Apologies. This might not be the perfect community for the post.
Apparently, Scots and Irish believe British == English. Or, they can’t stand the thought of being labeled in any similar category as the English.
At least for Scots, this is not a general case. Some consider themselves not to be British because they don’t want Scotland to be part of the UK, others will take exception to the conflation of “British” with “English” because that implies that Scotland is just considered part of England. You don’t even have to have strong feelings either way about either England or the UK for that one.
At least for now, the word “British” is associated more with the political entity of the UK than the geographical entity of the island of Great Britain. That most of Scotland is on the island of Great Britain will not persuade anyone in the first camp.
Do people that live in this diagram consider “Britain” synonymous with “Great Britain”?
It stopped being Great after Brexit
More likely to consider it synonymous with the UK in most contexts.
what about canada and australia?
For a moment, I thought, this comment was in response to the Europe map someone else posted. There the answer would have been easy, of course: Eurovision. 🙃
show the entire commonwealth, and every place the UK has ever colonized?
well sorry idk the difference between commomweath and the map, isn’t that the point?
pretty much! The commonwealth is what the British empire became, most former British colonies are members, and King Charles is its head, though most member states are republics now, and don’t have him as their king. It’s a mostly-cerrmonial political group that occasionally does things like promote trade or diplomacy
Is India part of the commonwealth?
Yup, every British colony as of 1945 joined the commonwealth except Myanmar, and one called Aden that is now part of Yemen
TIL! Thank you dear sir!
I did not wake up this morning expecting to read someone claiming that Canada is an island.
But Hans Island is an island, and it’s ours! 🇩🇰
OK, looking at this I can now understand why it may not all make immediate sense to someone who didn’t grow up here.
And in the US, there’s definitely a subset that believes England means Great Britain or even the United Kingdom.
Same folks that referred to the entire USSR as Russia, probs.
There are plenty of people in the US that refer to England as “London”.
And there are plenty of people in russia who think everything that was ever USSR should be russia.
It’s basically the same argument Argentina has about the Falkland Islands. When Argentina was part of the Spanish empire the Falkland Islands were part of the empire, not that the Spanish did anything with the islands. But at no time in history has Argentina existed as an independent country and has had ownership of the islands.
Using any country’s capital as shorthand for its current government is a common form of metonymy to be fair!
That’s one of my favorite nyms
& vers vicea
Ireland wtf?
Can someone do one for terminology? Is calling people British mainly socially acceptable? I imagine the exception is the Irish from Ireland, but those from northern Ireland may give that a pass?
northern Ireland may give that a pass?
Never push a national identity onto someone from Northern Ireland. Because that’s also a political Identity
In general British is a national identity. English/Scottish/Welsh would be a cultural identity.
You would call them what they say they are.
Call someone from Scotland British and see how that works out for you….
Going by the last polls it’s about an equal chance whether they’d approve or not
I’m perfectly happy being called British
Just don’t refer to the UK as Engurlaaand
Seems to work very well in most cases.
What’s the bets ramble81 calls himself Scottish cos his great great great great great great great great great great great great granda once sniffed a Tunnock’s Teacake? 😂
I’m not going to take a pop at them because it is entirely possible that they live in Scotland, are passionate about Scottish independence and has similarly committed friends and family. Likewise, I’m only speaking from personal experience as someone who is English, but has discussed stuff with Scottish friends on occassion.
I’d think calling Scot a Brit is like calling Peruvian an American. Technically true but kinda rude
Depends on their own views on the union. Don’t go lumping people together as all having the same opinion now!
So I’m late to the party here, but this is a very early version of a diagram I’m putting together that corrects a couple of issues with the diagram OP posted.
As I said: very early and also very incomplete, but what’s there is accurate.
I’m into it! I can’t wait to see where this goes.
This chart: “England, Scotland and Wales are in Great Britain”
Wight, the Scillies, Anglesey, Sheppy, Anglesey, the Shetlands, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and thousands more: “Are we a joke to you?”
