Originally posted by wooley
Now, I accept the intracacies of our little island (or any part of the world other than North America and the Middle East) are of little interest to most Yanks, but you would have though some basic geographical knowledge might be important when working for the immigration service.
I honestly don't think "geographic knowledge" per se is the problem here. From the sounds of it, it was more confusion about what is considered a "nationality."
When we think of "nations" or "countries", England, Scotland etc. do not come to mind. Rather "the United Kingdom" or "Britain" seems to be the country to us, and England, Scotland et. al. seem more like what we would think of as "states." An American would not think to tell someone that their nationality was "Illinoisian", "Georgian", "Floridian" and so on. (Maybe the Texans and New Yorkers would, but I digress.) Thus the notion that your nation of origin is "Scotland" rather than "Britain" is a little odd to us.
After all, I can look at my globe in my living room, and although it has different colors for all the States of the Union and Provinces of Canada, The United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland) is all one color (a fairly disgusting shade of yellow, as a matter of fact).
To further complicate it, there is an annoying perception that "England" and "Britain" are synonyms rather than one being a "subset" of the other. After all, you all speak "English," not "British," right?
So please have a little patience . . . not that we deserve any, but please anyway.
