Posted by Robert Hill on January 09, 2007 at 00:05:53 from 195.92.168.166 user eclrh.
In Reply to: Ah! - Re: Britain posted by Brad H on January 08, 2007 at 05:04:11:
It is all very confusing.
Only if you expect words to be unambiguous. In real life, most words aren't. In Internet forums with Latin American, North American and European members, there are sometimes bitter wars about the meaning of "America" and "American".
I am getting the feeling that the term Britain is not well defined and can mean either Great Britain or the UK depending on the whim of the user.
That's more or less it. I would say that it's more "correct" to use it as a synonym for Great Britain, but it's often conveniently used as a shorthand for the UK.
(As an aside, I have noticed that England, Scotland etc. do not compete separately at the Olympic Games - unlike the Commonwealth Games. They compete at the Olympics under the inclusive banner of GBR which presumably DOES include NI (?). Curiouser and curiouser.)
In the Olympic Games, only recognised nation states generally have teams. England and Scotland are parhaps nations, but not nation states. The Commonwealth Games is more a sort of family affair and in some cases it recognises finer divisions.
There are quite a few sports (e.g. soccer) in which the international governing bodies (but not the Olympics) recognise separate teams from England, Scotland etc. Maybe this is historical, because a lot of sports were invented by the British.
These things can be messy. In the days when the USSR existed, the Ukraine had a separate seat at the UN even though it was part of the USSR. I don't know why.