The Fury said:
I personally felt my answer wasn't very good. Let's see, surname wise, there are a lot more Scottish people with a 'Mc' surname than Ireland, but the most common names in Scotland is still Smith and Brown (not Jones, they are probably English). Ireland's common surnames are Murphy or "O' " something. An Irish person may be a fan of their own sports so Hurling or Gaelic Football. Scotland has it's own Highland Games but if meeting a Scottish person i doubt they will be tossing a caber that's pushin on the stereotype.... ... don't worry about making a mistake if you accentidentily call a Scotish person Irish or visa versa, as long as you don't call them English. :P |
They'd be more likely to be Welsh ;)
I think the main thing a lot of people from the US find difficult to picture, is that the entire British Isles, is about the size of a US state. There also seems to be very little knowledge of "England" outside of London. I'm from Yorkshire, all I get asked when I'm visiting family in the US from strangers is "are you Scottish"? Our accent and culture is closer to Scotlands than the South of England's so Scotland isn't actually as "out of place" being in the UK as it may seem if you only know the traditional English/Scottish stereotypes.
For the most part, the only time I see/hear an true "English" sounding person, is hollywood movies.
It's similar with Ireland, we have such similar cultures that it would be a more logical argument to break the US up into separate countries than it does to make the British Isles separate again. There are much bigger cultural divisions between different states there. You'll actually find that the majority of people here do consider themselves "British" rather than English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish.
Personally I am Yorkshire, English, British and European. I have no problem with any of them and don't see why it has to be "one of the other".