Watching Scots

Killing accused ‘murdered before’

(from http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 23 June, 2009.)

Peter Tobin, 62, from Renfrewshire, in Scotland,

Dinah McNicol, of Tillingham, Essex

he had lived in Irvine Drive in Margate, Kent

he abducted Miss Hamilton in Bathgate, near Edinburgh

Miss McNicol had disappeared after attending a music festival at Liphook, Hampshire

What exactly is the status of ‘Renfrewshire’ in the above citations? Is it a town like the other first-placed area names? Well, the suffix ‘shire’ eliminates that option. We know from the lexical meaning of ‘shire’ that it must be a region identifier beyond the scope of a town/ city. However precise the writer was in locating the other town/ city names, Tobin’s home town/ city name is missing. Tobin has, unfortunately, been in the news before, and we know that he is from Johnstone. A quick check by the journalist would have uncovered that information. One assumption might be that both ‘Johnstone’ and ‘Renfrewshire’ are too unknown to English readers that the author chose to rephrase the location in more Anglo-centric friendly terms.

And what about ‘Scotland’? It comes second, mirroring the use of ‘Essex’, ‘Kent’, ‘Edinburgh’ and ‘Hampshire’. Is ‘Scotland’ a region on the same par as, say, ‘Essex’? Clearly it cannot be level with ‘Edinburgh’, and the reader is left totally confused as to the writer’s system of location categorisation.

The presentation of place names should be a simple matter. First comes the town name then the region. If Britain is supposed to be a single county, then following this simple algorithm should not be so difficult. The major difficulty will be in selecting a version of ‘region’.

Deciding on definition of ‘region’ is not that easy to pin down. Should a writer use the UK government’s criterion of nine areas for English regions, the local authority, councils, county, burgh, or any other idiosyncratic categorisation? There are nine regions in England according to the UK Government, but the number of English boroughs and councils is far higher. Scotland has thirty-two unitary authorities, and until 1996, had nine major regions, whose names are still used colloquially today.

The Telegraph maintains uniformity in town name – region nomenclature choosing the Scottish authority region, even if the implication that Scottish authorities are a part of Britain runs entirely contrary to their erstwhile usage of ‘England-as-Britain’. (See Viagra not getting it up in Scotland.)

Tobin, of Johnstone, Renfrewshire, denies murdering Miss McNicol.

Ultimately though, portraying Scotland on a par with, say, the West Midlands or Essex and naming of Scotland as a region of Britain is both Anglo-centric and inaccurate. It is also deeply insulting.