wasleys

Pegontheroad,

I don't know what context Rastaguy was talking about. The usual use of 'undertaking' that I know refers to drivers overtaking on the inside of the car they are passing - a practice frowned on by traffic police.

Michael

annhig

Sorry, Underhill, no idea!

stokebailey

Maybe someone can enlighten me on a change I seem to have slept through, at risk of revealing pathetic abysmal ignorance. Why is it always the "UK" nowadays?

I have dim idea that the United Kingdom includes the countries formerly known as England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. But I also thought that there'd always be an England.

I'm starting new biography of English Prime Minister Disraeli, and the dust jacket says the author lives in "Oxfordshire, United Kingdom." Why not Oxfordshire, England?

wasleys

stokebailey,

It's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (GB being England, Scotland and Wales). I suppose that technically the use of UK is correct in international terms.

However conspiracy theorists among us reckon there is a plot in the expensive, undemocratic bad joke called the EU to airbrush England out of existence. A lot of devolution to Scotland and Wales has already happened. A parliament for England has been steadfastly refused, but regional powers are extending.

Michael

PatrickLondon

I don't know about airbrushing England out of existence. There was much hilarity when the EU published a graphic of the outline of the British Isles that had somehow chopped off Wales completely.

But there was a century or more in which "England" was used to mean the whole of the UK, especially when talking about institutions and officers of state, which understandably got up everybody else's noses (is that a purely British phrase, by the way?), so there's been a bit of a compensatory reaction over the last 40 years or so. It's partly, too, that expatriates and diplomats simply found it easier and more politic to refer to the UK rather than the particular bit of it they called home.

waring

The French, if not specifically paying attention, will refer to the whole of Great Britain as England.

"Vous n'êtes pas comme nous! C'est pour ça on vous a mis sur une île."

They also lump the British, Irish, Americans, Australians etc etc into one tribe "Les Anglo-saxons" Which for me always invokes images of bearded men in sheepskins, leaping out of long boats waving double headed axes.

stokebailey

Thanks, wasleys, PatrickLondon, and waring. I don't know that I've heard anyone refer to Belfast, UK, for instance, or Cornwall, UK.

We never get it up our noses in the US.
Would that mean affronted or insulted, rather than merely annoyed?

While I'm at it, what does it mean when someone gets the wind up? That never happens here, either.

wasleys

stokebailey,

Get up someone's nose = really annoy and irritate them (or, colloquially, p**s them off).

Put the wind up someone = to frighten them, especially in terms of fear of consequences of an action.

Michael

stokebailey

Thanks, Michael.

cwoolner

Let me have a think.... (one of my favorites too!) When something's gone "pear shaped". I use it here in the States and no one understands me. I also like "feeling a bit squiffy", "feeling rather fluffy" or "nursing a fuzzy nut".

Calif2Hebrides

I love reading all these sayings. My grandma was from Aberdeen and I lived there as a child so to hear these again is great!! My least favorite as a child and most favorite as an adult is "don't be Cheeky" meaning cocky or smart mouthed.

wasleys

Calif2Hebrides,

Did your gran run messages (go shopping)?

Michael

PatrickLondon

Here's one I noticed in a recent sitcom - "Eyes like chapel hatpegs": said of someone entranced by the sight of something, or more commonly someone, strikingly attractive. Disney cartoons got the idea, if not the phrase, which implies something like this:
http://digbig.com/4qmft

annhig

for a "new" definition of "cheeky", perhaps you should google the "cheeky girls"!

RedStater

""Maybe someone can enlighten me on a change I seem to have slept through, at risk of revealing pathetic abysmal ignorance. Why is it always the "UK" nowadays?

I have dim idea that the United Kingdom includes the countries formerly known as England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. But I also thought that there'd always be an England. ""

An interesting...at least to me...aside. I'm in a business that frequently requires us to run criminal background checks on our clients. For this, we contact the US FBI at their NICS (National Information Check Service). One of the pieces of information that the inspector requires is the client's place of birth.

Tell them 'UK' or 'Great Britain', and all one gets from the friendly bureaucrat is a blank look. Apparently the FBI doesn't recognize that entity. Yet, they're willing to accept 'Scotland', 'Wales', 'England', or 'Northern Ireland'.

Go figure! I can't.

Robespierre

"Place of birth" includes a city, frequently a county, and a country.

The United Kingdom and Great Britain aren't countries. England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland are.

Seems simple to me.

wasleys

Robespierre,

I'm not sure it's as simple as you think. We could get into all sorts of debate over the meaning of 'country'.

UK, Scotland and Wales each have an elected legislative assembly. England doesn't.

UK has a foreign ministry, armed forces and a place at UN. England, Scotland and Wales don't.

What is a country?

Michael

PatrickLondon

There was a thread about exactly this topic not so long ago (if I can remember it, it can´t have been).

A country is a geographic entity.

A nation is a cultural/linguistic/ethnic entity (all aspects highly debatable).

A state is a political and legal entity that might or might not be handily co-terminous with a country and a nation.

The UK is a state which contains three countries, which are nations, and a province where all these things have yet to be resolved to everyone´s satisfaction. All four elements are governed slightly differently.

Great Britain is an older name for the three nations combined, and is both a geographic and a contestable cultural/ethnic concept.

But Robespierre´s quite right - for the purpose for which it´s used (tracing and checking someone´s personal details), you would confuse the issue if you referred to the UK or Great Britain, since birth and similar registrations are handled separately for Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales combined. Though you´d have thought the FBI might have set up some sort of look-up table for additional names. Do they ever have a problem with Switzerland/Suisse/Svizzera/Helvetic Confederation...? (Or don´t they ever investigate Swiss people?)

waring

"The UK is a state which contains three countries, which are nations, and a province"

Not two countries a province and a principality?

Interestingly enough, I remember a court case where a Scot was claiming racial harassment from his English colleagues. The harassment case went through, but the racism one thrown out on the basis that the Scots and the English are the same mongrel mix of Celts, Saxons, Vikings and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, and of the same race.

wasleys

<i>A country is a geographic entity.</i>

In which case to say that England, Scotland and Wales are countries is open to debate.

Geographically there is little cohesion between North, South and Mid-Wales which each (and especially the first two) have much greater affinity to neigbouring parts of England than they do with each other.

Similarly Northumberland has little (in geographical terms) in common with Cornwall, but does have many affinities with SE Scotland.

To attempt to say Galloway and Shetland are part of a 'geographic entity' called Scotland is ridiculous.

England, Scotland and Wales are 'countries' only in the sense that they have boundaries created by history and bureaucracy.