Aren’t those all part of one of the other three? The orkneys and Hebrides are part of Scotland.
That’s my point: they’re all part of England/Scotland/Wales, but they aren’t part of Great Britain.
I think if you are a part of those three then you are automatically part of GB
I think Sheppey is a joke to everyone including the people that have to live there.
I’m trying to remember though, aren’t the Jersey, Guernsey, and Man somehow closer to Scotland or Wales status than say Sheppey or the Orkneys?
Yeah, the channel islands and the Isle of Man have more autonomy. Officially they are “self-governing British Crown Dependencies”.
Jersey and Guernsey have different VAT rates for instance. For years, play.com was based in Jersey solely so they wouldn’t have to pay VAT on most of the cheaper stuff they sold to the mainland.
None of those are in Great Britain, because they are islands and therefore not part of the island of Great Britain.
But they are all part of England, Scotland or Wales which, according to the diagram, are within Great Britain…
Cool!
I wonder… how do/does Shetland islands?/ Archipelago? fit into this?
They’re just part of Scotland. Although the nearby Orkney Islands (also part of Scotland) have recently flirted with leaving the UK and becoming part of Norway.
Why Orkney and not Shetland (or does Shetland want to leave too)? I would’ve figured it’d be the one physically further away from Britain that would feel less affiliation.
Yeah, I know what you mean, it is a bit odd. I’m not sure why Orkney and not Shetland. Doubt it’ll ever happen tbh!
They were mainly floating the idea in a bid to get more funding allocated from the Scottish government
Ah ok :-)
Now add the EU.
The term British Isles is, of course, disputed by the Irish.
They had a signpost in the Atlantic saying “Irish Isles” for weeks before we noticed.
How about we collective reestablish the name “Albion”, then?
Treacherous Albion
I prefer Perfidious Albion
I’m an idiot
No one outside of the UK includes Ireland in the British Isles.
I would… (Australian)
Speaking of! Shouldn’t Australia be in that chart too? And I’d like to see the “commonwealth” in the diagram too. It’s all good complicated!
I’m English and I don’t either. It’s a pretty obvious hangover of British imperial pretensions.
Yeh, I don’t think I would either. It does feel disrepectful
“British and Irish Isles” is the most common descriptor for the whole archipelago I see, and it seems a fair one even if it’s a bit long. It’d be nice if we could all agree on something catchier but that seems unlikely, all things considered
Gaelic Isles
Celtic would be better. Gaelic literally means coming from the Gaels, aka the Irish. Welsh and Cornish are Brythonic language speakers, not Goidelic/Gaelic, but they are all Celtic languages. The Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes invaded Celtic Britain starting in the 400s.
If we removed Brits from the world map, we could call it just Ireland
This is a good way to distinguish the terms. I wonder if there is a good colour scheme to also indicate the nation states as district from the landmasses
FYI “British Islands” isn’t a specific name whereas all the others are
I’m not sure I follow. It looks as specific in the diagram as all the other names?
It’s not an actual term that is used though. “Great Britain” and “Ireland” are the names of the islands, “the United Kingdom” and “(the Republic of) Ireland” are the names of the sovereign states, “the British Isles” is (one) name for all the bits of land. “British Islands” is not an official term or one that anyone uses.
The state Irland shouldn’t be republic of Irland ?
No, the state is called Ireland as defined in its constitution.
Thanks for the information.
The Scots wouldn’t agree with this. I’ve spent a lot of time there.
The Shetlands, Orkneys, Harris and the rest of the Hebrides aren’t even mentioned. Haha
And Anglesey in Wales, and Wight in England, etc. Honestly I’m not a fan of this diagram.
Those are groups of northern islands, so they were excluded. Unlike Northern Ireland, which isn’t an island so it was included.
???
Well, Scots would often say “we’re not British but we are Scottish” since British usually means “from the UK” but I don’t think any of them would deny that most of Scotland is in Great Britain.
The North shall rise again
