Scotched !

[Pleater]

I remember teasing someone - when in my persona for the English Civil War reenactors, saying that he was a Scotch-man and he corrected me to the modern 'Scots', by pretending to think that he was telling me he was 'Scous' that is, from Liverpool.

My father's mother, source of much of my 17th century 'sound', was an unschooled woman from the wilds of Derbyshire, used Scotch and Welch, as well as other older forms of speech, shuen, hosen, housen as plurals of shoe, hose and house for instance, and calf pronounced couahf. She was born in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, but was uncannily right, according to better scholars than myself, for over 200 years earlier.

In modern English as I was taught, a person or creature with origins in Scotland is a Scot - or perhaps Scottie, being 'little Scot'. Anything inanimate is Scotch - as in shortbread and distilled alcohol.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Chas]

Taken from the title page of

"The Fifteenth (Scottish) Division
1914 - 1919"

by Lieut.-Colonel J. Stewart, D.S.O.
and John Buchan




The Divisional Sign
The sign of the Fifteenth (Scottish) Division, consisted of the letter "O", the "fifteenth" letter of the alphabet, enclosing a "scotch" (i.e., a wedge for jamming wheels). This sign was the distinguishing mark of the Division throughout the war.

Regards

Chas

[Bugbear]

I seem to remember a few threads last year about "scotch eggs" or something like that.

So, which term is worse, "scotch eggs," or "celtic eggs?"

I prefer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches...

[Arlen]

You know, I was taught in linguistics that 'Scotch' was a term originally used by Scotsmen in the 1500-1800 sort of time period and that the use of 'Scots' and subsequent issues with the term 'Scotch' came thereafter.
so, really, I don't feel much of an issue with it. It's just an older term that's fallen out of use.

And, to be honest, I'm just thrilled any time someone doesn't assume that I'm Irish.

[McClef]

Archaic usages are not meant to be insulting in themselves but as far as I am aware there are very few usages that are considered appropriate in these modern times:

Scotch Drink (whisky)
Scotch Pancakes
Butterscotch

So food or drink related things and indeed they would look strange to us if they were changed!

I wonder if Edward I was ever called the "Hammer of the Scotch"?

[Sammac]

I just thought it was just a lingustic perversion much like calling tartan fabric plaid.

[macwilkin]

Taken from the title page of

"The Fifteenth (Scottish) Division
1914 - 1919"

by Lieut.-Colonel J. Stewart, D.S.O.
and John Buchan




The Divisional Sign
The sign of the Fifteenth (Scottish) Division, consisted of the letter "O", the "fifteenth" letter of the alphabet, enclosing a "scotch" (i.e., a wedge for jamming wheels). This sign was the distinguishing mark of the Division throughout the war.

Regards

Chas

Well done, Chas -- I had completely forgotten about the 15th Division's unique formation sign when I read this read this morning.

T.

[NewGuise]

Here's the full historical note from the OED:

Down to the middle of the 16th c. the only form used in southern English was Scottish; but in the dialect of Scotland (and in that of the north of England in the 14th and 15th c.) the form was Scottis (cf. Inglis = English), subsequently contracted to Scots. So far as our quotations show, the contraction of Scottish into Scotch is not recorded before 1570 (in the compound Scotchman), though the colloquial pronunciation which it represents may well be much older; instances of Scotch cap, Scotch jig occur in 1591-99, but the adj. did not become common in literature until the second half of the 17th c. From that time until the 19th c. Scotch has been the prevailing form in England, though Scottish has always been in use as a more formal synonym. In Scotland, the authors who wrote in dialect (down to Ramsay and Fergusson early in the 18th c.) used Scots, while those who anglicized adopted the form Scottish. But before the end of the 18th c. Scotch had been adopted into the northern vernacular; it is used regularly by Burns, and subsequently by Scott; still later, it appears even in official language in the title of the ‘Scotch Education Office’. Since the mid 19th c. there has been in Scotland a growing tendency to discard this form altogether, Scottish, or less frequently Scots, being substituted. At the beginning of the 20th c., while in England Scotch was the ordinary colloquial word, the literary usage prefered Scottish in applications relating to the nation or the country at large or its institutions or characteristics. Thus it was usual to speak of ‘Scottish literature’, ‘Scottish history’, ‘the Scottish character’, ‘a Scottish lawyer’, ‘the Scottish border’. On the other hand, it would have sounded affected to say ‘a Scottish girl’, ‘a Scottish gardener.’ Although ‘the Scottish dialect’ is now the usual designation, it is seldom that Scottish is used as a n. instead of Scotch. Recent usage favours Scots in ‘Scots law’, and it is now almost universal in historical references to money, as ‘a pound Scots’.
In the 20th c. the word Scotch has been falling into disuse in England as well as in Scotland, out of deference to the Scotsman's supposed dislike of it; except for certain fixed collocations, (such as ‘Scotch mist’, ‘Scotch whisky’) Scottish (less frequently Scots) is now the usual adjective, and to designate the inhabitants of Scotland the pl. n. Scots is preferred (see Gowers/Fowler Mod. Eng. Usage (1965)).]

[skauwt]

i may be wrong here but isn't "scotach" the gael way of saying the name Scott?
for example i`d be " Scotach Siosal"
to folk from around the world the scotach almost sounds like scotch

[WClarkB]

Usual response to : "Are you Scotch"
"aye, I have a wee dram of Scotch in me, Glenlivet, actually. But could it be you're asking me whether I am Scots?"