Things you used to believe

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I don't know.

Not sure where you heard that but most of us couldn't give a tinker's cuss what you call this Septic Isle as long as you are friendly and join us for afternoon tiffin old bean...

This is kind of sad, but I believed that I generally wasn't good at doing much except for academics. It was only in my fifties that I started branching out into other areas of my life.

I for one am so offended I have burnt all my Joe90 DVD's ( Joke ) , I seriously doubt any Brit would be offended - but who knows - there's nowt so queer as folk.

Edit: Where did Wales feature in your map of Britain a couple of months ago?

I sort of believed for the longest time that kids were taught things like social rules , reading between the lines etc and for some reason I never went to that lesson in school or my folks forgot to teach me.

Until reading this thread, I believed "Britain" and "U.K." were the same thing.

I don't really think it's picky to expect someone to know the difference between their country and an area of several countries.
I always knew England was one of the countries in Britain, it's Britain and UK I get confused about. Is UK England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and Britain the same 4 plus Ireland, or was it the other way around? I can never remember which is which. It's so annoying, because I've looked it up more than once.
Off topic but it always annoys me when people mix up Scandinavia and the Nordic countries. Finland, Iceland, Greenland, they were never part of Scandinavia. Scandinavia consists of only 3 countries, the only 3 countries here in the north with similar languages.


Huh, I had no idea that boys actually believed this. I just thought they talked about cooties to tease girls and the boys who got in contact with girls.

I can remember thinking 12 year olds were really old. Seriously. Actually there was a time when I even thought anyone old enough to go to school were old.

I would like to see some evidence that they are not the same in a geographical sense before I believe it.


Edit: Forget that ^^^ I was thinking of something else although the term Britain is commonly used to mean the U.K even by the Government

Last edited by SaveFerris on 14 Mar 2017, 10:25 am, edited 2 times in total.

Dude...there aint nuthin hard about it.

Here is the key to remembering which is which (united kingdom, or Britain).

"Britain" is a big rock in the ocean. A physical lump of clay on the map.

In contrast "the United Kingdom" sounds exactly like what it actually is: which is an abstract political concept. Its a "kingdom" made up of smaller political entities. Some of those entities are located on the physical island of Britain, and some not.

Thats the key to remembering it.

So...

When you look at the map of europe and you see that big island thats to the right of the smaller big island called "Ireland" you are looking at the physical lump of turf called "Britain". That physical big rock in the ocean has three nations growing like moss on it which are: "Scotland, England, and Wales"..

But human politics doesnt always conform to natural features.

But if your eyes focus not on the physical big island, but upon the color red- you will notice that the whole island of Britain is red, but you will also see that that little piece of the nieghboring island of Ireland is also red (while the bigger part Ireland is colored green.

Thats because the northern part of Ireland is part of the "United Kingdom", even though it is part of another island than Britain. So politically Britain bit off Ireland's head to form the UK, which is: all of the nations of the physical island of Britain (the aforementioned England, Scotland, and Wales), AND that piece of Ireland called "northern ireland". The UK also includes the small "Island of Man" in the Irish Sea between Britain and Ireland.

But there is one little thing that admitidley makes it confusing. And that is the issue of what to CALL a person from...the United Kingdom?

Since there is no extant term like "United Kingdom Person", or "United Kingdomite", or "United Kingdomer" nor like that. Folks, both inside and outside the UK, fall back upon saying the term "Brit", or "British", for a citizen of the United Kingdom (even if said person lives in northern Ireland, or on the Isle of Man, on some other British Isle other than the island of Britain itself).

As I said above: Britain is an island. The United Kingdom is a political entity. All three of the nations on the physical island of Britain are in the United Kingdom. But the United Kingdom also includes Northern Ireland- which is (obviously) the northern little chunk of the physical island of Ireland.

The rest of the island of Ireland is the Republic of Ireland ( seperate nation from the UK). So the UK is all of Britain,plus a little bit of other turf not on the island of Britain.

But as I said above- the problem is not the noun "Britain", but is the adjective "British". A loyal citizen of the UK who lives in Northern Ireland, (or on the Island of Man, or on Gibralter for that matter) is not called "United Kingdomian". They are called "British" (even though they dont live nor may not come from the physical island of Britain.

I wonder why you chose to edit out the part of my post where I said to forget what I said , I can put it back in just as easily as you can remove it

I didnt edit anything except my own words.

Just quoted you, and started writing. So whatever the text was... it wasnt there when I saw it and responded to it.

Call me paranoid , but the time stamps of the posts didn't add up in my mind. If you say you didn't remove anything that's good enough for me.

thank you for that explanation! It makes sense, so hopefully I can finally remember it now!

I remember when I was little and I saw a sign in front of a store that read "No shirt. No shoes. No service." And I thought it literally meant I had to take my shirt and shoes off to go in the store. So when I saw that I tried to get them off. But I then learned it meant you can't go in the store if your not wearing your shirt and shoes.

Don't worry (be paranoid, or whatever), I've had the same thing happen to me, and I had to go-back and say, something like: "Oops, that wasn't there, before". I clicked-on "Quote", and by the time I had composed my response and posted (and, maybe I was watching TV, at-the-same time, so it took longer), the person had edited their post; and, since you put "Edit..." on your post, I'm thinking that's all that happened, and I believe NP.