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Originally Posted by Iain
I guess it's a cultural thing. Americans seem a hell of a lot keener to grasp onto some sort of vague family history of foreign-ness. I have Scottish grandparents (have no idea about great grandparents) and one of the most Scottish names this side of Carlisle but I would never say I was Scottish or even part Scottish.
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America hasn't got a lot of history, so some nebulous link is grasped a bit stronger. Such is my interpretation.
The thing that always confuses me is that the majority of English people would describe themselves as British (especially non-Caucasian English), while the majority of Northern Irish, Welsh and Scottish would describe themselves as such. It's a pretty difficult territory to negotiate - apart from the Patrick's day absurdity ("I shook hands with an Irishman once, ergo I'm Irish") I think it's easier to let people describe themselves as an how they feel - it's a compliment to English culture that the notion of 'Englishness' is such an incredibly ambiguous thing, like 'all things to all wo/men'.