In short
Explains the difference between Great Britain, the United Kingdom (UK), and related terms, plus how the UK is governed.
Guests
No specific guests; hosts are Josh, Chuck, and Jerry (sitting in for Dave).
Key claims
The UK is the sovereign nation-state of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Great Britain is the geographic island shared by England, Scotland, and Wales; Northern Ireland is in the UK but not part of Great Britain. “British Isles” is a geographical term that can be controversial. Governance: Parliament is for the whole UK; Scotland (1999), Wales, and Northern Ireland (1998) have their own assemblies; England lacks a separate sovereign legislature.
Notable examples
References to Scotland’s 2014 independence push; Christian Bale as Welsh; the Union Jack combining flags of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Wales not included).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUnderstanding the UK and Great Britain
2:11 to 4:03
Learn the differences between the UK, Great Britain, and Northern Ireland.
“isn't the same thing as saying Great Britain.”
Exploring the British Isles
4:04 to 4:58
Discover what the British Isles encompass and their political ties.
“We have another term that we need to mention, which is the British Isles, also a geographical term.”
Exploring the British Isles
5:20 to 6:05
Discover what the British Isles encompass and their political ties.
“Seating, grills, appliances, storage, lighting, rugs, decor, one place, everything you need, no bouncing between stores.”
Exploring the British Isles
6:26 to 7:22
Discover what the British Isles encompass and their political ties.
“Did you know there's a blue can found around the world that's so beloved, there are entire festivals dedicated to it?”
Political Structure of the UK
7:44 to 14:00
Delve into the governance of the UK and the roles of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
“So there's – I hope it's been clear so far.”
Understanding British Identity
14:00 to 15:24
Explore the nuances of British identity and regional distinctions.
“But, I mean, maybe they say I'm Scottish and then British or something.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Josh Clark:This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Chuck Bryant:Guaranteed Human. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder that Capital One Bank Guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also tell you about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash Bank Guy. Capital One N-A, member FDIC.
0:59Josh Clark:podcasts.
1:03Chuck Bryant:Hey, and welcome to The Short Slip. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. And Jerry's here, too, sitting in for Dave. And we're all dames and lads and knights and all that stuff here at Stuff You Should Know.
1:18Josh Clark:Yeah, I feel like this one is long overdue because we have gotten a lot of email over the years about us screwing up the difference between Britain and England and the United Kingdom. Never again. Well, hopefully never again. And hopefully we get all this right. I do want to say in our defense, though, or at least my defense, a lot of times I have said England for somebody who was from England. And people have called me out and said, you can't just say England if it's, you know, Britain or the UK or something. And I'm like, but they were born in London. I can't say they're English.
1:52Chuck Bryant:What you didn't know is the person who called you out is from California.
1:56Josh Clark:Probably so.
1:58Chuck Bryant:So, yeah, we're going to try to get this right, and we will try to continue in the future. But hey, we're only human, but flesh and blood, some men. So we might get it wrong eventually at some point.
2:10Josh Clark:That's right. So I guess we should start out by saying that the UK, the United Kingdom, isn't the same thing as saying Great Britain. The UK has a longer name. It's the United Kingdom, officially. It's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
2:24Chuck Bryant:That's a mouthful.
2:25Josh Clark:It is. So they just say UK, but it is a nation state of four countries, which is England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
2:34Chuck Bryant:That's right.
2:35Josh Clark:So what's Great Britain?
2:37Chuck Bryant:Okay, that was the UK. I think we should go over it three more times.
2:40Josh Clark:That's the stuff you should know, way.
2:42Chuck Bryant:Great Britain is an actual geographical area, the physical land mass that England, Scotland, and Wales share. The island. It is. It's the island of, well, Great Britain. Yeah, like Greece. It's the UK, except Northern Ireland is not part of Great Britain because it's on a different island, right? That's right. It's still part of the UK. It's just not part of Great Britain. I don't think they care either.
3:08Josh Clark:Yeah. Northern Ireland, as you would guess, is on the northern tip of Ireland. Just a tip. Also an island next door to Great Britain. I'm so afraid we're going to screw this up still.
3:20Chuck Bryant:We're not. We're not. We can read everything verbatim. How about that? I've not been this nervous in a long time recording an episode. Okay. So we've got Great Britain. It's an island. It's an island off the coast of mainland Europe.
3:33Josh Clark:A big one.
