Scots/Scotch

[John Dunn]

My 20 centisimi's worth on certain topics that came up over the week-end.

The adjective 'scotch' never qualifies the noun 'whiskey', only 'whisky' (i.e. scotch whisky, but Irish whiskey.  Don't ask me why).  It also occurs in a few other phrases: scotch broth, scotch mist, scotch snap, scotch pancake (the last rarely used in Scotland, where the said item of food is known, logically enough, simply as a pancake).  I suspect that the objection to the use of Scotch as a general adjective arises from the perception that it is an Anglicism and hence, more or less by definition, pejorative.  It may also be connected to attempts by the Scots to rid themselves of a certain image of 'Scotchness' portrayed by certain performers, such as Sir Harry Lauder, in the early years of the last century.   

In answer to Deborah Hoffman, there are (or were) several derogatory phrases including the word Irish, e.g. Irish compliment (i.e. a back-handed compliment), an Irishman's rise (an adjustment in pay that turns out on close examination to amount to a reduction).  These have largely fallen out of use, partly because they are offensive, but also because of an increasing realisation in the age of the 'Celtic tiger' that the stereotype they reproduce does not reflect reality.

Will Ryan is, of course, wrong when he suggests that Yorkshiremen are associated with meanness.  The Yorkshireman is throughout the known universe a by-word for open-hearted generosity, as reflected in the saying:
See all, hear all, say nowt;
Et all, sup all, pay nowt. 
And if thi ivver does owt for nowt, do it for thisen.

I would also disagree, albeit more tentatively, with Will Ryan's suggestion that the Don Cossacks were Russian-speaking.  Their distinctive speech, as reproduced in, for example, Tikhij Don, and as used at the beginning of the 1970s by the at least some of the older generation of those who considered themselves Don Cossacks, seems to me to be a heavily russified form of Ukrainian.  Presumably the Cossacks of the Don and elsewhere were not required to and did not define themselves (or their language) in terms of Russian and Ukrainian until the implementation of the Soviet nationalities policy, by which time it was probably more expedient, as well as being administratively more convenient, to align their language with Russian.

Finally, for an introductory course in New Moscow Russian, you may care to look at:

<http://rutube.ru/tracks/823927.html?v15376c0f749e8147b6a1e8eb33fec1>

John Dunn.

John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it

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