UK, Britain, England, Scotland

[High_Jumbllama]

A post by Brian Ellis in another thread made me remember this question that I have forgot to ask since I was in middle school many years ago.

Of the places listed, which is the country officially or in people's minds and what is part of what? I have always been confused but never bothered to ask. I know this is a sore issue with many going back centuries. Please alleviate my naiveness.

[Nowhere]

maybe that's slightly offtopic (I think you want more answers from inhabitants) but I can tell you that here (and probably in other countries of the region) England and Great Britain (we don't widely use equivalent of United Kingdom) are interchangeable (and of course more people use polish term for "England", for simple reason - it's shorter). Of course people are aware of Scotland or Wales also for example, but for some reason, when they speak "England" they usually think about the whole island...

so to sum it up: when people speak about England or GB they think about whole country, when about Scotland about geographic region (the same for Wales, but I think that less people know where Wales is)

[Admiral]

It's UK, made out of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Here we generally refer to the whole "thing" as England or Great Britain, sometimes United Kingdom.

[Paddy]

England, Scotland and Wales = Britain

Britain + Northern Ireland = United Kingdom

United Kingom + All the off shore european islands (e.g. Isle of Man) = British Ilse (Although the Irish don't like that!)

It's amazing how many Irish refer to themselves as British

[Nowhere]

it's interesting how England became equal to Britain in some countries...

[roadie]

i always thought that the uk and gbr are the same thing as it is the united kingdom of great britain

[ZokesPro]

Wow, this is something I didn't know.

[Pace]

So, what's the difference between Washington D.C. and USA?

Seriously...England does not equal UK. Using England intentionally is somewhat ignorant

[Novdid]

I was under the impression that Ireland and "Britain" formed the "British isles". Oh well, guess I was wrong.

Edit: It should be "isles".

[Taz]

Originally posted by roadie
i always thought that the uk and gbr are the same thing as it is the united kingdom of great britain

Nope that's why the Olympic team is know as Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[Nowhere]

I also wasn't aware of those niuances with Ireland...

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by roadie
i always thought that the uk and gbr are the same thing as it is the united kingdom of great britain

No, it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Great Britain is the name of the big island. Ireland is also one of the British Isles, so I suppose if they call themselves British it isn't too far off. Since Scotland and Wales are on the island of Great Britain, the united country is referred to as Great Britain and Northern Ireland, since it sounds better (and more united) than the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. There are also closer legal ties between Wales and England than Between England and Scotland, if I remember correctly.

And a lot of people (including a Dutch guy of Friesian descent I know who is from some town in Overijssel or Gelderland) think of The Netherlands as Holland, when Holland is really just a part of the Netherlands. So many people think of the Dutch as a separate people from Germans, too, when the Netherlands was traditionally an integral part of the Empire, and the Dutch language is actually closer in many ways to High German than Low German (spoken in Schleswig-Holstein and other parts of Northern Germany) is. I've heard Dutch referred to as a Franconian dialect. Low German looks much closer to English than either of the other two, as well.. "Dutch" is really just another way of saying "Deutsch." (Let's see if this stirs anything up. )

By the way, now try and make sense of the Holy Roman Empire! Was it a country? A union of countries? Precisely what?

[Brian Ellis]

No, it was an Empire.

empire // n.
1 an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, esp. an emperor or empress.
2 a supreme dominion. b (often foll. by over) archaic absolute control.
3 a large commercial organization etc. owned or directed by one person or group.
4 (the Empire) hist. a the British Empire. b the Holy Roman Empire.
5 a type or period of government in which the sovereign is called emperor or empress.
6 (Empire) (attrib.) a denoting a style of furniture or dress fashionable during the first (1804–14) or second (1852–70) French Empire. b Brit. denoting produce from the Commonwealth.
[Middle English via Old French from Latin imperium, related to imperare: see emperor]
Oxford dixit.

Now the difference between the constituent countries of the British Isles has been cleared up, I hope no one hear will ever use 'England' when they mean 'UK', any more than I would use 'Iowa' when I mean the 'USA' (perhaps I should have said Florida, as that is the State that can rig the election of a brother to the White House ).

Now, here's a riddle for you britannophiles:
How many languages are currently natively spoken in the British Isles, and what are they? I exclude from this dialects like Cockney and Geordie and those languages spoken by immigrant peoples.

[GNEP]

English, Welsh, Gallic(?) Scottish, Gaelic in NIreland, and then that funny one in Cornwall that they share with Brittany or Normandy or whatever in Northern France. Oh and then there's all those Middle Earth Societies

[Brian Ellis]

Some way to go yet...