Commandos, kippers and clearances

[Grizzled Ian]

Phil, Jock, thank you both,
It was a cold November day, and probably mid-week when I was there, understandable that the crowd of two comprised me and the Navigator. A complete contrast to the delightful Mrs Peel!

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Referring back to the title, there's something I've long been curious about: what is the Scottishism for "Clearance Sale?" I did not discover this in nine days in Scotland donkey's years ago; I'd think it wouldn't use the word.

[Jock Scot]

Referring back to the title, there's something I've long been curious about: what is the Scottishism for "Clearance Sale?" I did not discover this in nine days in Scotland donkey's years ago; I'd think it wouldn't use the word.

If I understand your question correctly, "closing down sale" seems all the rage in Fort William Hight Street at the moment.

[Laird_M]

A very interesting video. Thnaks for posting.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

If I understand your question correctly, "closing down sale" seems all the rage in Fort William Hight Street at the moment.

I think your sense of it is a bit more final than the American phrase has it. The sense I'm used to on this side of the salt pond is that it means a sale especially to clear out excessive inventory: nice price reductions, get it out the door, cleared away so we can re-stock with a new line of goods, or cleared out for the purpose of reducing the effort of inventorying -- which is what we'll be up to next, and the less stock we have lying around, the shorter our administrative work and we can get back to making money instead of taking stock.

"Closing Down Sale" sounds to me like "Going Out Of Business Sale" -- which may appear with hyphens between the first four words. Hmm -- an unusual example of more syllables used in the Americanism than the Britishism. Such as "freeway" versus "dual carriageway" -- a crisply disyllabic snap as opposed to a pleasant collection of soft consonants. Often the American phrase is the shorter.

[Jock Scot]

I think your sense of it is a bit more final than the American phrase has it. The sense I'm used to on this side of the salt pond is that it means a sale especially to clear out excessive inventory: nice price reductions, get it out the door, cleared away so we can re-stock with a new line of goods, or cleared out for the purpose of reducing the effort of inventorying -- which is what we'll be up to next, and the less stock we have lying around, the shorter our administrative work and we can get back to making money instead of taking stock.

Ah in that case "SALE" is the word you are looking for.

[Phil]

Ah in that case "SALE" is the word you are looking for.

Or stock clearance. Some places have a Blue Cross sale where selected items are marked down. Things sound a bit dire in the Fort these days, Jock, if lots of businesses are going bust there. Mind you you just have to mention Jessops, HMV, Victoria Wine, a couple of greetings card chains like Birthdays and soon there won't be much left but charity shops. There are even rumours of a takeover bid for M&S!

[Jock Scot]

The High Street in the Fort has been slowly fading for the last 15 years and now empty shops are common. Its the usual story of high rents, high local taxes and shops catering neither for the locals, nor the ever expanding number of tourists. Yet more "outdoors" shops, in an already well catered for market, have tried and faded away, even the brand spanking Super Dooper Mega Tesco's on a virgin building site(and you know how short building land is around here) has been put on hold, after all the hugely expensive groundwork has been done. No Phil not a happy place for a shop owner at the moment. The answer? No idea! The recession is not helping that is for sure, but it would be quite wrong to blame it for all of the Fort's commercial ills.