Why do britishers/britons insist on calling them britons?

@SW-User They might call them / us "Brits" but I think it sounds sloppy, probably invented by the Daily Star or Sun.

"Briton" is the full word and I have never associated it as you do.

I don't think 1930s public-schools used "Britisher". I have never seen it inm old writings of any sort. They used simply "British".


[Note for US readers... the "public school" in Britain is really a private one! The term goes back to their founding, the earliest in late-Mediaeval times, when there was no State education system and the only choice available was between private tutors visiting the home, and commercial schools open to anyone, hence "public" - if you could afford the fees. ]

@ArishMell I think you mean 'England' , not 'Britain'.

@ArishMell Well I'm not British sorry lol

@ffony Good point - thankyou! :-)

There is one exception though: Gordonstoun School, which is in Scotland.

Well, "private" in a commercial sense.

@SW-User OK - no worry! :-)

@SW-User No!!!!
You're kidding, right?

@SW-User How would you refer to a Japanese person? Would you introduce them as a “Jap”?
No? Then don’t refer to a British person as a “Brit”.

@Glossy Brit is not a racist term; Jap is.

@SW-User I think "Brit" was coined by The Sun, one of the more down-market daily British newpapers.

@SW-User It doesn't matter whether it's racist or not, they're both derogatory..

@Glossy Never ever heard of "Brit" being a derogatory term, and have found no evidence of it being a derogatory term online either.

@SW-User I agree, as one!.

It might seem so if used in a derogatory remark anyway but generally it is just slang.

@SW-User The first people to use the phrase were the IRA in the 1970s in their propaganda material. I think there’s a clue there.

@Glossy Indeed, though it also appeared in the fictional stories set in WW2, in boys' comics published in the 1950s and 60s, where it was used by the German characters. Whether the real ones in the real War ever used it, is another matter.

@Glossy You can prove that? I doubt it.

@SW-User There were instances where the IRA used the term "Brit" to describe British soldiers or officials. The IRA's training manual refers to "Brit Ministers" and other British officials in its discourse, demonstrating the usage of "Brit" in official IRA materials. The IRA's publication, “An Phoblacht”, used the term in headlines such as "IRA ambush stings Brit assassins," further illustrating its use in propaganda and public statements. In broader narratives, the term "Brit" was colloquially employed by the IRA to refer to British forces, as seen in various sources discussing their operations and ideology. I can supply with citations if you really want to see them, but I doubt it.

@Glossy Still doesn't mean it's derogatory.