Reasons to be proud to be Scottish

[Phil]

Afraid I can't give you that one . It was a guy called Meucci.

Well - if the Guardian says so then it must be true. It wouldn't surprise me as Scots have made good one way or another around the world. Look at Andrew Carnegie from Dunfermline. How many places have libraries and halls funded by him? Or Jardine, Mathieson although they do say that was on the back of the opium trade. Only the other night I watched a programme about the Clan Grant and how they made a fortune from slavery on their plantations in Jamaica. It seems that Grant is about the most common name in the Jamaica telephone book! So not things to be too proud about. The Grant clan chief even betrayed his clansmen who had fought on the Jacobite side with Bonnie Prince Charlie. They were sent into slavery in the West Indies as a result. I'm not sure about golf though. Didn't I read recently that the Chinese are claiming to have invented that?

[McELT]

...on a tarmac road surface originated by John Macadam from Ayr, Scotland.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7748533.stm

Here in western Pennsylvania (where Carnegie grew his empire), we called a paved road surface "macadam". However, we pronounced it "ma cad um" as opposed to "mac adam", which obscured its origins as the name of the inventor.

[WARPIPER]

Great stuff, and I am sure the list could be expanded quite a bit.

[thanmuwa]

I'm not sure about golf though. Didn't I read recently that the Chinese are claiming to have invented that?

This is something you see every so often, and I would class it in with the claim that whiskey was invented in Italy etc etc.

The rules of golf (and, let's face it, the rules are what make any game what it is) are clearly from Scotland. A game similar to golf may well be played in China, but it's not golf. Hitting a stone with a stick is a game that has been invented in many places, along with kicking a pig's bladder about and then picking it up and running with it .

And while distilling was clearly brought to Ireland and not invented there, and distilled liquids have been called Aqua Vitae or the equivalent for a long time, it is really only when it was called uisce beatha that it became whiskey .

[PiobBear]

After piping a wedding last year, an elderly woman came up to me, and told of how her family had escaped Poland in '38 a step ahead of the Nazis, and had been resettled in Glasgow, with only the shirts on their backs and speaking only Polish. Despite rationing and wartime shortages, the people of Scotland shared what little they had with them, and made them welcome in a foreign land. Her mother had admonished her, as she has her daughters and grand-daughters, to always tell this story to their children, and impress upon them the debt their family will always owe to the kindness of the people of Scotland.

A good St. Andrew's Day to one and all.

[Ancienne Alliance]

My goodness, how in the world could we be on this topic and not mention James Watt? He didn't invent the steam engine, but his improvements on the idea first made it practical. Scotland was so much the home of the steam power that ran the Industrial revolution that the stereotypical engineer is a Scotsman, to the the point were the first engineer in Star Trek was "Scottie"!

Geoff Withnell

Yesss sir !

This is nice to remember indeed !

BTW, who wrote "Peter Pan"?


Best,

Robert

[Ian.MacAllan]

Maxwell's work on electromagnetic fields is the scientific basis on which Marconi et al. developed radio communication.

I will always be grateful to Carnegie because one of the many hundreds of free public libraries he financed was where I first was exposed to the idea that though I might never find a place where I could belong I could make one.

Phil's mention of opium and slavery brings to mind one of the hundreds of anecdotes about Mark Twain. A number of people were praising the philanthropies of a retired gambler when one of them said, "But his money is tainted!" Twain replied, "Indeed it is tainted, madam. 'Taint yours and 'taint mine."

.

[sharpdressedscot]

Ha, now I can some stuff in!

[Highlander31]

Let's not forget the Declaration of Arbroath written in 1320. Two main points come out of it. First, it put the will and wishes of the people over the king, and second, it stated people have a right to freedom and a duty to defend it with their lives. Our Declaration of Independence was based in part on the principles set forth in the Declaration of Abroath.

[graham_s]

BTW, who wrote "Peter Pan"?

J.M. Barrie.

He lived in a little village a few miles from where I live. I've been to his house (where the original "wendy house" is to be found)