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Short Stuff: Great Britain · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for date and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: we're all dames and lads and nights and all that
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: stuff here at stuff you shouldn't.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like this one is long overdue because
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: we have gotten a lot of email over the years
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: about us screwing up the difference between Britain and England
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: and the United Kingdom. Never again, well hopefully never again,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: and hopefully we get all this right. I do want
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: to say in our defense though, release my defense. A
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: lot of times I have said England for somebody who
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: was from England, and people have called me out and said,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: you can't just say England if it's you know, Britain
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: or the UK or something, and I'm like, but they're
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: born in London, I can't say they're English.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: What you didn't know is the person who called you
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: out's from California. Yeah, probably so, so, yeah, we're going
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to try to get this right, and we will try
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to continue in the future. But hey, we're only human
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: but flesh and blood some men, so we might get
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: it wrong eventually at some point.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: That's right, So I guess we should start out by
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: saying that the UK, the United Kingdom, isn't the same
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: thing as saying Great Britain. The UK has a longer name.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: It's the United king Officially, it's the United Kingdom of
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is, so they just
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: say UK, but it is a nation state of four countries,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: which is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: So what's Great Britain?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, that was the UK. I think we should go
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: over it three more times.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: That's the stuff you should know why.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Great Britain is an actual geographical area, the physical land
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: mass that England, Scotland and Wales share the.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Island it is.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: It's the island of well, Great Britain.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like Greece.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: It's the UK, except Northern Ireland is not part of
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Great Britain because it's on a different island. Right, that's right.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: It's still part of the UK, it's just not part
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: of Great Britain.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Northern othern Ireland, as you would guess, is on
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: the northern tip of Ireland, just a tip also an
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: ireland next door to Great Britain. I'm so afraid we're
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: gonna screw this up.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Still, We're not. We're not. We can read everything verbatim.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: How about that.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I've been not been as nervous in a long time
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: recording an episode.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got Great Britain. It's an island. It's
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: an island off the coast of.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Mainland Europe, a big one.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: England, Scotland and Wales all share it. So to the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: west of Great Britain, as we said, is Ireland a
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: different island. And there's Northern Ireland and.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: We are doing this sure.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And the reason that there's Northern Ireland and in Ireland
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: is that Ireland broke away from the British Crown in
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two. Northern Ireland said no, We're going to stay,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: which is why Northern Ireland is part of the United
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Kingdom as well. That's Great Britain, everybody.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: That's right. We have another term that we need to mention,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: which is the British Isles. Also, a geographical term can
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: be a little dodgy as far as I don't know,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure like how controversial it is controversial. Yeah,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: so these islands are they're like there are thousands of
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: these islands off the coast of northwest Europe, a ton
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: of them, like you know, the Channel Islands, the Isle
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: of Man. I guess I'm just boy, I'm very bravely
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: going out on a limb and saying the Isle of Wight.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: That's pretty brave. I would not do that.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I didn't look that up, but I think so. But
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: like I said, several thousand of these islands, and some
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: of these islands, like the Isle of Man for one,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: are not part of the United Kingdom. They are like
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: politically tied to a degree, but technically they are a
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: distinct thing.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: We you think that's right. Let's take a break, all right,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Let's take a breath.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Thanks when shoe shot.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Stop and things a job and job stop?
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: All right. So there's I hope it's been clear so far.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: We've said everything three times. The issue of governance is
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: also at hand because at various times over the years,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: and we're not going to dig too deeply into this
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: because we're trying to have fun here, but like there
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: have been the idea that like Scotland may want to
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: break away, or whales may want to break away. I
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: think the last time Scotland tried it was twenty fourteen,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: this notion has been there before, but we're not going
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: to weigh too deeply into that. We just thought it
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: was worth mentioning.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: No, but it's yes. Thank you for mentioning it, Chuck,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: you did a great job just now.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: But like you said, the United Kingdom is a nation state.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: It's a sovereign state, and it's made up of four
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: member countries, which again is England, Wales, Scotland in Northern Ireland. Right.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: So I didn't realize this at all, but it does
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: make sense because you know that there's Scottish officials in parliament,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: there's Welsh officials in parliament, Northern Irish officials in parliament.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: They're all coming together because Parliament I always thought it
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: was just English Parliament is actually UK. It's the governing
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: legislating body of the entire United Kingdom, not England.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: That's right. Wales, I think, or I believe, Northern Ireland
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: they established the Northern Ireland Assembly in nineteen ninety eight.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I believe that Scotland did that in nineteen ninety nine,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: and also Wales. They all have their own national Assemblies
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: in addition to having their own parliamentary reps.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Right, Yes, people come and give short programs encouraging them
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: to not do drugs. It's those kind of assemblies, right.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And then England doesn't have a sovereign legislature of its own.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Scotland does, Wales does, and Northern Ireland does, but not England.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: That's right. Until twenty five years ago, none of them
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: had independent lawmaking bodies. None of those countries did outside
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: of Parliament. But like I said, the other three did.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: England still doesn't. The Union, Jack, if you're wondering, is
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: literally a union. That's I guess why it's called that
