Today we mark the tercentennial—the 300th anniversary—of the Acts of Union. The Acts of Union of 1707 names the two acts, one by the Parliament of England and the other by the Parliament of Scotland, which dissolved both parliaments and replaced them with the Parliament of Great Britain. The Acts of Union also merged the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland into the all-island Kingdom of Great Britain. (来源：英语学习门户网站EnglishCN.com)

So does this mark the birth of the United Kingdom as well? Nope. Political acts created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, but that name officially lasted only until 1921, when the entity was renamed United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

As if all this confusion about the name of Albion weren't enough, there's the sometimes pesky question of how to refer to the locals there. We have the Irish, we have the Scottish, and then we have the British. But the British is plural, not singular, so why not use Briton (which has been around just as long as the British)? The difficulty with that term is that it can be confused with Britain the nation-name. Then there's Brit. Little more than a century old, Brit is occasionally—but less and less frequently—considered derogatory.