The Use of "Country"

One of the things I noticed when we moved here is that the word "country" is far less clear cut then where we used to live. In Cambridge if someone said "this country" then I think it was pretty clear they were talking about the UK. Here in Scotland then a lot of the time they would be talking about Scotland.

I was reminded of this and how the failure to recognise that Scots regard Scotland as a country, not a region of the UK, can cause problems by the flurry of activity from the Scottish Labour Party, which is pro-union and tweets like this one from Jeremy Corbyn.

And there you have it in a nutshell: Corbyn's English centred mindset has lead him to a message which means something entirely different to many Scots as when they read that he's saying:

Let me be clear: those who actually love Scotland would never seek to divide it.

... which I don't think was the message he thought he was delivering at all (although given the way the last Indyref did divide people here perhaps it was).