‘Scots’, ‘Scotch’, and ‘Scottish’

Perhaps you’ve been invited to a Burns Supper party, a gathering in honor of poet Robert Burns, which usually takes place on January 25th and involves the deliberate consumption of both whiskey and haggis. And perhaps to prepare, you have looked up the dictionary to answer the question: What is the difference between scotist, Scotch wineAnd scotist?

That’s a bit complicated. So sorry.

scotist

Each of these words can be defined (as an adjective) as “of or in relation to Scotland or its people” and each word can also be defined (as a noun) as “the language of of the Scots”. However, some uses are more common than others.

Most of you interested in the answer to this question probably hoped that there would be some concise aphorism that you could easily memorize. We will do our best to provide one of these languages, but since we are dealing with Scottish and English, and people can’t even agree on whether these are the same language. language or not, that’s hard.

For example, if you look scotist In this dictionary you will find the following possible meanings:

(adj.) of or relating to Scotland or its people (n.) the English language of Scotland

That seems obvious enough; let’s look at some definitions for Scotch wine:

(adj.) Scots (n.) Scots

That feels a bit… less obvious? Well, let’s look at some definitions for scotist; that would probably clear the whole thing up.

(adj.) of or relating to Scotland or its people (n.) Scots

Therefore each of these words can be defined (as an adjective) as “of or relating to Scotland or its people,” and each can also be defined (as a noun) is “the Scots language.” There is a reason for all of this.

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There is plenty of evidence that each of these three words has been used in these ways over the past few centuries. In other words, enough people have used all three words with each of these meanings for the purpose of forcing us to come up with the same set of definitions (among others) for each of them.

However, evidence suggests that certain uses are more common in Scotland than in North America, so if the preferred Scottish usage is something you need to know for your Burning Dinner, here it is. To be:

scotist commonly used to refer to the dialect of English found in Scotland (although, again, some feel that it is instead a Germanic language related to, but distinct from Older brother).

Scotch wine commonly used in compounds (such as Scotch pine tree or Scotch whiskey) and set the phrase.

scotist is the preferred adjective; in case you are referring to the literature, characters or ancestry of the people of Scotland, it is generally correct to describe them as scotist.

If you still want a short memo to help you understand the difference between these words, you can use the following: If you cannot speak scotistyou can ask you scotist host for a drink Scotch wine whiskey.

Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn

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