oh i had forgot about the queen question, yes i have been asked if i ever met or went to tea with the queen (which i havent)

I had one customer who started off well..."I know london very well, its a lovely place to visit" and ended the conversation badly by saying "Londons the capital of france isnt it?"

I get asked other things all the time like "what is the word for..." or "in england do they grow..." or "why arent more english people *large*?"

Ive been asked if im Polish, French, German, Swedish and I always get aksed if im Australian....but never get asked if im English.

My favourite recently though is "why dont you speak with an american accent if your english?"
I replied "because i have an english accent"
customer said "Oh, i though english was american, doesnt everyone in england sound like we do or do they all sound like you?"

Maybe the customer has been watching the Tudors on Showtime. Henry VIII claimed to be the king of England and France, didn't he?

Jesus Christ - where do you people live???

You live in western mass, come on, you must have gotten that? At the very least asking you if you were something other than welsh?

For some reason, English, that's the last thing that is often asked, it's usually as you Aus/SA when asked, which is a little off the mark.

I was asked by a British guy if I was from Australia..

I forgot about the SA one. Dh was asked in the barbers if his accent was SA. He said yea, does that make me and African American? He's pasty white fair haired and blue eyed. The barber didn't say another word to him.

Musta come from Norwich

No a Londoner
then he proceeded to whine about how expensive it was going back there..

That happened to me again yesterday. This confusion seems to extend to even the biggest celebrities.

"Can island Britain is on float around and visit other countries?"

Legitimate question.

I've been asked if I was German or Australian - no, I'm English.
Have you seen the queen lately - no, never.
How's Paul [McCartney] since the divorce? - fuctifino
Oh, London... My great grandma was from London... Janice - did you know her?

Tell her "Yes, but only if everyone paddles."

Seriously, is this girl... you know, a bit "slow"?

Emm, no - I'm insulted when people just assume I'm Irish. 'British' describes all from the UK (Great British is cool, but I think you might have inadvertantly made that up). No special treatment at all, if you're born north of the border you're British, like it or not.

One funny one I got (and this was a joke) was the guy who decided to assume I was Australian just because I named my daughter Sydney . . .

That was a laugh though, I told him (in Aussie accent of course) that if that was the case then I'd have named her Melbourne.

Sorry to wax lyrical on the NI thing, and I don't mean to pick on you because generally I like your posts, but I do get tired of having to explain to people out here that just because I'm from Belfast doesn't mean I am anti-UK, I'm very proud to call myself British and I hate the ambiguity of the whole deal. I do have a pretty non-Belfast sounding accent, so luckily people assume I'm Scottish most of the time, which I can deal with

Came across as a w*nker there, if so - I apologize. I hoped (naive I know) to escape the NI stigma when I came here. Now when I'm asked where I'm from, I just say 'the UK' and leave it like that. I don't care if I'm introduced as English. No offence to those of you who are - I'm sure you don't want me to be associated with you . Me dad is from Lancashire though . . .

Funny, when I was researching on the census for my Dad's family here, my gr grandfather had put down nationality as British, since he was born in NI. However, on the ship's record, he's down as Irish.....

I had to explain the difference to another US researcher doing NI roots. She said but they weren't Irish, they were British. Did my history bit and explained the Republic didn't exist then, so often they were catagorized as Irish even though Orangemen.

In that instance, 'Irish' would be used in the same way as 'English', 'Scottish' or 'Welsh', even though they were all British citizens, as all of Ireland was part of the UK.

Since the partition of Ireland in 1921, 'Irish' would be used to describe those from the newly formed Republic of Ireland (think it was known as the Irish Free State back then) and those in the 6 counties had no official title, so I guess British is the only correct term to use.

Out of interest, where in NI did your Great Grandfather hail from? I think if I take it one or two generations before that 90% of my family on both sides were in Scotland/England funny enough. According to my mum, there were no Barrs (her line) in any part of Ireland until the plantation of Ulster in the 18th century.

My wife thinks it's funny that her mother's family line were in the Londonderry area in the 12th century, so she has more Northern Ireland roots than I do

Sorry - off topic there, but I do love history/genealogy!