Jock Scot:

No, sir, I took your point. I may have been going off on a tangent, as I frequently do. Of the few contentious episodes that have occurred as a result of being kilted, a couple of them involved Scots who objected to modern/casual/neo-traditional kilts I have worn. One fellow insisted that the Newsome kilt was not, in point of fact, a kilt, but a skirt, and that thus I was cross-dressing. (He was neither angry nor offended, he simply thought I was in the wrong in calling it a kilt.)

I laid out my line of argument (heavily cribbed from Matt Newsome): hand sewn of Scottish wool, using a traditional early kilt pattern, and, I believe, even referencing John Brown's tweed kilts. He was unswayed by my arguments. "Very well," says I to he, "then by your standards I am cross dressing, but by my standards, I am not. By my standards, I am kilted." Then he bought me a tot of whisky, and I bought him one, and we parted with nary a hard word between us.

I prefer to be respectful, as a matter of courtesy and good manners. However, frequently I am willing to "swim against the tide" as it were, if I am convinced that I am in the right (after suitable investigation and contemplation).

I should also point out that, even when casually kilted (to include such "heresies" as a camouflage kilt), I have had a number of positive encounters with Scots tourists or immigrants who have approved of my adoption of a (modified form of) their national dress.

If---nay, when!---I travel to Scotland, I may compromise my principles in the interest of comity and wear what is popularly accepted as a true kilt. But should I refrain from wearing a box pleated or other short yardage kilt, I will be doing so out of courtesy for prevailing opinion, and not out of any sense that my "lesser" kilts are "less" in any sense save yardage.