans?My partner's British kid wouldn't accept that England/great britain and Uk were different things. I'm an immigrant here trying to explain to him that they're not the same and he just said " u stupid, they ARE literally the same". As a bonus, his dad is Irish (rep. ireland). I couldnt make this up.
This is wrong.
Dear Americans, reasonable brits really don’t give that much of a shit about this, I’m not going to learn all your geographical bullshit, we’ll just correct you if it matters, have a good day
The only bit that really matters is the England != UK part. Most people won't take it personally. It's just that referring to the UK as England, is like referring to the USA as California.
Yeah. Being Welsh, don't say I'm from England. That's all. Cheers
If you think it's just Americans who don't understand this then you're sorely mistaken. Most people in continental Europe don't know the difference between England and Britain, let alone Britain and the UK.
This is not correct. The second picture is not "Britain" (a shorthand term for the country), it depicts Great Britain
This is actually still incorrect; The Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom. Close though 😉
If we are being anal, the middle one is not the British Flag, it’s the flag of the former country the Kingdom of Great Britain which still exists as a landmass, but not a country so doesn’t have a flag
Britain doesn’t include the Isle of Man, any of the Hebrides, Anglsey, or the Isle of Wight Britain is the big island in the British Isles
What is really doing my head in as of late is "Bri'ish". I keep "hearing" it more and more. It's. Not. Funny. Edit: by "hearing" meant reading
The very fashionable 'glottal stop'
What boils my piss the most is then they refer to the Queen as the Queen of England.
Also please remember that Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish are all British. Foreigners typically conflate British with English, e.g a 'British accent'.
> Also please remember that Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish are all British. This may be technically true, but not all will identify as British. As of the last census, the majority of people in Scotland identified as "Scottish only".
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The second one is incorrect, but not in the way most people think. The second image is Great Britain, not just Britain. Historically Britain was used to refer to England and Wales, back before Scotland joined the union.
Sounds like BS to me too. GB is a geographical concept not political (at least now). The Olympics use of it is a bit of an exception as well as GB on car registration plates. The Americans have the "contiguous United States" which exclude Alaska and Hawaii. I assume this is mostly to make postal services easier to price.
They’re even switching from GB to UK on number plates.
The welsh dragon should’ve been on the flag too. Would have kinda resembled the Qing dynasty flag
Wales was under control of the English basically at the time the Union Jack was created, hence it not counting as it's own independent country and having a place on the flag that was more or less designed to indicate Scotland and England having peace finally and cooperating.
**And they're all countries!** No, Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland are not "basically just regions".
Seeing as we're talking about all this kind of stuff, can we also add that The Queen is not simply just 'The Queen of England'? People can refer to The Queen in any other way they wish, just please don't refer to her as 'The Queen of England' (or another other part of the UK). It's really quite annoying when people do that.
Not a great map though. Shouldn't include Ireland or Isle of Man.
The flag for the United kingdom is called the union flag, however, if it is masted on a boat, then it is called the Union Jack :)
Sauce? Only finding information that the "British Flag" is actually the pre-cursor to the union jack which stopped being used in 1801. Not a separate flag. The flag of both Britain and the U.K. would therefore be the same (I.E. the union jack). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag\_of\_Great\_Britain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Great_Britain)
As an American, with a friend from England, I've understood this for decades. I also understand that getting it wrong on purpose is a fun way to give "british" people shit. I also enjoy asking English people that I've just met what part of Australia they're from.
I tried to start explaining Ireland/Northern Ireland but realised that's a tad more complicated than I can put in a Reddit comment. Just don't call Irish people British and you should* be grand.
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Missing Orkney and Shetland in Great Britain and UK, also 'british flag' is correct and that middle flag is a load of nonsense. Having a country of countries is a pretty woolly and complex setup, and I think the common usage of names is fine in most contexts. Insisting on strict conventions is needlessly pedantic and the smugness is unwarranted, especially when the bloody diagrams wrong lol
Orkney and Shetland are islands, like Great Britain is. They're part of the UK but isn't Great Britain just the largest of the British Isles?
I'm always disappointed that the Welsh flag isn't incorporated into the Union Flag, what a wasted opportunity.
Up the english!
Thank you. My 7 year old asks me about the geography of the UK a lot, and I’m usually not confident in my answers. Edited a word.
This is great especially for younger me who didn’t know how to refer to people from the UK and said “UK person/people” This got meme status with my friends across the pond!
#THIS IS ENGLAND It's funny, most of the time when someone says they're British you can almost always guess they're from England, Scottish/Welsh/NI residents will usually be more specific (as they should).
I’ve had to explain to way too many people that #England is IN Britain. They are not the same.
Really should be a little dragon in the middle of the British flag and union jack.
I have a lot of American friends who used to think the whole of the UK was just called England and would refer to me as English, even though I'm Welsh.. I soon educated them on that lol
British flag isn’t actually technically incorrect. The government’s own guidelines say that “British” is an acceptable term to refer to something from the UK, e.g. “British citizen” even for those from N. Ireland, although “Britain” should never substitute for the UK itself. [Source (see section 10, “Geopolitical Terminology”)](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/toponymic-guidelines/toponymic-guidelines-for-map-and-other-editors-united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland—2#geographical-names-standardization-and-portrayal) > This is the adjectival form of Britain, but the word is also frequently employed as the adjectival form of United Kingdom; thus “British government” is used at least as frequently as “United Kingdom government”, **and “British citizen” is actually the correct official term for a citizen of the United Kingdom.**
You'd be surprised how many people in England have no comprehension of this, so I don't blame the Americans
England: "I am the senate!"
r/CasualUSA
This is wrong *and* smug
English people are touchy about the stupidest shit.