indiana wrote:

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As a bit of an aside my real favourite re Americans' confusion was when this American woman stopped me at a corner in central Edinburgh

From her position there was a fine view down to the Firth of Forth and on the other side rising hills in Fife.

"Is that Holland?" she asked. Now I realise that I could have got into a discussion as to whether she specifically meant the region of Holland as opposed to the nation of the Netherlands ( or indeed suggested that it was too hilly ) but I a bit meekly merely gave her the Fife bit and walked on.

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 Do you remember when the Dutch football team was always called Holland by the press here, for ever as far as I remember through various World Cups (Scotland v Holland in 1978 for example, West Germany v Holland in 1974 etc etc) and it was only really the last World CUp in 2018 where it became the norm/accepted to call them the Netherlands in football terms - for whatever reason it had been Holland, historically, I have no idea, but it clearly was what they had been known as over here, wrongly. 

My pet hate is the BBC HYS type threads where Andy is roundly berated for a) being Scottish when he loses b) claimed as British when he wins c) frequently berated by all and sundry for a joke he made many years ago about not wanting England to win a football match and is now regularly beaten with the "I hate the English" stick. Still, it is only around 15 years ago, so maybe folks will grow out of it! 

The one sport where us Brits can claim Scotland as our own and not let go, though, is curling. Where the British Olympics team is always Scotland and never anyone else, and long may it continue, they are pretty good at it (Eve Muirhead and Bruce Mouat won the World title Mixed a week or two back, after their respective Olympics efforts/medals)