As this is the English Forum, can I ask a stupid question (I did try googling without much success). Can Great Britain and the United Kingdom be used interchangeable? What is the difference?

sorry, we are getting a huge snowstorm back here in New York, so I have time for such silly questions.

Here you go . . .

http://tinyurl.com/ydmomsb

Looks like a primary school has the info you need.

Can it also be referred to as England or Albion?

I did a similar google search and got some random discussion forums where no one knew anything...must have been google.us. I guess we can close the thread now.

It is pretty small. What is the difference?

Funnily enough this is a question that'll catch quite a few Brits out as well. Technically they're not interchangeable because "Great Britain" refers to England Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom refers to Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

At least that's the way I understand it - please feel free to correct me on this.

Told you it was a tricky one for us Brits as well. To be honest in the minds of a lot of people they both mean the same thing.

Northern Ireland...............

If you want to get totally confused, there is also The British Isles. That is the UK plus Ireland (even though it isn't British), Isle of Man and The Channel Isles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Br...er_diagram.svg

As previous posters have said: Great Britain is a geographical term referring to the biggest island in the British Isles, whereas the United Kingdom is a political term referring to the union of England (including Wales), Scotland and Northern Ireland.

On the passport it says "UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND"

Did I confuse it even more?

Bugger this, I'm English therefore I come from England.

Let's simplify this:-

If you're in England then you're in England
If you're in Scotland then you're in Scotland
If you're in Wales then you're in Wales
If you're in Northern Ireland then you're in Northern Ireland

and

If you're in Norfolk then you're special.

Hope that clears everything up

The English don't know and probably don't care.

Ask the Scotts, Welsh or (N) Irish and they'll be sure to correct you if you call them the wrong thing

Although some may take umbrage at being called "English", I don't think Northern Irish Protestants mind being called "British." Indeed, they may not want to be called Irish. (Feel free to correct me.)

It seems to me as an outsider that since World War II, the term "United Kingdom" has been used more frequently than "Great Britain." Just a theory, but I suspect this might be because it looks similar to "United States".

Is the Forum search facility down? Only, I could swear we've had this one before...

Some?

Perhaps you might like to test that on the Shankill Road sometime?

Related question: Are all Brits Limeys?

Vaguely.

The term comes from the time when the Royal Navy switched from other fruits (oranges if I recall) to limes as their source to avoid scurvey way back in the 17/18th C. It somewhat backfired as the vit C content of limes is pretty poor compared to oranges and other fruits. I believe that they switched to limes as that is what the British plantations in the Carribean were producing.

So you could call all Brits limeys yes, although originally it was a term reserved for the Navy, that I guess, transferred to all the armed forces during WWII.

+1

i remember at school, one of my friends had to write an essay of a certain length. since she was a few words short, she replaced all occurrences of 'the UK' with 'the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland'

This is excellent fun. The easiest way to remember it is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" where GB is the island of England, Wales and Scotland.

However, to make things interesting my passport has "United Kingdom" written on it and my nationality is British. Britain is short-hand for ... not Great Britain, but the United Kingdom. We're a mess.

the worst thing is trying to select your country when ordering online. when i lived in london, i had to guess whether it would be: england, uk, britain or great britain.

grrrr.