Alexander McCall Smith, prolific author of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, describes his adopted hometown. Read more O Thou who kindly dost provide For every creature's want! We bless Thee, God of Nature wide, For all thy goodness lent. And, if it please Thee, heavenly Guide, May never worse be sent; But, whether granted or denied, Lord bless us with content. JK Rowling wrote all of her Harry Potter novels while living in Scotland, and still lives in Edinburgh. Read more Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse. Some hae meat, and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat And sae the Lord be thankit.

Whether you’re hosting a Burns’ Supperor would like a pithy poem to share with your friends over a dram, there is a toast for everyone.If he wants to find out what many of these famous Scots looked like, our English friend could visit the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, the first institution of its kind in the world. Here's a bottle and an honest man! What wad ye wish for mair, man? Wha kens, before his life may end, What his share may be o' care, man? Properly conducted the toasts at a Burns supper can save the day, but they must be entertaining otherwise the sated company will become somnolent. The personal weblog of Grant Barrett, editor of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a collection of words from the fringes of English. A compendium of knowledge gleaned from seemingly endless scholarly pursuits in the wild. (Or: Things I learned as a field biologist.)

There are of course many toasts at a Burns supper but for me the one that captures the sentiments of the night are the lines taken from Burns' most famous poem, Tam O' Shanter: May you go forth with the splendor of fire, with the speed of lightning, with the swiftness of wind; Macbeth] is historically set in a place depicted by Shakespeare as brutal and violent, incredibly superstitious, and that's something that I do believe is Scottish." What was the source from which gay and gey came? French gai, which meant and still means ‘happy, cheerful’, and a variety of extended senses. The history before that is surprisingly complicated but apparently involves Old High German. Yes, even the Old High Germans could be happy. And the French of course know quite well how to be happy. The interjection o gai or just gai can be heard in some French folk songs such as “En montant la rivière” and even the Breton “Tri martolod.”

If a Frenchman goes on about seagulls, trawlers and sardines, he’s called a philosopher. I’d just be called a short Scottish bum talking crap.” Dundee poet William Topaz McGonagall (1825-1902) is widely considered one of the worst poets of all time. Read more Today has been Rabbie Burns Day, the 257 th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, the poet. I did not have haggis (my wife can’t abide it), but I’m having a wee (or not-so-wee) dram of Scotch as I write this. I’m celebrating, but more about that anon. I’d like to toast dear Rabbie with a toast that was probably written after he was under the turf: Here’s tae us! Wha’s like us? Gey few, and they’re a’ deid! Nowhere can an Englishman turn to escape the ingenuity of the Scots. To see if there’s anything they didn’t invent, he looks up Encyclopaedia Britannica, first published in Edinburgh by Scottish publishers and writers in 1768.

Renton (played by Ewan McGregor) expresses strong views in the film adaptation of Irvine Welsh's classic Edinburgh novel, Trainspotting. Read more Sir Alexander Gray (1882-1968) was an economist and poet, a particularly Scottish combination of professions. Read more The proper drinking of Scotch whisky is more than indulgence; it is a toast to a civilisation, a tribute to the continuity of culture, a manifesto of man's determination to use the resources of nature to refresh mind and body and enjoy to the full the senses with which he has been endowed."He is then assisted by the world’s most famous detective agency which bears the name of its founder, Allan Pinkerton of the Gorbals in Glasgow. A Pinkerton detective arrives to examine fingerprints, first suggested for crime forensics by Henry Faulds of Beith, Ayrshire. The monthly online magazine that brings language- and linguistics-focused stories and research to the masses. He tries hypnotherapy because he doesn’t want to be unconscious, the father of hypnotism in medicine being James Braid of Portmoak, Kinross-shire. Eventually he goes under anaesthetic, which was developed by Sir James Young Simpson of Bathgate, Scotland.