As a journalist, especially when broadcasting, it’s important to remember that the UK has a number of constituent parts and there are material differences in the rules covering them. The education and legal structures, for example, can differ substantially, with rules in England and Scotland often varying.
When doing my work I always try to check beforehand that I’m not just speaking about the English situation. Yet when you want an adjective to describe everyone, it doesn’t exist; the only word is British, but that seems to exclude people in Northern Ireland, as of course, it’s the United Kingdom of Great Britain (Eng, Scot, Wales) and Northern Ireland as well as a few smaller islands.
Perhaps it is time we introduced Ukish into the language, or maybe a slightly less ugly version that means the same?
