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.

Have definitely heard both Welsh and Scottish family refer to 'east' 'north' 'south' and 'west' without specifying the country.

Of all the things to get annoyed about.

I'm an Irish Person. I wouldn't ask about the North East, I'd probably say Co. Down. But I might ask about the West, meaning Galway/Mayo - and I would say that on boards.ie and expect people to know what I meant without the ''of Ireland' qualifier. Even though it could be read by someone outside of Ireland (as I am myself).
But on mumset I would assume someone saying the North East was the NE of England, because it probably is a British site and the vast majority of people on it are from England.
To be honest, I find people referring to Ireland as Eire FAR more annoying!

Problem is, Ireland seems to have so many different names - better to Eire on the side of caution!

@DiegoMadonna, that is sooooooooooooo bad.

The regions of England are rather boringly named: Greater London, South East, South West, West Midlands, North West, North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, East of England.
Would OP object less if they were called Wessex, Bernicia etc.

Like it or lump it North East is the official name of a part of England, just like Provence is a part of France. It is a lot easier than expecting people to remember 83 counties.

It’s hardly gasping with offence, Diego. It’s pointing out something that people could maybe do with thinking about a bit more.

Very rough equivalent:

“What should I feed my pets?”
“Not sure, OP - what kind of pets?”
“Well dogs, OBVIOUSLY. 80% of people own dogs! Mumsnet is by default a dog-owners’ site! Gosh, fancy getting all offended by that, don’t you have anything more important to worry about? I wouldn’t go to a cattery and ask if you were talking about guinea pigs!”

Okay, but you could maybe just say dogs instead of expecting everyone to know without being told and then getting huffy if they point out they don’t?

On an international Facebook group I am on periodically someone asks where everyone is from. Most of the responses from people from the USA are Small town, State with no mention of the country. Most of the responses from people from other countries, including England are Large Region, Country.

@Venus

Same. Ireland's tiny. I might say 'the west' but for everywhere else I'd just use the actual name of where I'm going. If I said 'the North', I'd be specifically talking about Northern Ireland.

Why dont you go and set up a MammyNet website so you can have some safe space (tm) away from the horrific bigoted 80% English population on this forum.

I'm an Irish Person. I wouldn't ask about the North East, I'd probably say Co. Down. But I might ask about the West, meaning Galway/Mayo - and I would say that on boards.ie and expect people to know what I meant without the ''of Ireland' qualifier. Even though it could be read by someone outside of Ireland (as I am myself).

Lol I'm quite pleased with my (English) self because those are almost the exact examples I gave upthread of how Irish people I know speak! I have just never heard any Irish person say the north east, whereas I hear Irish people from the east coast (though not the bit of the east coast in NI, interestingly) talk about the 'west' whereby they mean Mayo etc.

so you can have some safe space (tm) away from the horrific bigoted 80% English population on this forum.

Oh, get over yourself.

There was a thread on here once about someone moving to Northern Ireland, a specific area, and wanted to know which town was the best. I never did know the outcome, though suspected the OP had already made their mind up but just wanted confirmation that what they had chosen was fine. (It was).

I think the annoyance comes from the fact that Mumsnet is a UK site, including England, Scotland, Wales and NI. Scotland is north of England, so if someone mentions on this UK site that they are going north, then the assumption may be that they are going to Scotland as that is the furthest north part of the UK. But it usually actually means the north of England, not the UK. It perhaps doesn't annoy the English Mumsnetters because they have no experience of feeling left out of the UK when the media/weather/news etc talk about the UK and specifically mean England. For the non-England dwellers it can feel that they are being ignored or dismissed.

Nice bit of English-bashing there. So only the English think everything revolves around their country - not the Scots, Welsh, Irish, Australians, Canadians at all? Way to go with the sweeping statements. Why is it OK to single out one particular nation to bash? If anyone came on and pointed out a negative characteristic they claimed was unique to the Irish, and asked why they had to hold these attitudes, they'd bloody well be flamed. Rightly. But it's no more acceptable the other way round.

I think because mumsnet is U.K. I live in Ireland but I presume it's from U.K.
In Irish websites I'd presume people were talking about Ireland.

I don't know, the one thing we do get irate about is when weather on tv lops off Ireland! But I know that's because it's U.K. Based.

@53rdWay No.

Ah but 53rdWay - that - then getting huffy if they point out they don’t? - is a different issue! The OP is annoyed by the fact that it has been written without the qualifier.
You are talking about being annoyed when asked for the qualifier.

If someone writes the NE - I think that's OK. But if someone else comes and asks them do they mean the NE of England - that is also fine - and it would be Very Unreasonable to be offended by that!

@EndofSummer

Ireland gets lopped off weather maps because we all know that if it didnt the Irish would be bleating on about the British clearly still thinking they were under British dominion, yadda yadda yadda.

Maybe we should all start doing it!

“AIBU to think the housing market in the South-East is really quite affordable, and not know why people claim to struggle so much?” Wait for 200 posts of frothing rage, then post a list of Rightmove links to houses in Kelso and be like “whaaaaat? 😇”

Yes I've also never heard of anyone say they are moving to the North East here, but that's because I'm in the south west and everyone is slightly scared of those feisty people in the North, like Donegal!

joke...

Venus, this entire thread is people getting huffy when asked for the qualifier.

Its just like come on, I've heard Irish people whine about the Guardian and its English-centric approach, the BBC, weather reports not featuring Ireland, etc.

Its like you do realise you're allowed to develop your own websites, newspapers and TV channels as a different country, right?

Although i dont blame you, RTE is hilariously bad. On the bright side you get BBC without the TV license

splendid yes that is probably right!

I get a lot of flack for being English I have to say. I have to watch what I say all the time. Even though my heritage isn't English I'm suddenly supposed to be able answer for 800 years of oppression!

Although weirdly, I do get irrationally annoyed about that weather map!

Although all U.K. People, you know that we in Ireland are your buffer, if we didn't get the rain from those Atlantic winds, you'd have much more of the wet stuff, so be nice to us!

the English are all bastards who think the world revolves around them\
That's about it.