We use words to describe our world, and sometimes … well, we get a little sloppy. Why do people say “I’m Irish” when what they really mean is “I am an American of Irish descent”? Goodness, some seven generations have flown by since those ancestors left the Ould Sod in the diaspora of the 1840s, no?

And for heaven’s sake, can we get Great Britain and Ireland straight? You can imagine my confusion when the Boy’s high school English teacher gave the class an assignment to read a “British book,” then sent home a list of titles that included The Picture of Dorian Gray and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Um … “But these are Irish authors,” I say to the Boy. “They’re not British. Tell her I said that.” (I know: I’m a bad mother. But the Boy is tough.)

“They’re from the British Isles,” I was informed the next day. Those of you who know me personally can guess my reaction to this, but I gave up the fight. Discretion, valor, etc.

Technically, I guess, she was right, but the term British Isles is a geographic reference, not a political one. Furthermore, it’s outdated and even controversial in that part of the world in which people can still remember the feel of the heavy, heavy British boot.

(Memories are long, not just in Ireland. In the British black comedy In the Loop, which satirizes Anglo-American political relations, an American five-star general, in an argument with the British prime minister’s representative, who happens to be Scots—we know this because we’re told earlier in the film, but you can also tell by his accent—calls the man English. (“You English,” he says with the point of a finger.) The argument continues to escalate for some minutes, at the end of which the Scotsman, clearly the victor in the word war, ends with a parting shot: “Don’t ever call me [expletive deleted] English again.” It loses something here, but is both hilarious and spot-on in the movie.)

Technically, both Wilde and Joyce were born in an Ireland that had yet to achieve its independence from the British crown. But it bugged me that this teacher was calling Wilde, Joyce, and others British, when I’d be willing to bet that if you could ask them, they’d claim an Irish identity.

So I had a little laugh the other day when a friend posted this link. I don’t know who C. G. P. Grey is—other than American; the accent is a dead giveaway—but the video is a hoot. Check out his blog, where you can read a transcript and see, as well, things he’s planning to discuss in an updated iteration. Jolly good, what!

Tweet: The difference between English and Irish authors? It’s more than a channel. 

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