the word british?

Question

when americans talk about 'a british accent' do they mean an english accent? i know we probably all sound the same to americans, but they seem to recognize irish accents and scottish accents fine! Also, has anyone else noticed that people from britain (like me) rarely descibe themselves as british, but more commonly say their english or welsh ot whatever, and see their province as a seperate country with its own parliament and such like. But americans always talk about britain as if england ireland scottland and wales as besing 'states' of the united kningdom.

Answer 1

The expression "British English" is the American way to refer to RP(received pronunciation) as spoken by actors, BBC newsreaders and some university graduates from Oxford and Cambridge.
US-Americans have generally a limited experience of "outside", and they know this accent from films and television.
I've actually heard an interesting definition today: According to Irish radio "Britain" consists of England and Wales. They need Scotland to make it "Great Britain".
We Irish are of course not British, apart from some Unionists in Northern Ireland.

Answer 2

I think the use of "British English" (Brit. Eng.) came about because Eng. Eng. sounds and looks foolish. It's OK to talk about Brit. Eng. when referring to word usage (to a degree) and spelling (certainly); but it makes no sense when talking about accents. There's as much difference between the south west and north east of our little country, England, as there is between London and New York.

Answer 3

Precisely!, I mean English, I just answered another question related to the "British accent" meaning English accent. I find it very sexy that just makes me want to melt...in guys only though.
Cheerio!
P.S. so which way is the proper way to say 'english' or 'british'?