Is Mumsnet an English forum?

You get ignorance and arrogance everywhere though. A lot of people hate to admit they are wrong.

I also see a lot more people using England/UK as interchangeable in a way you wouldn’t see them doing for Scotland, Wales or NI. Even globally this happens, so it isn’t just an English thing.

But this is well known. So when someone says “It is not the UK school holidays” you know they mean English. Just keep calling them out on it if it means that much to you.

It's correct to use British as an adjective for the UK.

But the post you called ignorant said:

Is it surprising that the majority of people are talking about England when it has roughly ten times the population of Scotland?

The majority posting probably are English. Because it's a British website and the largest population of the combined nations is in England.

It's not ignorant to state that fact.

Ignorance would be to assume it's 100% English all the time.

What exactly is your issue? It doesn’t matter whether the site is British, Turkish, Australian, Chinese or whatever - it’s the bulk of the users on a forum that is the crucial information.

And as it appears that the vast majority of active posters are English, generally speaking everyone will assume the OP is English/living in England unless they declare otherwise.

Should they have to? Yes and no. Yes because it’s very clear the majority are making that assumption. So if you wanted useful responses then include it. No because people shouldn’t make assumptions. That said, if you turned up to a mum’s and toddlers group in a town, people would assume you are from that general area unless you tell them you’re actually visiting your parents for the whole summer and are actually from x. People make assumptions all the time like this.

It would be helpful if all posters started a post (OP not every commentator) with some basic information - country they are located in when asking for advice that would have different answers in different countries being one of them. If the advice is the same worldwide, then it isn’t needed unless you want to provide it if you want to know about local support or something (eg if a woman is escaping Donestic violence).

So what is it you want? Are you trying to say Ah ha! To all the English posters? Caught them out because this is a British site and they are all terrible because they didn’t consider you might be from somewhere else?

Not only do people presume you are English and talking about England, they will
actually correct you. Or make statements like “it is not the UK school holidays” and then when Scottish or northern Irish posters say, errr, yes it is, they say “well I presumed we were talking about England”. So why say Uk then if you mean England and know fuck all about other bits of the UK?

personally I find it arrogant. The doubling down, rather than saying “sorry, I should have specified England rather than UK”.

It’s basically why the scotsnet board was created, to stop the constant assumption and thr op having to spend half the thread being like okay but none of this is relevant as I’m in Scotland

It’s based in London, so I always assume that every one is referring to England when it comes to law, school holidays, house buying.

If people are out of England they should just say.

Yes.
England is 84% of the UK. So it becomes a default.

The same way it is default assumption that people are able bodied, people are women, people have complete basic education, people aren't homeless - if your situation is different and relevant for the thread, you have to specify.

The population of London is more than that of Wales and Scotland put together. The vast majority of the UK population lives in England. It's not an unreasonable assumption to make in the absence of information to the contrary.

The onus is on NI/Scot/welsh to declare their country rather than the English which does make it English by default although that is also the vast majority of the population

it is UK based so I do find it annoying when other counties don’t specify

The PP said British, I extended to the wider whole UK, I'm not stupid

Are you American? To me only Americans say British, UK peeps will specify the country to which they belong

The default seems to be UK but most posters realise that questions about schools,laws and customs depend on locality I think.

I’ve always assumed British, heavily weighted to England. I’m originally from another country. I take it OP you are from Scotland, Wales or NI?

It annoys me too OP, but it's just a reflection of real life unfortunately. It's not worse here than anywhere else.

English people are the biggest section of the UK population and their news etc is so England centric that a large proportion of them don't even seem to know that the other home nations have different cultures/education/legal systems/senses of humour etc etc. They use the words England and Britain and the UK interchangeably, as if they're all the same thing.

The news media feeds into this, so an English person would need to go out of their way to find out about the separate legal system in Scotland for example, whereas a Scottish person is constantly fed information about the English legal system because the media talk about it as the "standard" one.

Until the media changes and stops othering the smaller home nations, this won't change. An example is a recent story about Prince William visiting the Isle of Mull. The headline on the UK bit of the BBC was "William spends anniversary on Scottish island." You would never ever see a headline saying "William spends anniversary on English island." They would say "William spends anniversary on the Isle of Wight." This is because the media assumes England is the country they are broadcasting to, because it's the majority. So English readers can't possibly be expected to know where Mull is, but Scottish readers are expected to know where the Isle of Wight is, because England is more important (to the BBC).

There are many English people who are interested enough in the other home nations to find out some information about them, and I love these people! But most just swallow up what they're fed by the media and assume that NI, Wales and Scotland are carbon copies of England.

No-one seems to want to state what country they're in if it's not England.

Apparently it's too 'outing' 🤣

You said British, now you're saying UK.

Do you think they're the same thing?

What about the rest of the UK?

Yes, by origin and by the vast majority of posters

If not in the UK you need to say that if it affects what you're posting