Legal Alien » Geography

Video about “The difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England (and a whole lot more)”

Bjørn — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 02:02:07 +0000

Some time ago I wrote my own blog entry about how England is not the same as the UK. I’ve now just seen a brilliant 5 minute video which explains the issue in greater detail and with graphics to make it easier to understand. The video is somewhat funny, and so are many of the comments! For almost anyone who hasn’t spent time in the UK it is bound to be very informative. Go have a look…

The above title has blatantly been copied from another blog. I ought to be more creative, but the title from the other blog is so descriptive.

The UK and England is the same, right? Or, how to win enemies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Bjørn — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:33:38 +0000

I recently wrote a post about the British and geography. I have to admit to some past cluelessness about the UK. Many years ago I thought England was the name of what I now know as the United Kingdom. I knew there was something called Scotland and Wales and I knew where they where, but I used to think they where part of England. The same way Bornholm, Jutland (Jylland) and Funen (Fyn) are part of Denmark. Boy was I wrong. If I had been a bit more interested in football I might have realised that the fact that Scotland have their own football team that play against other countries in the World Cup is because they are themselves a separate country. The English don’t mind, in fact I think they like how non-Brits sometimes make that mistake, but the Scottish and the Welsh definitely don’t like it! It would be like calling a person from Zealand (Sjælland) a Jutlander (Jyde). So as an example, you may call a person from Scotland a Scot, a Brit or British (unless of course he is actually English but has moved to Scotland). They will prefer being called Scots but they will (sometimes grudgingly) accept being British.

So what do you call a person from Northern Ireland? Unless you know for certain, avoid labelling a person from Northern Ireland with any nationality, that is why they’ve been fighting up there! Some years ago I worked with a guy from Northern Ireland who now lived in England, and I once made the mistake of referring to him as being Irish. I didn’t mean to label him as being from the Republic of Ireland. I only meant to make a comment about where he was from geographically. Well, I was told in no uncertain terms that he most definitely was not Irish, he was British!

Clueless about Geography

Bjørn — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:40:13 +0000

The British once ruled large parts of the world, yet a majority of them don’t have a clue about geography and their nation-state neighbours. They are especially clue-less about Denmark and the Netherlands (Holland). They frequently confuse those two countries and the languages spoken (Danish in Denmark and Dutch in the Netherlands). So I frequently get comments about Dutch being my language if I tell people I’m from Denmark. Or I get comments about being from the Netherlands if I tell them I’m Danish.

In reality, the Netherlands is much closer to the UK than to Denmark. Denmark doesn’t even share a border with the Netherlands. Look at the map and notice the two lines going from London to Copenhagen (the capital of Denmark) and from London to Amsterdam (the capital of the Netherlands). While we are dealing with this particular set of misconceptions, Denmark, Norway and Sweden are the countries most often associated with Scandinavia. Some other countries are sometimes included, but the Netherlands never are, unless you are Anglo-Saxon. Yes, the Americans are also clueless in this regard, but as the British are so much closer to each country they have less of an excuse.

I have found that I’m not the first one to comment on this issue, one of my compatriots has her own blog entry about it here.

But most of the relevant websites I have found show how Anglo-Saxons mess it up. So here is another blog welcoming a Dutch Danish company to Toronto. Here’s a person asking for a reference to a Scandinavian (though preferably Danish or Dutch) restaurant. The people behind the Simpsons got it wrong (Little Orphan Millie) though it is of course difficult to know whether that was part of the pun or not). But then there is a person asking (based on the Simpsons episode) what the difference between Danes and the Dutch are. Should I laugh or cry about the person answering that they are both beer drinkers, cheese eaters and (wait for it) Scandinavians?