I'm English in Scotland. It's only since being here that I've realised just HOW protective the Scots are of their name. I often used to interchange british and english purely through lack of thought (never needed to think about the difference before) but now I actually have to be careful what I say as I don't really want to cause offence and I think the Scots national pride is a good thing. Not convinced they'd be better off completely independant though, it's a fairly helpful symbiosis.
Thankyou. Sincerely. That is all most scots really want! Just an appreciation of the fact that English doesn't = british, and british doesn't = english, and it isn't ok to say british when whatever it is you are referring to is specifically scottish, or english, or Welsh or NI for that matter.
"Britsh soccer fans ran riot" is a classic example.
"British schools will get funding for xyz", is another which usually just means English and welsh schools, because, Scotland has a seperate education system
You can forgive/understand americans and other foreigners doing it, cos it's a pretty unique set up, but to hear that on the news IN the uk just makes blood boil.
Incidently, IMO, the media are are much better than they used to be.
