All Things Scottish
After I posted that video about voice recognition systems and accents, a reader kindly sent me a link to this one:
The Scots accent is inherently funny (is that un-PC to say, or is it okay because they’re white?) because of its strange mixture of sentimentality and truculence. The sentimentality is also captured in the fact that traditionally speakers have liberally sprinkled their speech with cute diminutives—for example, “wee,” and the addition of “ie” to many words. Both tendencies are almost perfectly exemplified by the first two lines of the famous Robert Burns poem “To A Mouse,” one of my personal favorites:
Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Only a Scotsman would dare to rhyme “beastie” with “breastie” and come out on top.
But on YouTube one video leads to another, and so I found this one next, which I think is pretty funny as well:
But the granddaddy of them all is this classic from Saturday Night Live:
If It's Not Scottish, It's Crap!!! by shundriad
If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap.
Alba gu Brath!!!!
One of the many reasons I enjoy Craig Ferguson.
I’m descended from Scotsmen. I’ve got the mighty temper and the love of a wee dram. But could never, ever do the brogue. I’ve tried. It’s just beyond me. I do love to hear it, though.
J. was the temper manifest only in your younger days? Since I get the impression you mellowed out later in life, from your anecdotes.
Who left out Scotch Tape?
(oy!)
I worked with Scotsmen in the oil field in Latin America. Apparently Scotsmen in the oil field have acquired a certain reputation. Decades later a professor who emigrated from Scotland- along with his Scots accent- sat in on a presentation that I and others made in a grad school class. I mentioned to him that I had worked with a bunch of Scots in the oil field in Venezuela.
The professor of Scots origin replied, “Bunch of drunks, weren’t they?” Well, yes. But fortunately, not on the rig. [I will spare you the stories.]
I later worked with a Scotsman on a rig in Guatemala. After conversing with him for a while, I told him that I had difficulty understanding his accent. His reply was that most Englishmen also told him that. It wasn’t just a problem for Yanks.
[I didn’t see him off the rig, but inferred he didn’t have the drinking problem that some of his paisans had. ]
Disclaimer: through Scots and Scots-Irish ancestors, I am somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 Scots.
for neo, couldnt find the thread it was for, and even if i did, its probably dead thread.
Jews cast doubt on origin of anti-Semitic flyers in Donetsk
http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Jews-cast-doubt-on-origin-of-anti-Semitic-flyers-in-Donetsk-349848
[looks like everyone is hitler… and no one is anything else as each side tries to smear the other side with the skinnerian established meme]
return to the scotch thread..
Tryzub Scotland
http://www.tryzubscotland.com/
Welcome to the home page of Tryzub Scotland.The Tryzub, or trident, is the national emblem of Ukraine.This website and blog is dedicated to the history of the Ukrainian diaspora in Scotland. Ukrainians arrived in this small country from many directions during the twentieth century.
For a bit of innocent fun, I recommend the BBC series from the early 2000’s, “The Monarch of the Glen,” about a family trying to hold on to their highland estate. It’s sort of the love child of Masterpiece Theatre and Arrested Development, with a Scots brogue (fortunately subtitled!).
My family name, Irons, was the Scots word for “swords.” I always joke that the Scots beat their swords not into plowshares, but rather into golf clubs!
Jamie Irons
Ymasakar: “J. was the temper manifest only in your younger days? Since I get the impression you mellowed out later in life, from your anecdotes.”
With age comes wisdom. Long story short, in my 50s I spent some time with an anger management counselor. He taught me to get in touch with the anger and to channel it in more acceptable ways.
For me, I eventually figured out that anger was being wasted on people.
Since on the internet, there’s a certain hard limit to what can be escalated.