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: of the three flags of England, Scotland and Ireland and
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Wales is just like, what about us? And they're like, well,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: you're not technically a kingdom, so you're not going to
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: be part of the union. Jack, and Wales is like
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: thanks right, well you got Christian bail.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Though, Well then we're independent. I thought he was Irish.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: He's Welsh.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's Welsh.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I know. Super furry animals are Welsh.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Oh buddy, I they blew my mind. Opening up for
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Granddaddy in La in the early two thousands one of
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: the best shows I've ever seen. He told me that
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: it's fantastic, what a band.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Let's just go one more step here at Chuck oh boy.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: So you said that you were called out for calling
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: people from England English, which is dumb, not what you
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: did being called out for, because that's true, like the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: people you would call English are people from England. You
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: wouldn't call anyone else in the United Kingdom or Great
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Britain English because they're not English. They're either Scottish, Welsh
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: or Northern Irish.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: That's right. Uh, it gets a little dodgy, I think,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: because I think Americans are known for just hearing an
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: accent and just saying English. I'm not one of those
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: people like I can. I can generally different she ate
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: between certainly Scottish, Irish and English, but Welsh not. I
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: don't know. Welsh is an interesting accent and I've gotten
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: decent it, like some of the accents within England itself.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think it's pretty easy to tell. You know,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: it depends on where you're from in Scotland and Ireland.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: But I've had friends from both Scotland and Ireland over
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: the years and it's a very distinct accent.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I think the Scottish accent is probably my favorite accent
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: in the world.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Scottish and Irish are both. And then it depends on
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: where you're from. Like if I had a friend from
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Glasgow and college Cotton, and I could barely enter, like
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: when her friends came over, I could barely understand a
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: word they said when they got to drinking too much,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: and even Cotton at times. So I won't call her Karen,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: but I eventually, after being friends with her for a
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: couple of years in college, could sort of sort of
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: work it out. It's much easier outside of Glasgow for
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: me to understand. Yeah, but I do a lot of
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: subtitles with Irish and Scottish cop shows.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, for sure, you have to definitely yeah, yeah,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: even like English. Sometimes, like an English show, if they
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: start talking fast, I can't quite keep up.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Or it depends on where they're from. Man, what
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: was the one? Oh, I can't remember. It was a
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: great little short series about a series of murders in
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: the seventies.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: The Yorkshire Ripper one.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe that was in the shadow.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: It was amazing.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that Yorkshire accent was really something.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I watched that whole thing on subtitles too.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What was the word that they used?
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: A lot?
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I can't remind me, no.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Mate, no no, no, no, no, no, keep what else you
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: got smart.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Guy pop instead of coke putting right? But they're talking
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: about dessert?
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Its mind, I can't remember there was There was one
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: word that they used a lot, just in the everyday
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: vernacular that had you know, the subtitles helped me out
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: with it, but I thought it was a cool accent.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I liked it.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth watching it.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Very very very well done.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very good. Agreed.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: One other thing though, if you are ever talking to
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: somebody from the UK who's not English and you comment
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: on their English accent how much you like it, and
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: they call you out, the way out of it is
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: to say, no, I was commenting on how you were
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: speaking the English language. I love the accent you use
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: for that, And there will start getting stars and birds
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: swirling over their head and you just creep away while
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: they're confused.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And as far as like saying whether or not
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: somebody is British, obviously, if they're not from England, they're
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: not English. But if they're part of Great Britain, I
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: don't know how people personally feel about that. My guess
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: is that people from Scotland are like, I'm Scottish and
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: they wouldn't refer to themselves as British. And somebody from
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Northern Ireland, Ireland or from Wales would say I'm Irish
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: or I'm Welsh and not British. But I mean maybe
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: they say I'm Scottish and then British or something. I
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: don't know. They probably don't even put it like that.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: That's probably just some dumb American thing.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Well, this was Dave Rus's joint on how stuff works,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and he talked to his I think brother in law, Tim,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: who's from England, and Tim says that the English are
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: more likely to say that they're British first, in English second,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: So the opposite of the Welsh and the Scottish and
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the Irish.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: So one other thing, Chuck, Not only is there the
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: United Kingdom, but the United Kingdom also technically includes the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Commonwealth nations that include Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, Bermuda,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: which we're going to be at on our Virgin cruise.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: That's right, mind blowingly, the Virgin Islands, which also ties
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: into our Virgin voyage.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the British Virgin Islands aren't aren't there American Virgin Islands?
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the av I and the Trebia, and then the Caymans,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: which apparently is not a great shelter for your money
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: like it used to be in the eighties.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Did you try to move some got stymied.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: I think that's it, right, Yeah, I got nothing else.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I I just am so ready for this one to
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: be over before I say something wrong, even though that
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: probably happened like five times already.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I think you did a great job, man, I really
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: you too. Congratulations, buddy, We're done and we'll never get
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: it wrong again. That's right, all right. Short stuff is out.
• 12:17
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• 12:20
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• 12:25
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