Sgian Dhub question

[bubba]

Not where I live. anything over 3 inches is illegal to carry and they confiscate them. In the US it doesn't matter if it's part of a trditional outfit or not.

[Alaskan]

The laws vary from state to state. In Alaska you could carry a Rambo-style survival knife with no problems.

[Graham]

Robbie, thanks for that correction and for continuing to keep us on track here, well done.
I blame copy and paste for my spelling error.

[KiltedHuntsman]

I always wear a Sgian Dubh when kilted. I really don't see the difference between a Sgian Dubh and a military officer wearing a dress sword, or someone carrying a paring knife in their lunch bag, or whatever. Small wonder why people have less and less respect for the law.

Everybody used to see law and order as good for everyone. Now it's seen more and more as an annoyance for day to day stuff (like the above), and completely useless when you really need them (they never seem to find or prevent stolen cars, never seem to be able to do something about vandals screwing with your property,never seem to be able to stop the estranged nut case husband from killing the the ex-wife, etc.), while all at the same time preventing you from protecting yourself (knife, gun laws).

Keep treating us like 6th grade kids, and they'll get just that. A completely dysfunctional society in about 20 years. THEN, we'll all be wearing weapons just to survive.

[bubba]

Society is already dysfunctional. Rising rates of functional illiteracy, complete lack of analytical thought, attention span geared to the time between TV commercials, it's a wreck. Most of law enforcement is geared to revenue gathering rather than pursuing real criminals. The rot is irreversable. Just look at how many eligable voters don't bother to vote and a large percentage that do vote according to the last campaign ad they see or hear or focus entirely on one issue rather than broad policy. From what I see here, our kilted bretheren are far more aware and better informed than the average, which is a bright spot in the mess.

[g koch]

http://www.coldsteel.com/11ss.html

[Alaskan Celt]

[quote="Robbie"]Just to be pedantic, the correct spelling is Sgian Dubh (Gaelic for Black Knife).

"I am often called down for writing 'skene dhu' instead of sgian dubh. My answer is that I am writing English, and you will find 'skene dhu' in any good English dictionary. I am not against using a Gaelic word when it is called for, as witness breacan feile , used above to avoid confusion. But I see no more reason for writing sgian dubh than for writing mukesin for 'moccasin' or juzgado for 'hoosegow'. I admit I'm an extremist on this point; I even prefer 'cream of mint' tp cre'me de menthe, unless I'm talking to a Frenchman".

-J.Charles Thompson-

[Casey]

Charles,

If you wish to order "cream of mint" in Canada, I would suggest that even in English you use "creme de menthe", of course with an English pronunciation, if the person is an anglophone.

Bilingualism can be a strange bird.

A bientôt.

Casey

[Graham]

I was told the other day that many scots pronounce the word "skeedoo".

At least with "Dirk" there is no confusion

[Robbie]

Don't know where whoever who told you that got that idea from, Graham - that's a pronunciation I've never come across.

But going back to what Charles was saying, the simple point I was trying to make, obviously unsuccessfully, was that in previous postings sgian dubh had been spelt variously sgian dhub, sgain dhub and sgian dhu.

I am, however, puzzled by Charles' preference for skene dhu (which is close to the now disgraced "phonetic spelling") - if you're going to insist on the English equivalent, as in cream of mint rather than creme de menthe, then why not just use the translation of black knife rather than miss-spell the original?