In just 10 days' time, the Scottish people (oh no, wait, only those living there, which excludes yours truly) will decide whether Scotland is to break away from the UK and become independent. This weekend, one opinion poll put the "Yes" camp in the lead for the first time.

Still, many questions remain unanswered. Would an independent Scotland be able to go it alone economically? If we Scots stay in the UK, will we be forced to leave the EU a few years down the line because of UKIP voters in England? And if we do become independent and set up embassies around the world, would that not slightly bankrupt us?

As well as all this uncertainty, there is another burning question that I am asking myself. It is this: If Scotland becomes independent, will our European friends improve their geographical knowledge of the United Kingdom? In other words, will they stop referring to the whole of Great Britain (that’s Scotland, England and Wales) as “England”? The geographical term “Great Britain” does exist in other languages but seems to be used mainly on postcards.


© France 24 screen grab.

I’m thinking first and foremost of the French here, who tend to loosely use “L’Angleterre” to refer to Great Britain and “Les Anglais” to refer to all the inhabitants of that large and diverse island. Aside from Scotland, only Wales seems to suffer this sort of humiliation. All this on the flimsy pretext that we don’t have full tax-raising powers.

But don’t get me wrong, the French are not the only nation to commit this geographical misdemeanour. The Germans tend to call Britain “England” (pronounced Ehn-gland), the Italians talk about “Inghilterra”. But this is still incorrect and somewhat infuriating, especially the first time you hear it - generally on your Erasmus year abroad. One fellow Scottish friend at university became so fed up at being asked when she was going back to “Angleterre” for Christmas that she snapped back “Jamais!” (Never!)

So what will happen if Scotland becomes independent? Will our European friends continue to blithely refer to the whole of Britain as “England”? Or will they belatedly (and, ironically, incorrectly if Scotland breaks away) start using “Great Britain”?

My guess is that they may start using the word “Scotland” a little more frequently, at least in specific cases. For example: “Caroline, when are you next going back to England?” could well become “When are you next going back to Scotland?”

Still, I don’t have a vote on September 18th. So all this is academic. Or is it?