I think you’re missing the point. Very few people in the US would claim that their nationality is Irish simply because their great-grandparents were born in Ireland or what not. I’ve never met anyone here who claimed that, and I have little doubt that if a person did everyone would think it very odd. Rather, when someone in the US says they’re “Irish”, or “Scotch-Irish” or whatever, they’re referring to their ethnicity. I don’t know what it’s like in the UK, but here nationality and ethnicity are two distinct concepts, and “American” isn’t considered an ethnicity (unless you’re an American Indian).
I can understand that when someone from Ireland meets an American who says “hey, I’m Irish too” the Irish person may well be thinking “uhh, no, you’re not” but the American is using the term in a different, but valid, way.
“Scotch” is commonly used to refer to people from Scotland, so I think it’s wrong to say it’s wrong, but it’s enlightening to discover that it’s fallen into disfavor in Scotland. Here’s a good summary from dictionary.com:
Ahem. From a Canadian perspective, the United States is a foreign country (and vice versa)
Well, an Irish citizen is entitled to enter Ireland whether or not he has a passport, and (presumably) a Canadian citizen is likewise entitled to enter Canada. But the Catch-22 is that to exercise this right you have to be able to demonstrate that you are a Canadian citizen, and an Ontario driver’s licence certainly doesn’t do that. Anybody ask you your nationality when you applied for a licence? Thought not. I hold a Western Australia drivers licence, but I am not Australian. And, when you applied for a copy of Declan’s birth certificate, did anybody ask you to prove that you were Declan? Thought not again.
The convenient and usual way of proving your citizenship is with a passport; it’s pretty much the only document that both identifies you and confirms your nationality. If you can prove it by other means then, yes, they will let you in, but you’ll have a hell of a job persuading them to accept your proof. And part of the reason they’ll be suspicious is that they’ll be thinking “Hmm . . . if this guy claims to be a Canadian citizen, why the hell hasn’t he bothered to get a passport?”
Airlines generally won’t carry you on an international flight if they think there’s a risk that you’ll be refused entry at the destination, because (a) they’re stuck with the cost of bringing you back again, or bringing you to some third country which will accept you, and (b) many countries fiine airlines and shipping lines for bringin in attempted entrants who are not properly documented.
Hmmm. There are other words that are commonly used to refer to other peoples, historically too, but that doesn’t make them right. Some examples would be: Paki, Gipsy, Red Indian. And I can think of worse ones.
I can’t think of any reason why the word ‘Scotch’ has particularly fallen from favour. There’s no obvious negative connotations (apart from in the minds of abstainers perhaps). But the fact is it has. It’s usually common courtsey, all things being equal, to call people by the name they wish to be called. Ignoring that wish is usually taken as an insult, not matter the intent.
As to the point that Amok and TitoBenito make. Granted, I’m aware that the words mean different things to Americans, but perhaps they need to be aware that they mean a whole lot more to the nationals of the country. and we don’t care much to see them redefined.
I’ll point out, as I always do in these threads, that the usage TitoBenito refers to is not unknown in Britain. It just isn’t usually applied to people whose skin is white. There are plenty of British-born-and-raised “Pakistanis” who will attest to this.
Granted, I’m aware that the words mean different things to Europeans, but perhaps they need to be aware that they mean something different to the nationals of this country. and we don’t care much to see them redefined.
I’ll attest to it too, ruadh. I’ve got Irish nationality, but was born here, brought up here, support the English rugby team, and feel a foreigner in Ireland. But there are circumstances where I will describe myself as Irish, when I don’t feel ‘English’ does the situation justice. And I’ll almost always choose Irish over ‘British’, because the latter seems an alien concept to me - I CERTAINLY feel a foreigner in Glasgow.
