To think that only English posters would do this?

[beautyspot]

Now and again a thread appears with questions about "the north east" or "the south west" etc,

From my observations of life I've never seen a Welsh, Scot or N Irish person talk like this ie assume that everyone knows they are talking about their home country.

AIBU to think that English people are a bit presumptious.

I live in the North East of Scotland and I always refer to it as "The North East of Scotland"...I get all excited when I see posts address to "Girls in the NE" and then realise they are talking about Newcastle/Durham..

No- we know that of which we speak.

Only the other day, t'other day if you like; I said to the GP I was seeing: "You're from the north-east, aren't you?"

And she was, and we spoke warmly and merrily of Gateshead and the Metro centre.

We're in Melbourne, for clarification.

I'm sure the Scots, etc have their own codes, and will be along to tell us about the profound differences to expected from the Gulf-stream-warmed Plockton,versus the bracing air of the butts and bens of Aberdeen.

erm, a bit. maybe.

Because everyone does know what they are talking about. Clearly. Or there'd be lots of posts saying "south west of what?". which there aren't.

I tend to assume that unless otherwise specified, the poster is talking about the north/east/south/west/whatever of England because I know MN to be a site mainly full of brits or people living in britain and I also know that scots/welsh/irish do tend to specify that when they post an 'area' question, as do those living abroad, so by process of elimination - south west = south west of england.

Agree that it's only the English who do it but like Hecate I can easily work it out.

No because England is bigger than the other countries in Great Britain so there is a greater need to subdivide.
I am assuming that when you see a post relating to the north east you don't sit there thinking "I wonder which country they mean" so it's therefore not presumptuous to assume everyone will understand what is meant.

Hecate - oops you just did it again. "MN to be a site mainly full of BRITS or people living in Britain" Hello....

No, they are just using commonly accepted terms in use within the UK and I'm sure plenty of scots and welsh do too. If you look at govt stats for example they use north west, south east to separate England into different parts and then Scotland, wales and northern ireland are used too. So I don't think the English are being presumptuous.

YABU.

Yes. I don't get what you're saying to me, beautyspot.

MN full of mainly brits.
Brits = england ireland scotland wales

I said - "and I also know that scots/welsh/irish do tend to specify that when they post an 'area' question"
so irish scottish welsh specify, which leaves english who don't.

I said - "as do those living abroad,"
so those living abroad specify, which leaves english who don't.

I said - "so by process of elimination - south west = south west of england."

I am a little confused by your post to me, tbh can you explain?

Maybe you should write some rules that we can all adhere to?

oh i think we do know what we mean, been doing it for donkeys years. Presumptious being our middle name :)

"Brits = england ireland scotland wales"

I'd say you're only roughly three quarters correct there! :)

I think you completely misunderstand.

Regions in England have official predominantly points of the compass denomination.

Whereas for instance Scotland has Highland, Borders etc.

Yes it could be confusing if other countries in the UK had points of the compass denomination of the regions ...... but they don't.

I think you have too much time on your hands

Oh Cumfy made the point I was going to. Scots DH talks about regions as Highlands, west coast, east coast.

i see more posts saying beds/herts/bucks/lancs etc than south east and those you mention.

the scots refer to 'the highlands' i have seen....

What a nothingy thing to start a thread on...

I don't think you can generalise for a whole nation's style of geographical reference. When I post I may be in England but I'm not necessarily English. Therefore YABU.

Perhaps you should have said 'posters in England' rather than 'English posters'. Re-post it and I'll have a think again .

I would agree that the Scots talk of regions and when they say Highlands they don't mean Snowdonia or the Pennines! Everyone does it-just in a different way.

It seems obvious really, that most people on MN are based in the UK, it was started AFAIK in London etc. My Irish friend, who lives in England, will talk about "the West of Ireland" etc. But that's because it's a different country to the one we're in. If we were both living in Ireland I am pretty doubtful that he would clarify "the West, of Ireland, you know, the country we're standing on now".

Same as when I read US-based sites I don't see many posters talking about "the Mid-West OF THE USA" or "when the East Coast OF NORTH AMERICA wakes up".

Actually, for me the UK has several differnt regions:

Cornwall.
Devon.
The So-Called South West (MEP in Oxford, splendid)
The Home Counties
London
That god-forsaken windswept plain (Norfolk/Cambridgeshire)
Up North
Scotland
Wales
The Bit of Wales that Auntie Margy moved to.

Perhaps this should be enforced on MN?

"MN full of mainly brits.
Brits = england ireland scotland wales"

Ireland is not part of Britain. You know there was a whole war to make that happen?

Highlands and Borders are actually local authority names (thus the capital letters) so that's a bit different. I haven't heard a Scot talk of living in the west, only west of Scotland. I have heard north-east used for the Aberdeen area though. I think it's just one of those things.