A sad birthday for all Scots

[Cameraman Jenn]

And it's straight to bevmo on my way home from work!

[Warmark]

Good Topic!

''Where are you from?''
''Scotland''
''Oh yea, thats just north of London, yes?''

[Phantasm]

And it's straight to bevmo on my way home from work!

Bloody hell, I've just had a look at their website, that's quite a selection of Scotch they have there.

[Cameraman Jenn]

Well, I usually get Glenfiddich 18 year but I will give your rec a go.

[danlo]

I live in a state that people think is part of Mexico and my ancestors come from a country people think is part of England. I say, No friggin' way mon!!!" "So do we get to kill English?"..."Excellent!"

[The Laughing Man]

I live in a State people think is part of a City, in a country discovered by the Italians, founded by the British and stolen from the real Americans!

[Chuchichastli]

The difference in being called British or Scottish is, in my mind, immense...Iwould liken it to asking a Canadian you have just met "Where in teh USA do you come from?"

All due respect, my friends, but it isn't really like telling Canadians they're from the USA. It's more like saying they're North Americans.

English people are English and British.

Scottish people are Scottish and British.

Welsh people are Welsh and British.

There seems to be some misunderstanding of the term 'British' here, people seem to think it means 'English'. It doesn't. 'British' comes from the geographical name of the British Isles. The largest of these islands is the island of Great Britain, the island that is the home of 3 nations - yes, England, Scotland, Wales. It is derived from the name the Romans gave the island - Brittania - and the indiginous people of the island during Roman times were Celtoi Britons and Picts, the ancestors of the modern Welsh and Cornish and some Scots, centuries before the arrival of Angle, and Saxon, and Jute, and Viking, and Norman tribes all of whom have contributed hugely to the British gene pool.

That said, it makes my blood boil too when people refer to Scots or Welsh as 'English' - which they often do. National identities will allways trump more general, collective ones and should be respected always - but I have no problem with the term 'British'. The name of Briton has been around far longer than the historical greivances to which it is so often inaccurately attributed.

There!
Now let's all have an e-beer and commiserate together!

(For the record I am half Welsh, and half Swiss, [dual nationality] and raised in England.)[/i]

[DukkhaWaynhim]

I have no problem distinguishing between Scotsmen and Englishmen.

When I visited a friend in London many years back, I had a pleasant but frustrating conversation with a Scotsman on one of the city-buses. I kept apologizing for needing him to repeat everything he was saying at least twice -- I was having a really hard time understanding his English. My only defense is that I had been living in France for 4 months, and hadn't switched gears away from French yet.

Also, I don't know her name, but I believe the host of BBC's Changing Rooms to be a Scot as well. She could say anything - read her grocery list - and I am entranced.

In retrospect, this post has very little to do with the thread topic, but tams off to Scotland!

DW

[danlo]

Be as that may, but wasn't it the bloody English that named the fookin' island Great Britian?

[Cail]

I can think of several Irishmen and Scotsmen who would pound you into pulp for referring to them as British.

[Chuchichastli]

[sigh]. That's the point I'm trying to make, though.

It wasn't the English who called it Britain. It was, however, the English who masterminded the political entity known as 'The United Kingdom'.

As I said, the name 'Britain' has been around much, much longer than the name 'England'. Please read my post.

Cail - for your information, I have had many a conversation over a beer, in a pub, about this with many Scottish persons over the years - and far from 'beating me to a pulp' (a disappointingly knee-jerk reaction) they have generally agreed with me that it's being mistaken for English that is what annoys them, not British. (Oh - and where did I mention the Irish?)

I stand by my earlier post.

[Chuchichastli]

..

[danlo]

Sorry, I did reread your post. But still it was probably the English that decided to keep the name...

[Chuchichastli]

that's OK Danlo, I expected some sort of reaction. My Welsh family have been spouting Celtic outrage in range of my impressionable ears ever since I was yea-high. I only dare approach this topic because I know people get it wrong. My Welsh kin get more than a little cross when people think 'Britain' means 'England'. I worked in India and the Indians, understandably disgruntled (to say the least) about the history of 'British' colonial rule also made that mistake, thinking that Britain=England. Never mind that they (the Indians) had broken free of this colonial (English) rule, whereas the Scots and Welsh hadn't - and what's more, the Scots and Welsh were still being tarred with the same colonialist brush by ignorance (unlike the Irish). Never mind how many hundreds of thousands of the other British nations' people had fought and died for an empire they did not freely choose to be a part of. I understand the ire, believe me. I've understood it all my life. It's just misplaced when it's directed at the word 'British'.

That is the point I was trying to make.

On a lighter note - who remembers Monty Python? -

'What did the Romans ever do for us?'

. My Indian colleagues found that funny too!