3:34Chuck Bryant:England, Scotland, and Wales all share it. So to the west of Great Britain, as we said, is Ireland. A different island. And there's Northern Ireland and Ireland. Are we really doing this? Sure. And the reason that there's Northern Ireland and in Ireland is that Ireland broke away from the British crown in 1922. Northern Ireland said, no, we're going to stay, which is why Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom as well. Just not part of Great Britain, everybody.
4:03Josh Clark:That's right. We have another term that we need to mention, which is the British Isles, also a geographical term. Can be a little dodgy as far as I'm not sure like how controversial it is.
4:16Chuck Bryant:Pretty controversial.
4:18Josh Clark:Yeah. So these islands are like there are thousands of these islands off the coast of northwest Europe. A ton of them like, you know, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man. I guess I'm just boy, I'm very bravely going out on a limb and saying the Isle of Wight.
4:37Chuck Bryant:That's pretty brave. I would not do that.
4:39Josh Clark:I didn't look that up, but I think so. But like I said, several thousand of these islands and some of these islands like the Isle of Man, for one, are not part of the United Kingdom. They are politically tied to a degree, but technically they are a distinct thing.
4:55Chuck Bryant:We think. That's right. Let's take a break.
4:58Josh Clark:All right.
5:00Chuck Bryant:Let's take a breath.
5:04Chuck Bryant:Learning things with Chuck and Josh
5:08Josh Clark:Stuff you should know
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7:44All right.
Read the full transcript
7:44Josh Clark:So there's – I hope it's been clear so far. We've said everything three times. The issue of governance is also at hand because at various times over the years – and we're not going to dig too deeply into this because we're trying to have fun here – but like there have been the idea that like Scotland may want to break away or Wales may want to break away. I think the last time Scotland tried was 2014. This notion has been lobbed out there before. But we're not going to wade too deeply into that. We just thought it was worth mentioning.
8:16Chuck Bryant:No, but it's and yes, thank you for mentioning it, Chuck. You did a great job just now. Thanks. But like you said, the United Kingdom is a nation state. It's a sovereign state and it's made up of four member countries, which again is England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Right. So I didn't realize this at all, but it does make sense because, you know, that there's Scottish officials in parliament. There's Welsh officials in Parliament, Northern Irish officials in Parliament. They're all coming together because Parliament, I always thought it was just English. Parliament is actually UK.
8:52Chuck Bryant:It's the governing legislating body of the entire United Kingdom, not England.
8:57Josh Clark:That's right. Wales, I think, or I believe Northern Ireland, they established the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998. I believe that Scotland did that in 1999. and also Wales. They all have their own national assemblies in addition to having their own parliamentary reps.
9:20Chuck Bryant:Yes, people come and give short programs encouraging them to not do drugs. It's those kind of assemblies. Right. And then England doesn't have a sovereign legislature of its own. Scotland does, Wales does, and Northern Ireland does, but not England.
9:42Josh Clark:That's right. Until 25 years ago, none of them had independent lawmaking bodies. None of those countries did outside of Parliament. But like I said, the other three did. England still doesn't. The Union Jack, if you're wondering, is literally a union. That's, I guess, why it's called that, of the three flags of England, Scotland, and Ireland. And Wales is just like, what about us? And they're like, no, you're not technically a kingdom. so you're not going to be part of the Union Jack. And Wales was like, thanks a lot.
10:11Chuck Bryant:Right. We've got Christian Bale, though. Well, then we're independent. I thought he was Irish. He's Welsh. Yeah, he's Welsh. I know super furry animals are Welsh.
10:22Josh Clark:Oh, buddy. They blew my mind opening up for Granddaddy in L.A. in the early 2000s. One of the best shows I've ever seen.
10:30Chuck Bryant:He told me that.
10:31Josh Clark:It's fantastic. What a band.
10:34Chuck Bryant:Let's just go one more step here, Chuck
10:37Josh Clark:Oh boy
10:38Chuck Bryant:So you said that you were called out for calling people from England English, which is dumb Not what you did being called out for, because that's true Like, the people you would call English are people from England You wouldn't call anyone else in the United Kingdom or Great Britain English Because they're not English They're either Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish
10:59Josh Clark:That's right It gets a little dodgy, I think, because I think Americans are known for just hearing an accent and just saying English. I'm not one of those people. I can generally differentiate between certainly Scottish, Irish, and English. But Welsh, I don't know. Welsh is an interesting accent. And I've gotten decent at some of the accents within England itself. But, yeah, I think it's pretty easy to tell. you know, it depends on where you're from in Scotland and Ireland. But I've had friends from both Scotland and Ireland over the years, and it's a very distinct accent.
