UKer

[Damien Hall]

I've always mentally pronounced 'UKer' boringly: 'you-kayer' (similarly to
Jon's 'you-esser'). A couple of reflections on it:

- I've mostly come across it in space-limited contexts (specifically,
Twitter; @hall_damien if you're interested). 'UKer' is useful there because
it's much shorter than any alternative - but I see from the quotations that
it's also used in non-limited contexts.

- As (kind of) made clear by the first quotation that Jon included, 'UKer'
is also useful because it fills a descriptive niche that isn't otherwise
quite filled: 'someone from the UK (without being any more specific as to
the part of the UK)'. Other available adjectives don't do this. 'English',
'Scottish', 'Welsh' and 'Northern Irish' describe being from the individual
countries of the UK; 'British' refers to being from Great Britain, which is
the island containing England, Scotland and Wales, so, strictly speaking,
it excludes Northern Ireland, though most if not all references to 'British
English' in fact also include Northern Irish English. (cf the official name
of the country, 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland'.)

Damien
- UKer

--
Damien Hall

Accent and Identity on the Scottish-English Border
Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York

Tel. +44 (0)1904 322665
Fax  +44 (0)1904 322673

http://www.york.ac.uk/res/aiseb
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