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.

They live in Derbyshire......well thats what football crowd sing!

That phrase "Ulster Says No!" used to annoy me.
In my head I would reply sarkily "including Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan?"

*Get off said Scotland and Northumberland etc are so far north you may as well be peopled by vikings.

My knowledge is restriced to the west of the UK-god only knows what goes on over the east of the country.*

Err...the west of the UK happens to include the west of England, Wales and the west coast of Scotland. I GIVE UP!

Though, as to why "Northern England" is meant to include er..Liverpool & Manchester is beyond me.

Even in the other six counties, I don't think that was a unanimous No, Chipmonkey...

I now have a bad image of Ian Paisley in my head...
If Liverpool is not Northern England where is it?

Liverpool is Northern (or NW) England - but the media, esp. news and weather bulletins don't seem capable, or simply don't know, that the NW of the UK is actually quite a few miles to the west of Liverpool.

For those of us living elsewhere in the UK (ie not England, and yes, there are other countries in the UK) it gets a bit tedious when it's not specified which bit of the UK the NW (or whichever compass point) is being referred to.

That wasn't my question though, I get that point.
It was referring to the comment about Northern England/ Liverpool specifically from littlepushka.

No, I'm with Beautyspot on this one. I was incredibly confused by the weather forecasters when I was young when they kept talking about the north and indicating regions a hundred miles south of me. (I'm in Central Scotland.)

It also amuses me the number of times you'll see a map of the UK with English counties marked out and Scotland as one huge blob. I mean, population-wise Scotland is considerably smaller than England, but in terms of both variation and area it's pretty much equivalent.

Besides, it's understandable to talk about "the North-East" or whatever in an /English/ context, but media sources tend to forget that sometimes they're working in a /British/ context and that makes everything different.

Mumsnet is essentially a British context, so really in fairness if you're referring to "The North" you should really be meaning the North of Britain, not the North of England. The fact that your non-English cousins get used to English-centric usage doesn't really excuse it, it's still somewhat discourteous.

I used to be on a forum where someone said on their profile that they lived in 'North UK'. Naturally I assumed that this meant somewhere North of Newcastle ish - if you look at a map of the UK, Newcastle seems to be somewhere in the middle in terms of north-south.

They actually lived in Manchester Maybe in this case it was 'presumptious', maybe the individual was just incorrect.

When I was wee I knew that foreigners were from 'Sooth o' Insch'. If you google Insch you can see how insular our little community was!

YANBU, it does bug me, but my knowledge of geography South of Dundee is terrible, thank goodness for google maps.

North East Scotland is referred to as such because it is top right at a 45 degree angle (disclaimer:not a geography teacher, so that's the best definition I can think of).

Northern Scotland is generally taken as north of Inverness i.e straight up. 'Central Belt' is usually a catch all for Edinburgh-Glasgow and the bits in between.

Depends what your frame of reference is when you talk about 'the North East' - if you are talking about the UK, it's the North East of Scotland because that IS the north eastern, top right bit of the UK.

If you mean the Newcastle area, you are talking about the NE of England - different geographical entity.

It's like Queen Elizabeth II only being Queen Elizabeth II of England, Britain itself has never had a Queen Elizabeth I, as she only ruled England before James VI and I joined the crowns in 1603.

And yet, in 2010 I find myself putting my post in a Scottish postbox which is part of the UK postal service but it has ERII on it. How strange....

Sorry for the Ulster mistake. Never knew about the extra three counties.

I think that it doesn't matter, as those of us in Scotland wouldn't use those terms to describe Scotland, so we know that NW is refering to England, its just a name for an area that happens to be composed of compass points IYSWIM.

In Scotland, we use Borders, Highlands, East Coast, West Coast, the Central belt, the Islands, as well as the local authority areas like Fife, Lothian etc. It wouldn't occur to me to specify that I mean the west coast of Scotland.

Good point about the queen, technically she is Elizabeth second AND first, (of Scotland) much as the king that is thought of as James the first in England is called James the sixth up here.

haha is this for real!? how sad

I think I've forgotten what the original question was, but I just wanted to come on and give another big plug to the EAST midlands - which is different from The midlands and nowhere near Birmingham with a completely different accent. Thank you.

Why is it sad Madmissy? Let me guess - you don't live in Wales, Scotland or N Ireland?

Sorry - hadn't picked up on the question from Littlepushka .

Excellent post Jobob.

Strange really how so few people realise we even exist PuppyMonkey!

Did someone say something?

sad that you have the time to care so much.
christ so england are not allowed to talk region?! laughable!
i take it all other countrys that do the same are ridiculous too?!
yawn

YANBU but the chances of people changing are nil. As you can see from some of the replies!

madmissy - you show exactly the attitude which posters are talking about. Live in your own little bubble without realising there is a bigger world out there with different thoughts and views other than your own backyard. I used to think a bit like this till I got out my own backyard and saw things from a different perspective - maybe you should try it.

Yes, try get out more MadMissy, it might do you some good to broaden your horizons a bit and stretch your mind. Have you ever lived anywhere other than the SE of England? I suspect not, given your ignorance of the issue.

Your post actually doesn't make any sense, but I'm sure you know that.