The (dis)United Kingdom and all its works
 

In asking this question, I'm just interested in perceptions not politics.<BR><BR>The question about "where have you been" made me wonder how many of you from outside the UK perceive, either in advance or after you've been, a difference in your destination.<BR><BR>Have you been to the UK? Or to England and Wales and Scotland? Did any of of you say (or do you think) England, when you mean Scotland or Wales?<BR><BR>Not to exclude Northern Ireland

I (almost) never use "UK" and "(Great) Britain". When I travel I will accurately describe where I go (as in "I will be going to Scotland this summer".)<BR>However, in talking politics, economics etc., I admit that I will sometimes use England and English as substitutes for Britain and British, especially when I speak Dutch. The words "Groot Britanni&euml;" just don't sound well in Dutch. So I will say "the English economy is doing well"

When we went last summer, we were very aware of going to England AND Wales. Perhaps because we're history-oriented. And the language thing in Wales accentuated its distinctiveness. And yet of course they're parts of the same country now - they use the same money!

Sjoerd, whether itsounds right or not, it's wrong. Are you from holland or the netherlands?

We just say England, or Scotland or Wales, depending on where we're headed.

We just returned from 10 days in East Anglia, 4 in Paris and 3 in London. I am looking at an envelope of papers from that trip that my wife labelled England & Paris May 2002.

When answering general questions I usually use "UK" since it is a LOT shorter than "England, Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland" and often the same advice suffices for all four places. For questions about a specific region(s) I use the name of that area.<BR><BR>I sometimes preface with "I lived in the UK for . . . . " or "I travel to the UK . . " when the specific location isn't relevant.

Sheila, if I sense that people are really interested, I say England, Scotland, Wales; otherwise, I just say we went to Great Britain.

Sorry, I meant to say that I can't say UK because everyone I know thinks that is the University of Kentucky.

If people know anything about the country I usually tell them the specific regions or cities I went to, otherwise I would say England. I've never actually been to Scotland or Wales, so I haven't grossly misrepresented anybody there yet; if I did go I would probably specify them by their distinct entities rather than "Britain" unless I had spent a year traversing the idea from top to bottom or something like that.

that should be traversing the island