Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for date and
we're all dames and lads and nights and all that
stuff here at stuff you shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
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, release my defense. A
lot of times I have said England for somebody who
(00:39):
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're
born in London, I can't say they're English.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
What you didn't know is the person who called you
out's from California. Yeah, probably so, 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.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
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 king Officially, it's the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is, so they just
say UK, but it is a nation state of four countries,
(01:30):
which is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So what's Great Britain?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Okay, that was the UK. I think we should go
over it three more times.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
That's the stuff you should know why.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Great Britain is an actual geographical area, the physical land
mass that England, Scotland and Wales share the.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Island it is.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It's the island of well, Great Britain.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, like Greece.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
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.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, Northern othern Ireland, as you would guess, is on
the northern tip of Ireland, just a tip also an
ireland next door to Great Britain. I'm so afraid we're
gonna screw this up.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Still, We're not. We're not. We can read everything verbatim.
How about that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I've been not been as nervous in a long time
recording an episode.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay, so we've got Great Britain. It's an island. It's
an island off the coast of.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Mainland Europe, a big one.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
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.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
We are doing this sure.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
And the reason that there's Northern Ireland and in Ireland
is that Ireland broke away from the British Crown in
nineteen twenty two. Northern Ireland said no, We're going to stay,
which is why Northern Ireland is part of the United
Kingdom as well. That's Great Britain, everybody.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
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 don't know,
I'm not sure like how controversial it is controversial. Yeah,
so these islands are they're like there are thousands of
these islands off the coast of northwest Europe, a ton
(03:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
That's pretty brave. I would not do that.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
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 like
politically tied to a degree, but technically they are a
distinct thing.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
We you think that's right. Let's take a break, all right,
Let's take a breath.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Thanks when shoe shot.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Stop and things a job and job stop?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
All right. 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 whales may want to break away. I
(04:54):
think the last time Scotland tried it was twenty fourteen,
this notion has been there before, but we're not going
to weigh too deeply into that. We just thought it
was worth mentioning.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
No, but it's yes. Thank you for mentioning it, Chuck,
you did a great job just now.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
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 in 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.
(05:35):
They're all coming together because Parliament I always thought it
was just English Parliament is actually UK. It's the governing
legislating body of the entire United Kingdom, not England.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
That's right. Wales, I think, or I believe, Northern Ireland
they established the Northern Ireland Assembly in nineteen ninety eight.
I believe that Scotland did that in nineteen ninety nine,
and also Wales. They all have their own national Assemblies
in addition to having their own parliamentary reps.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Right, 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.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
That's right. Until twenty five 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
(06:51):
Wales is just like, what about us? And they're like, well,
you're not technically a kingdom, so you're not going to
be part of the union. Jack, and Wales is like
thanks right, well you got Christian bail.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Though, Well then we're independent. I thought he was Irish.
He's Welsh.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, he's Welsh.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I know. Super furry animals are Welsh.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Oh buddy, I they blew my mind. Opening up for
Granddaddy in La in the early two thousands one of
the best shows I've ever seen. He told me that
it's fantastic, what a band.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Let's just go one more step here at Chuck oh boy.
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
(07:46):
or Northern Irish.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
That's right. Uh, 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 like I can. I can generally different she ate
between certainly Scottish, Irish and English, but Welsh not. I
don't know. Welsh is an interesting accent and I've gotten
(08:10):
decent it, like 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.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I think the Scottish accent is probably my favorite accent
in the world.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Scottish and Irish are both. And then it depends on
where you're from. Like if I had a friend from
Glasgow and college Cotton, and I could barely enter, 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. So I won't call her Karen,
but I eventually, after being friends with her for a
(08:50):
couple of years in college, could sort of sort of
work it out. It's much easier outside of Glasgow for
me to understand. Yeah, but I do a lot of
subtitles with Irish and Scottish cop shows.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Sure, yeah, for sure, you have to definitely yeah, yeah,
even like English. Sometimes, like an English show, if they
start talking fast, I can't quite keep up.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
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 seventies.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
The Yorkshire Ripper one.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, maybe that was in the shadow.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, that Yorkshire accent was really something.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah. I watched that whole thing on subtitles too.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah. What was the word that they used?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
A lot?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I can't remind me, no.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Mate, no no, no, no, no, no, keep what else you
got smart.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Guy pop instead of coke putting right? But they're talking
about dessert?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Its mind, I can't remember there was There was one
word that they used a lot, just in the everyday
vernacular that had you know, the subtitles helped me out
with it, but I thought it was a cool accent.
I liked it.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah, if you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth watching it.
Very very very well done.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, very good. Agreed.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
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
(10:23):
they're confused.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah. 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, Ireland or from Wales would say I'm Irish
(10:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Well, this was Dave Rus'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, in English second,
So the opposite of the Welsh and the Scottish and
the Irish.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
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.
That's right, mind blowingly, the Virgin Islands, which also ties
into our Virgin voyage.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, the British Virgin Islands aren't aren't there American Virgin Islands?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, the av I and the Trebia, and then the Caymans,
which apparently is not a great shelter for your money
like it used to be in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Did you try to move some got stymied.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I think that's it, right, Yeah, I got nothing else.
I I just am so ready for this one to
be over before I say something wrong, even though that
probably happened like five times already.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I think you did a great job, man, I really
you too. Congratulations, buddy, We're done and we'll never get
it wrong again. That's right, all right. Short stuff is out.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
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