It's not an actual term that is used though. "Great Britain" and "Ireland" are the names of the islands, "the United Kingdom" and "(the Republic of) Ireland" are the names of the sovereign states, "the British Isles" is (one) name for all the bits of land. "British Islands" is not an official term or one that anyone uses.
Well, Scots would often say "we're not British but we are Scottish" since British usually means "from the UK" but I don't think any of them would deny that most of Scotland is in Great Britain.
For a moment, I thought, this comment was in response to the Europe map someone else posted. There the answer would have been easy, of course: Eurovision. 🙃
The words that ultimately gave us “Britain” have been in use for about 2,000 years, give or take a century or two. Politically and culturally a tremendous lot has happened in the meantime. Which is probably why we’re left with this almost indecipherable mine field.
Tell me about it. Immigrants? From Britain? Taking over (culturally) a foreign land. You couldn’t make it up. I once witnessed some drunk Bretons speaking to some drunk Welsh in their respective languages… and “kind of” understanding each other.
Now if someone can tell me what exactly "Britain" is? People say it all the time, like this is the largest statue of a vulva in Britain. Just shorthand for Great Britain, or is it something else?
It's like saying America to mean the United States. Technically America includes Canada and excludes Hawaii. But when people say America they actually mean US + Alaska and Hawaii but not Canada.
This is a good way to distinguish the terms. I wonder if there is a good colour scheme to also indicate the nation states as district from the landmasses
They're just part of Scotland. Although the nearby Orkney Islands (also part of Scotland) have recently flirted with leaving the UK and becoming part of Norway.
Why Orkney and not Shetland (or does Shetland want to leave too)? I would've figured it'd be the one physically further away from Britain that would feel less affiliation.
"British and Irish Isles" is the most common descriptor for the whole archipelago I see, and it seems a fair one even if it's a bit long. It'd be nice if we could all agree on something catchier but that seems unlikely, all things considered
Can someone do one for terminology?
Is calling people British mainly socially acceptable? I imagine the exception is the Irish from Ireland, but those from northern Ireland may give that a pass?
I though it was complicated here in Australia where our states/territories (idk the differencd) all can have some very different rules and stuff
at least we have mostly clear borders
So I'm late to the party here, but this is a very early version of a diagram I'm putting together that corrects a couple of issues with the diagram OP posted.
As I said: very early and also very incomplete, but what's there is accurate.
At least for Scots, this is not a general case. Some consider themselves not to be British because they don't want Scotland to be part of the UK, others will take exception to the conflation of "British" with "English" because that implies that Scotland is just considered part of England. You don't even have to have strong feelings either way about either England or the UK for that one.
At least for now, the word "British" is associated more with the political entity of the UK than the geographical entity of the island of Great Britain. That most of Scotland is on the island of Great Britain will not persuade anyone in the first camp.