Not an American thing; most of the world uses some variant of “England” to refer to the UK in normal speech (and sometimes as the only word for the country).
To an extent this is a reflection of how English people spent the several centuries of colonial imperialism referring to their country in daily practice.
To an extent this is an example of other countries seeing you better than you can see yourself. In a lot of ways, the UK genuinely is just England with some semi-autonomous administrative regions that like to cosplay as countries because it reminds them of better times, and permitted by England to do so only insofar as it helps them maintain consent for a political arrangement where only England is sovereign.
(Like when Scotland recently said “we are going to make it easier for trans people” and England said “actually no you aren’t.”)
No other nation insists that everyone else refer to its internal administrative and cultural divisions with some devolved administrative privileges as “countries” while also retaining sovereignty over them. That is a peculiarly British political tradition — a necessary hypocrisy to maintain the current constitution — and while much of the world makes an attempt to respect how Britain chooses to self-identify as being four countries, they sometimes find it hard to remember and just call it by the name they’ve always known it as.
So true, Americans never claim Scottish or Irish heritage at all.
Tbf, who was that? Scoireland?
Except when you ask them where they’re from lol. It’s always “12.4573%Scottish, 9.42563% Welsh, 31.457545% Irish”
Who the fuck cares if the USA likes them? Only Americans are so obsessed with thinking everyone is like this
As a proud Scot (is there any other kind ?-) this really used to p me off.
But I’ve realised being referred to as England by folks who don’t know the difference between England, GB, and UK isn’t generally meant to be insulting.
87 % of the GB population is in England.
84 % of UK population is England
So it’s hardly a surprise that most foreigners think of them all as being the same thing.
( Edited, because I can’t do numbers)
Its true. The UK is England. The other countries are just along for the ride….
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This is the case for most countries in the world
Not an American thing; most of the world uses some variant of “England” to refer to the UK in normal speech (and sometimes as the only word for the country).
To an extent this is a reflection of how English people spent the several centuries of colonial imperialism referring to their country in daily practice.
To an extent this is an example of other countries seeing you better than you can see yourself. In a lot of ways, the UK genuinely is just England with some semi-autonomous administrative regions that like to cosplay as countries because it reminds them of better times, and permitted by England to do so only insofar as it helps them maintain consent for a political arrangement where only England is sovereign.
(Like when Scotland recently said “we are going to make it easier for trans people” and England said “actually no you aren’t.”)
No other nation insists that everyone else refer to its internal administrative and cultural divisions with some devolved administrative privileges as “countries” while also retaining sovereignty over them. That is a peculiarly British political tradition — a necessary hypocrisy to maintain the current constitution — and while much of the world makes an attempt to respect how Britain chooses to self-identify as being four countries, they sometimes find it hard to remember and just call it by the name they’ve always known it as.
So true, Americans never claim Scottish or Irish heritage at all.
Tbf, who was that? Scoireland?
Except when you ask them where they’re from lol. It’s always “12.4573%Scottish, 9.42563% Welsh, 31.457545% Irish”
Who the fuck cares if the USA likes them? Only Americans are so obsessed with thinking everyone is like this
As a proud Scot (is there any other kind ?-) this really used to p me off.
But I’ve realised being referred to as England by folks who don’t know the difference between England, GB, and UK isn’t generally meant to be insulting.
87 % of the GB population is in England.
84 % of UK population is England
So it’s hardly a surprise that most foreigners think of them all as being the same thing.
( Edited, because I can’t do numbers)
Its true. The UK is England. The other countries are just along for the ride….
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