For instance, in the sense relevant here, it is not the case that the English expression 'bank' is endowed of a contextually-sensitive meaning--roughly, a
metacharacter sensitive to conversational interests, and able to yield either the constant function leading to financial institutions, or the different constant function associated with the sides of a river.
Whatever expectations may have been, no "union," in any deep sense of the word, took place, no national self-image was replaced by another, no "British"
metacharacter evolved.