Saying "England" when referring to the UK/British Isles.

[Hero of Pizza Time]

It's something that happens a lot. Even in history textbooks, anything within or related to the British Isles will always be referred to as "England" or "English." For instance, people will always refer to the British monarchs as King/Queen of England even though they reign over the entirety of the UK.

It is sort of the same case, but in reverse, with the United States. They call the 4th of July an "American holiday" and not a "United States holiday" despite only pertaining to the United States. On the other hand, nothing Canadian or Mexican is called "American."

It may have to do with size since 84% of UK citizens live in England.

It's just something strange that I noticed and it has been on my mind. This does happen with other countries though, so feel free to share what you think about either this specific case or other examples from different countries.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

it's because the United States of America is called America a lot
nobody refers to North America as America, they specify North America
it's not a problem


as far as the england thing, in my experience people usually use the word british instead unless we're focusing specifically on the country of england and not the other states within

 

[Jimmu]

It's something that happens a lot. Even in history textbooks, anything within or related to the British Isles will always be referred to as "England" or "English." For instance, people will always refer to the British monarchs as King/Queen of England even though they reign over the entirety of the UK.

I mean, Liz is technically the Queen of a number of commonwealth countries too but still it just rolls of the tongue better to say the Queen of England than the Queen of the UK or the Queen of the Commonwealth (though the latter wouldn't be entirely accurate I suppose given that she is not the head of state for every commonwealth country). Even in Australia with her as out head of state most people would say the "Queen of England" before they'd say the "Queen of Australia" (which is probably nearly never worded in that way).

Most things I hear of that are described as English feel more like they're from London/England anyway, it is also common to hear people describe things specific to Scotland as Scottish or from Wales as Welsh.