What’s in a word?

Published on 18/02/2013 00:00

Hugh McLachlan uses the cloak of George Orwell to rail against the objection to “separate” as against “independent” for the description of a future Scotland (Perspective, 15 February).

Hugh McLachlan uses the cloak of George Orwell to rail against the objection to “separate” as against “independent” for the description of a future Scotland (Perspective, 15 February).

“Separate” means “parted, divided, disconnected, withdrawn from society” – picked from the Oxford English Dictionary. “Independent” means “not in a position of subordination, self-governing, free”. I wish Scotland to be independent, not separate, just as I wish my 
children to be independent of but not separated from me.

Iain WD Forde

Main Street

Scotlandwell; Kinross-shire

It seems both sides have forgotten the origins of the words separation/separatist in Scottish political usage. I haven’t. It was adopted by unionists as a pejorative term, not in its own right, but by association.

Two or three decades ago, we had various armed groups known as Basque separatists, Québécois separatists, Kurdish separatists, etc. Unionists deliberately used this term of the SNP in an attempt to associate us with violence. This is why we fight and object to it.

Thomas R Burgess

St Catherine’s Square

Perth