Word of the Day: Infelicitous

I don't think I've ever been accused of being infelicitous before.

In this frenzied atmosphere in which the opening skirmishes are being conducted, in what the Wiener Zeitung and other mainland European newspapers are referring to as the battle for Scotland, what remains of the 'emotional glue' that is generally considered vital for keeping the anglo-union together is evidently being further weakened: "That glue has long since lost much of its strength in Scotland. If it has now been eroded in England too, the long-term prospects for the Union would seem rather bleak indeed." That is a quotation from no less an authority than Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University, commenting on A YouGov survey* published in the November issue of Prospect magazine, which indicated that the concept of 'Britishness' appears to be losing such appeal as it had in England, the population of which has long exhibited an infelicitous tendency to blur the distinction between the concepts of state and nation, a confusion which the onset of asymmetric legislative devolution has served to dispel in some measure...

It's a good point, delivered with sesquipedalian panache. English identity is becoming politicised, and whilst the Union may be able sustain indifference towards Britishness from its smaller nations it will surely break if English grievance against the British state is allowed to fester.