Why are Scottish words so funny?

sporran
haggis
spurtle
jaw-box (for ice-box)
forebye

and countless more. Some are Lowland Scots, which is really a Germanic language, and some are Highland Scots, which is Celtic.

We emigrated before the Scottish Nationalist movement got underway, so it is not politically incorrect to call the people Scotch. We applied it to the people as well as to that wonderful Glenfiddich!

Sporran, for example, is from the Gaelic, which might make it sound 'funny'. Are these words actually funny, or just unusual (unless you're Scottish)?

Some of them don't sound strange to me at all, because I've used them all my life. Some are useful, not having an exact (standard) English equivalent. I like 'gallus', for example.

Online Scots Dictionary

Bless your heart, NNN! That online dic just answered one of the things I've often wondered about!

quote:

The tag e is often added to questions and requests.

Lat me pit ma coat on e?
Let me put my coat on, won't you? It's no ower muckle, e?
It's not too big, is it?
We ken him gey an weel nou, e?
We know him quite well now, don't we?
Ye are takkin her til the picturs, e no?
You're taking her to the cinema, aren't you?
Pit the kist doun thare e?
Put the chest down there, won't you?
Be guid tae ma dochter e?
Be good to my daughter, won't you?

I pieced it together with a comment an American friend made once: that the Canadian pronunciation of 'about' and 'roof' sounded vaguely Scottish!

And now, I know where the Canadian 'eh?' at the end of sentences comes from!

Because the Canadian experience, much more than the American, was basically three founding peoples: French, Scots, English. In that order.

Mmm. So what then is the derivation of that big roundabout changeover at the junction between the A1 and the A66 towards Penrith known as "Scotch Corner"? It's miles from Scotland, but what else can be the reason for the name?

Maybe in the old days a bootlegger did business there? And had a still out back? And you could smell bad Scotch for miles around?

Or if it's on the way to London, maybe that's how far south the Scots got in 1746 - the end of the last rebellion?

Just speculating.

If I remember rightly, it is called Scotch Corner because it's the junction where the road splits to go to either east or west scotland. Something like that.

quote:

Originally posted by Jenny Roberts:
If I remember rightly, it is called Scotch Corner because it's the junction where the road splits to go to either east or west scotland. Something like that.

Exactly. A local guide book explains that the place was once an important stop for stagecoaches.The road there divided. One road, heading North, was the main road to Edinburgh and the other headed West to Stainmore, into Cumberland, and thence up into the West of Scotland.The junction was like a a corner, West/North, and so termed "Scotch" corner.

So the "Scotch" bit really is to do with Scotland. Most interesting Though it's so far from that fair country that I find it an odd name - in spite of the seemingly incontrovertible evidence that such is the case. Others more local to the area will tell me how far it is from there to Scotland, but I'd guess it's a fair distance up to the border.
Coincidentally, I drove down the A1 last week, and sadly (for me)there was no need to circumvent the old roundabout I remember from the old days. Oh no, for the road avoids that particular bottleneck now, and you can keep on all the way down to the M62 and beyond. But I still wondered about the derivation of the name as I wended my way southwards, and now, at last, I know. Thanks Fred.