An Irish person would never say this

[yodelehoho]

"I'm thinking of moving to the north east, where can you recommend"

Neither would a Scottish person, not a Welsh person.

Why do English people seem to think that everything revolves around England? I see this time and time again on Mumsnet. People assuming that "North East" is flipping England.

We have a scotsnet on mn. Should we also have an Irishnet and an Englishnet?

I'm from Northumberland. If I say I'm moving to the north-east, please assume I mean Norway.

It's all about frame of reference and context, surely?!

Yes, exactly - that’s the point. If I don’t know what your frame of reference is, I’m not going to know whether “the North East” means Newcastle or Aberdeen.

Is true.
The correct phrase is, 'sure i' m after moving to that there England'

Actually we have a Scottish and Irish section of MN but no Welsh area which has always confused me...

The Op isn't talking about in RL, but online when you have no idea where anyone else is from. It's completely different to standing in bloody Glasgow and talking to a colleague - when you say up north in that situation of course they know you mean Inverness (or wherever) since you're sharing the same square metre of ground at that time!

I'm Scottish and if I said I was thinking of moving to the north east I'd mean the north east of Scotland. If someone said midlands I'd assume England, because here I would use the term central belt.

YABU....... Stupidly so in honesty.

Unihorn Scotsnet came about because quite a few people on a thread asked for it. Why not put out a call for fellow Welsh MNers?

Im sure that if enough people from Wales wanted a welshnet, mumsnet administrators would oblige.

Ah I wasn't aware of that thanks OOAOML, I just assumed it had always been arohnd. Interesting.

The north east means Aberdeenshire. The south west means Ayrshire. Carlisle is south west of me, but I wouldn't describe Carlisle as being in the south west because it's in England, which is a completely different country to the country I live in.

I don't mind English mumsnetters saying "north east" in reference to England, but it does annoy me when the BBC does it because the BBC is supposed to be the British Broadcasting Corporation and not the English Broadcasting Corporation.

Yes, mumsnet is on the internet, which is global.

But most people here are English people living in England. Common sense would suggest that if a country is not specified...it's probably England.

Why is that offensive and annoying?

If you went to a different country IRL, and were talking to some strangers, would you want them to specify which country they were talking about? Or would you use your common sense?

Scotsnet was a response to about 7,294 infuriating comments along the lines of “you say your DC are back at school already, OP? But it’s August... ”. By that point it was either give us our own board or hand over Berwick-upon-Tweed.

There is the North-East and then there is Scotland which is another country. That's it.

People in Newcastle would be surprised to discover that they actually live in the Midlands

Only the English do it

Americans use the East/ West coast, the South, the Midwest etc.

When you drive in England the road signs literally say 'the North/ South/ West' with an arrow. These are geographically defined areas that most people commonly understand the meanings of.

It pisses me off when Irish people moan that foreigners call the Republic 'Southern Ireland'. It's very clear in context that they're referring to the part that isn't Northern Ireland.

In short, get over yourself.

Buttercunt

You must have worked your way through a long list of complaints about English people to get to this one

I think I should be offended 🇬🇧

...but I haven't the energy 😂

OP. Yes, the vast majority of posters live in England, so it's hardly surprising we don't clarify it on every post.

On another site I'm on the majority of posters are American, so that's the 'default' and the rest of us state otherwise.

I'll send you a bridge.

*Newcastle is "the Northwest" to far more people than it is not

It really isn't. Apart from England, the rest of the world does not hear "north west" and think "Newcastle"*

It really really isn't. Newcastle is definitely not Northwest. (Sorry, couldn't look at that anymore).

To actually be annoyed by this you'd have to have a general dislike of English people and that would then make you biased and unreasonable.

You might want to suggest that English people who annoy you so much go east to the east side of east and then when they get there, go east a little more

England is the only important country tho, isn't it?

I'm just relieved this isn't another thread bitching about London.

@Isetan I hear you.

I'm in the US, but when I'm on Mumsnet and someone says 'the northeast' I assume they mean the Newcastle area.

Similarly when they say their child is in Year 4 I do a quick mental calculation and assume they're approximately 9. (I may be wrong here...)

Scotsnet is also a safe haven from, "Santa is American and I shudder when people use/type it," or "Halloween is American and so commercialised. Because of course if it isn't English it ain't aught to be allowed! Plus what have the poor Americans done so that anything deemed American is just awful?

Sorry, went off topic there.

People in Newcastle would be surprised to discover that they actually live in the Midlands

But of course, they don't, because 'The Midlands' is a defined area. The regions of England are actually all officially defined.