11:35Chuck Bryant:I think the Scottish accent is probably my favorite accent in the world.
11:40Josh Clark:Scottish and Irish are both. And then it depends on where you're from. Like if I had a friend from Glasgow in college, Cotton, and I could barely, like when her friends came over, I could barely understand a word they said when they got to drinking too much. And even Cotton at times, I won't call her Karen. But I eventually, after being friends with her for a couple of years in college, could sort of work it out. It's much easier outside of Glasgow for me to understand. But I do a lot of subtitles with Irish and Scottish cop shows, for sure.
12:11Chuck Bryant:Yeah, for sure. You have to, definitely. Yeah. Even like English sometimes, like an English show, if they start talking fast, I can't quite keep up.
12:20Josh Clark:Yeah, or it depends on where they're from. Man, what was the one? Oh, I can't remember. It was a great little short series about a series of murders in the 70s.
12:30Chuck Bryant:The Yorkshire Ripper one?
12:32Josh Clark:Yeah, maybe that was it.
12:33Chuck Bryant:The Long Shadow was amazing.
12:34Josh Clark:Yeah, that Yorkshire accent was really something.
12:37Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I watched that whole thing on subtitles too.
12:42Josh Clark:Yeah, what was the word that they used a lot? I can't remember. Rimey. No. Mate? No, no, no, no, no, no. What else you got, smart guy?
12:52Chuck Bryant:Pop instead of Coke. Pudding. Right. But they're talking about dessert. It blows my mind.
12:58Josh Clark:I can't remember. There was one word that they used a lot just in the everyday vernacular that, you know, the subtitles helped me out with it. But I thought it was a cool accent. I liked it.
13:08Chuck Bryant:Yeah, if you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth watching. Very, very well done.
13:11Josh Clark:Yeah, very good. Agreed.
13:12Chuck Bryant:One other thing, though, if you are ever talking to somebody from the UK who's not English and you comment on their English accent, how much you like it, and they call you out, the way out of it is to say, no, I was commenting on how you were speaking the English language. I love the accent you use for that. And there will start getting stars and birds swirling over their head and you just creep away while they're confused. Yeah.
13:36Josh Clark:And as far as like saying whether or not somebody is British, obviously, if they're not from England, they're not English. But if they're part of Great Britain, I don't know how people personally feel about that. My guess is that people from Scotland are like, I'm Scottish, and they wouldn't refer to themselves as British. And somebody from Northern Ireland or from Wales would say I'm Irish or I'm Welsh and not British. But, I mean, maybe they say I'm Scottish and then British or something. I don't know. They probably don't even put it like that. That's probably just some dumb American thing.
14:10Chuck Bryant:Well, this was Dave Ruse's joint on how stuff works. And he talked to his, I think, brother-in-law, Tim, who's from England. And Tim says that the English are more likely to say that they're British first and English second. So the opposite of the Welsh and the Scottish and the Irish. So one other thing, Chuck, not only is there the United Kingdom, but the United Kingdom also technically includes the Commonwealth nations that include Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, Bermuda, which we're going to be at on our Virgin cruise.
14:43Josh Clark:That's right.
14:44Chuck Bryant:Mind-blowingly, the Virgin Islands, which also ties into our Virgin voyage.
14:49Josh Clark:Yeah, the British Virgin Islands. Right. Because aren't there American Virgin Islands?
14:54Chuck Bryant:Yeah. The AVI and the BVI.
14:57Josh Clark:Yeah.
14:57Chuck Bryant:And then the Caymans, which apparently is not a great shelter for your money like it used to be in the 80s.
15:03Josh Clark:Did you try to move some? Got stymied?
15:07Chuck Bryant:Yeah. I think that's it, right?
15:10Josh Clark:Yeah, I got nothing else. I'm so ready for this one to be over before I say something wrong, even though that probably happened like five times already.
15:17Chuck Bryant:I think you did a great job, man. I really do. I think you did, too. Congratulations, buddy. We're done, and we'll never get it wrong again.
15:23Josh Clark:That's right.
15:24Chuck Bryant:All right. Short Stuff is out.
15:28Josh Clark:Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
15:41Thank you.
From the publisher
Now that it’s been 250 years since America split from England, we figure enough time has passed that we can finally learn the difference between the UK, Great Britain, and the British Isles.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
