WHAT’S in a name? The media everywhere has to be careful with nomenclature, not least in the US where the White House clown has banned certain outlets from press conferences for either refusing, or more likely forgetting, to call the Gulf of Mexico the new name he gave it, “Gulf of America”.

Here is worse than most places, for there are at least two names for everywhere, including the sub-polity itself.

Visiting BBC journalists say they’re warned not to use the terms “six counties” or “the north”.

BBC NI has its own absurd rules for Derry. It prefers Rosslea, the unionist spelling for Roslea, even though it’s from the Irish Ros Liath. Maybe they take their cue from Rosslea Manor?

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The big one is “the rest of the UK”, a completely meaningless phrase.

So, we have average house prices in “the rest of the UK”, average wages in “the rest of the UK”. It’s a desperate attempt to keep the north attached to an invented state.

Invented? How so? Well, in case you think the United Kingdom goes back into the mists of time, the state only assumed that official title in 1927 with the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act.

In 1801 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was invented. After 1927, when Britain formally acknowledged that thirteen-sixteenths of Ireland had become independent, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was invented.

Anyway, that all begs the question, why the obsession with “the rest of the UK”?

You’ll notice English politicians seldom, if ever, use that phrase. They prefer “Britain”, whereas here it’s used all the time – especially for economic and other statistical comparisons.

It’s ridiculous because it implies this is the most important place and elsewhere, “the rest of the UK”, just an appendage, the reverse of reality.

So why? Answer: to avoid saying “Britain”.

Obviously you can’t say “like the rest of Britain”, because we’re not part of Britain.

“Compared to Britain” or “like in Britain” would reinforce this place’s separateness, the remaining three-sixteenths of Ireland left behind when the British left.

If you kept talking about average house prices or average wages or waiting times for healthcare in Britain, people would correctly ask, “What’s that got to do with us?” Indeed.

So what’s comparing average this or that in “the rest of the UK” got to do with us? Nothing.

Our house prices or waiting times or pay are all the products of the completely different factors operating here.

So too are statistics for Britain. There’s little comparable between Scotland and England or Wales and England.

The centralised governmental system Westminster operates ensures that’s the case.

The fact is the UK is an artificially constructed state with wide disparities in income and wealth, mostly benefitting London and the south-east.

This picture is becoming more apparent by the year and will emerge into political reality on May 8, if the opinion polls prove correct and nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales win the elections to the Scottish parliament and Welsh Senedd.

There’s another misuse of nomenclature – the “nation” – that has come into common use especially since Covid emphasised the variations in health systems in Britain and here.

Again, the BBC is one of the worst offenders, repeatedly talking about the UK’s “four nations”, including here, which doesn’t fit any definition of a nation.

However, in the last few years reference to the north as a ‘nation’ has become more common in official British documents.

Northern Ireland is neither a nation nor, as many unionists contend, a country.

It is constitutionally a part of the artificially created UK as described in the Good Friday Agreement, and remains so only until a border poll shows a majority for reunification with the other thirteen-sixteenths of ‘the country’.

Why is it important not to misuse ‘nation’? A nation, like Scotland or Wales, implies the right to self-determination and independence.

In the GFA, self-determination “is for the people of the whole island of Ireland alone by agreement between the two parts respectively”.

Northern Ireland is now part of the UK and may become part of an independent Ireland. It’s neither a nation nor a country.

Cardiff university has just reported on a study of over 3,000 news items covering all main TV channels and their social media posts.

The study found that they tended not to differentiate between central and devolved government, but repeatedly use the term ‘government’.

Of social media posts, 73% didn’t clarify whether the story was about devolved administrations or if devolved administrations were affected.

Clearly “the rest of the UK” doesn’t pay as much attention to “the rest of the UK” as this place pays to “the rest of the UK”.

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