# What stereotypes do the Brits, Irish, and Scottish hold about one another? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 14, 2013, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219 "2013-08-14T15:50:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219/41 "2013-08-16T09:31:44Z")
“An Englishman’s way of speaking absolutely classifies him… …The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely disappears. In America, they haven’t used it for years!” ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219/42 "2013-08-16T10:34:47Z")
If you live and/or work in London, culturally, pretty well any work environment is now pretty much like the Bridge on Star Trek; a critical mass of people have been on a long, often international, road of education and work experience; multiculture is now long-established as the norm. For people who remain more ‘home town’, stereotypes and other old socio-cultural labels still tend to be acceptable and used (see above), though that’s generally a consequence of parochialism. ---
**Author:** ![Kiyoshi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kiyoshi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiyoshi)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219/43 "2013-08-16T13:40:35Z")
I think Welsh stereotypes can be divided into north and south. The north Welsh are miserable, insular people who live on farms in the middle of nowhere, or tiny villages with unpronounceable names. They hate outsiders, as soon as they see an Englishman, they will instantly become mono-lingual in Welsh. Their hobbies include shagging sheep and hating the English. The south Welsh are friendly, outgoing, loud and common as muck. Back in the day they were coal miners, but are now mostly on the dole. They did Welsh all the way through school, but can only remember how to say “fish and chips”. Their hobbies include rugby and getting pissed. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219/44 "2013-08-16T17:30:32Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > If you live and/or work in London, culturally, pretty well any work environment is now pretty much like the Bridge on Star Trek; a critical mass of people have been on a long, often international, road of education and work experience; multiculture is now long-established as the norm. > > For people who remain more ‘home town’, stereotypes and other old socio-cultural labels still tend to be acceptable and used (see above), though that’s generally a consequence of parochialism. The fact you seem to earnestly believe this makes it twice as funny. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219/45 "2013-08-16T18:15:37Z")
Interesting contributions to this thread; did you cut and paste all of this from some 1970s themed website? > [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > So, how are people in and around London thought of? Cockneys & posh poofs? What else? > [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Mostly as dicks. > [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > I met a man from Norfolk who said he could count on one hand the number of times he’d slept with a relative. The answer was 9. > > Norfolk = inbred. > [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > How do you know somebody’s from Yorkshire? They’d have told you three times already. > > Yorkshiremen are Scots with all the generosity squeezed out of them. > > Yorkshire born, Yorkshire bred, strong in the arm, thick in the head. > > The Tyke’s creed: See all, 'ear all, say nowt, eat all, sup all, pay nowt, and if thy ever does owt for nowt do it for thi sen. > > The Lancastrian view of Yorkshire. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Cornholio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed8c4c/32.png) [@The\_Great\_Cornholio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Cornholio)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219/46 "2013-08-16T18:23:20Z")
> [@Kiyoshi](#): > > I think Welsh stereotypes can be divided into north and south. > > The north Welsh are miserable, insular people who live on farms in the middle of nowhere, or tiny villages with unpronounceable names. They hate outsiders, as soon as they see an Englishman, they will instantly become mono-lingual in Welsh. Their hobbies include shagging sheep and hating the English. … and setting their holiday homes on fire. > [@Kiyoshi](#): > > The south Welsh are friendly, outgoing, loud and common as muck. Back in the day they were coal miners, but are now mostly on the dole. They did Welsh all the way through school, but can only remember how to say “fish and chips”. Their hobbies include rugby and getting pissed. The miserable, insular members of my family from North Wales regard people from South Wales as “English”. No, worse than English, for letting their language wane. They however spit on the attempts of the Welsh Assembly to reinforce use of the Welsh language and often haven’t got a clue what some words in official missives mean because the dialect is so different between North and South. You just can’t please them! (Yeah, and I bet it sticks in their craw that one of their proud men - my Dad - married a bloody Englishwoman!) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Cornholio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed8c4c/32.png) [@The\_Great\_Cornholio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Cornholio)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219/47 "2013-08-16T18:42:24Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > So, how are people in and around London thought of? Cockneys & posh poofs? What else? These days you might find that us provincial bumpkins think of the average Londoner as increasingly being foreign-born and non-white. (With the Danny Dyer-type as a warm fuzzy memory from the past.) It’s not just London though - ask someone from elsewhere to describe an average person from Leicester, and you may find that the only thing that they can come up with is “Asian” (as in Indian/Pakistani), I bet few could identify a traditional Leicester accent. Same with Bradford, many people aren’t going to associate the citizens of that town with the proud Yorkshireman mentioned above, but will assume they have roots in the sub-continent. Disclaimer: not everyone, everywhere, obviously. Just in my experience, because I don’t work on the Bridge on Star Trek. ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219/48 "2013-08-16T19:04:55Z")
Having been born and raised in Essex but now living in London, I’ll just leave [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4r_a5adehs) here. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219/49 "2013-08-16T20:40:45Z")
In Shakespeare’s **Henry V** , you have the colorful trio of Captains, Fluellen, MacMorris, and Jamy, from Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, respectively. The play has often been compared to a stereotypical WWII movie where you have the combat team from, say, Brooklyn, Texas, and Boston (whose members might well be called “Brooklyn”, “Tex”, and “Boston”). The literary device, in both the play and the movies, was intended to show the patriotic unification of a country against a common enemy\*\*. \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2013, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219/50 "2013-08-17T08:46:20Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > Interesting contributions to this thread; did you cut and paste all of this from some 1970s themed website? No, I answered the question: “what stereotypes do Britons have about other Britons”. Do you understand that answering that question doesn’t mean I hold those views personally? Did you stumble into the wrong thread by mistake? Must be pretty easy with the hectic, “Star Trek bridge”-like existence Londoners like yourself lead (lol). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stereotypes-do-the-brits-irish-and-scottish-hold-about-one-another/666219.md?page=2)