Recent “global” events: the World Cup, Tour de France, and The Open Championship at St. Andrews have brought to my attention the relative ignorance from which many of we Yanks suffer regarding world flags. I have had to resolve more than one “bar bet” regarding this issue as many of my self-proclaimed erudite, sophisticated, well-traveled friends were not aware of the following:
- Great Brittain is an abbreviation for the United Kingdom of Great Brittain and Northern Ireland which we further abbreviate to U.K.
- GB is composed of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland resulting from the Acts of Union 1707 and 1801 and has a resulting flag (the “Union Jack”) which is a combination of the flags of England and Scotland.
Full article and credits @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain
