Comments on: Robert Burns on memory

By: Dave’s Whiteboard » Blog Archive » Start next year with this year

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:29:03 +0000

[...] getting a jump on all those New Year’s Eve posts today by bringing back my guide to enjoying Auld Lang Syne, complete with an updated demo (by Eddi [...]

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:19:19 +0000

Ken, you can hardly go wrong starting off the year wi oor Rab.

I’d like to have a birthday party for him. It doesn’t have to be the whole Burns Night shebang; just an excuse for old friends to get together. Thinking about Scotland couldn’t hurt, of course. As Robin Laing sings

I’d willing lose
Our culture, or most of it
Including that mess
Called ‘full Highland dress’
With the whole ethnic bit
With haggis on Hogmanay
I’d gladly dispense
But leave us our glens–
Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, and also Glenmorangie
I prefer it to Cointreau, which I find too orange-y.

By: Ken Allan

Ken Allan — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 09:36:21 +0000

Weel Dave,

Aye’n Mairi can fair sing a braw line – that’ll dae fine tae. Thanks fur thone.

Here’s tae ye, wha’s like ye, damn few, an’ thir aw’ deed!

Awra best furra New Year.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:20:53 +0000

Down home, people don’t say gie’s, but “give us” is all over the place: “Hey, Buddy, give us a tune.” In voices like your grandfather’s, we see up time’s river into the past.

As for Scotland, well, is ann den aon chlò an cathdath ( “the tartan is all of the one stuff”). Blianadh bha uhr for 2009 to you and the parents.

By: Janet Clarey

Janet Clarey — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:04:21 +0000

Thanks for this. My parents are Scottish and still speak with a mild brogue. When my grandfather visited it would be something like “You twa gie’s a hand and watch your heeds.” Of course, we’d laugh, but we did watch our heads.