Sunday, December 31, 2006

Why do Britons Get Drunk?

[posted by Callimachus]

Apparently, because they like to.

The difference is, in the U.S., this announcement would be the result of a $4.7 million study at MIT commissioned by some branch of the federal government. In Britain, it's the observation of a Cabinet minister named Hazel Blears.

But can any of my British or Anglophile readers tell me what "Britons" means in modern UK usage? I assumed it was adopted as shorthand for "citizens of Great Britain" and drained of ethnic content (it does have a historical meaning, but this isn't it), but here it seems to mean "Anglo-Saxons" and exclude the Scots and the Welsh. Help!