To find it reeeeally annoying when people refer to 'Europe' as if it is one country?

[SharkiraSharkira]

*Warning, may be extremely trivial

Saw a video on FB earlier entitled something like 'this is how X is done in Europe'. I can't help thinking 'Really?!'. That is how the WHOLE of Europe does X? So people in Spain, Russia, Greece, UK and Austria ALL do X thing the same way?

Also when people say they 'went to Europe'. The whole thing?! Which bit? There are a lot of very different places in Europe! With different cultures, foods, religions, languages, currencies etc. Even 2 countries right next to each other in Europe can be wildly different to one another.

Aibu to find it annoying?

YANBU however these are probably people that think Africa is just one country with one way of life too!

I kind of get what you're saying, but I'd also say "I've neen to South America/ the Caribbean." When actually I've only been to a few countries in each.

Recently dd and a friend's boyfriend were both asked to audition for a play based on Around the World in 80 Days (you know the book where most of the action takes place in India and Japan), on the basis that they needed someone "a bit ethnic". Dd is half Swedish, the lad half Nigerian. I suppose that's ethnic after a fashion...

What annoys me is when people equate the EU with Europe. As in, 'We're leaving Europe.' Uh, no, we're not.

Ha yes that's another good one Tulips!

Personally if I was going to, say, South Africa or Thailand, I'd say I was going to those places rather than saying I'm going to Africa or Asia. There's just such huge variations between countries in a continent! It seems that Europe is the one it happens with the most for some reason!

It's more of an American thing, I would have thought. They tend to talk about 'going to Europe'.

And last year Obama said our referendum result was merely a pause on the road to full European integration. He truly believes in a United States of Europe.

Winds me up as well

And obama blethering on about europe nearly made me change my vore

I didn't see that, what did he say?

Kind of doesn't really make sense anyway because the UK voted to leave the EU so if anything we are further away from being a 'United states of Europe' surely?

Nothing dreadful to be fair

It was just telling us we were better in the EU that got my back up and i like Obama

US President Barack Obama has said Britain would go to the "back of the queue" for trade deals with the US if it votes to leave the European Union. He said Britain was at its best when "helping to lead" a strong EU and membership made it a "bigger player" on the world stage.

Oh God yes, gets on my nerves.

Let alone when people talk about 'Europe' as if the UK wasn't in it, as if it had its own continent or something .

I get annoyed when people say, "that's how it is in the US," as though the US is not 50 separate states with a million different ways of doing things.

It annoys me when people refer to the uk as one country. Particularly Jeremy Corbyn who does the regularly and really ought to know better if he expects political power (ha yeah right)

Heh, at least you don't live on (mainland) Europe and have people back home constantly saying things like "oh charlottes working/living in Europe now" SO ARE YOU gahhhh.

Although I do know what you mean, and don't think YAB at all U, I did find when I lived in the US that I was homesick for Europe rather than the UK specifically. When I've lived in continental Europe I haven't felt homesick at all, despite being British born and mostly bred. I identify as European first and British second.

I suppose for me, at least, there is an element of homogeneity to Europe, though I'm really thinking of Western Europe.

@steff13 yes!!!!! I keep reading that on threads and I'm like "ummm I lived in multiple different parts of America and that's definitely not the norm".

It's annoying but I think people do it for lots of places. They'll go to Kenya and say they went to Africa or they'll say they went to The Caribbean on holiday and things like that. I think it's mainly people in the US who say that about Europe though.

Is it any different from saying Africa or America or Asia or whatever? I agree that it is ignorant, but I think we can all be guilty of that.

I haven't been to the US so I couldn't comment on how they do things as I know there is a lot of variation from one place to another!

But at least all the different states of the US speak (broadly) the same language and use the same currency, which is not necessarily true of Europe.

I knew a mexican who got v cross if you referred to the usa as america.

People often do the same for scandinavia as if theyre all identical.

OP:

YABU. What you refer to is merely a manner of speaking. It doesn't mean that the people who use the expression are ignorant, it just means that on "the Continent" - another way of referencing the same idea - they do things differently, generally.

Not as annoying as when people (frequently on American TV shows) say someone has a "British accent". Seriously? There are accents in Britain that can barely be understood by other Brits (I'm from Glasgow - I get it! )

Don't we refer generally to "an American accent"?

When I've lived in continental Europe I haven't felt homesick at all, despite being British born and mostly bred. I identify as European first and British second

Same here. At least, in Western/Northern Europe - I feel less at home in places like Spain than I do in Norway or Germany.

I think we have far less in common with the US than we do with a lot of European countries.

I felt reasonably at home in Australia - more than in the US.

Surely saying this sort of thing is just a shorthand really?
Most people don't need or even want specifics on where you've been on holiday or whatever. I'm thinking a casual enquiry rather than a best mate.

I get the impression on english-language Internet forums that people do it because they want to fit in with what they assume is the North American majority.
It annoys me because it's unnecessarily mysterious. A woman was saying in the comments on a disability blog that she had had bad treatment in an airport in Europe and that the US was much better. I pointed out that the EU has 26 countries and she could have been in Romania or Luxembourg. She said she was Dutch, presumably to let me know she knew how many countries there are in the EU. I eventually dragged out of her that her bad experience as a wheelchair user was in France. She could have just said so to begin with!
Meanwhile, the US users will be telling you they're Italian or Irish, by which they mean they're American, with Italian or Irish ancestors. Very confusing.