Help with a kilt!!!!!
Jack Campin
> My wife ordered [a kilt] from Geoffrey Taylor in Scotland with the "whole
> nine Yards"
Urban legend alert. There is an American folk belief that their phrase "the
whole nine yards" (which means something like "thoroughly") comes from the
amount of cloth needed to make a kilt.
Since:
- the phrase is totally unknown in Scotland with whatever meaning
- there is no common belief here about how much fabric goes into a kilt
- probably less than 1% of Scots own a kilt anyway
this doesn't seem very likely. I'd guess it comes from some piece of
folklore relating to American football.
--
-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
TEL: 031 449 5111 ext 4192 FAX: 031 451 3431 INTERNET: ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk
JANET: possibly backwards BITNET: via UKACRL BANG!net: via mcsun & uknet
Shawn Mehan
|> ch...@novell.com (Chip Clark) wrote:
|> > My wife ordered [a kilt] from Geoffrey Taylor in Scotland with the "whole
|> > nine Yards"
|>
|> Urban legend alert. There is an American folk belief that their phrase "the
|> whole nine yards" (which means something like "thoroughly") comes from the
|> amount of cloth needed to make a kilt.
|>
|> Since:
|>
|> - the phrase is totally unknown in Scotland with whatever meaning
|>
|> - there is no common belief here about how much fabric goes into a kilt
|>
|> - probably less than 1% of Scots own a kilt anyway
|>
|> this doesn't seem very likely. I'd guess it comes from some piece of
|> folklore relating to American football.
To be fair, I have never heard anyone suggest that the whole 9 yards
was from anything but football, let alone from kilt manufacture. Sounds
to me like the americans you got this from are what the Scots that I know
call "Professional Scots" !->. You know the type, they wear 3-5 different
tartans at once, all of them traceable in their family ancestry, go to
dinner parties where they all get to play dress up. Seems kind of
silly that you would get the expression from anything but american
football in this country where it is so widely known about.
-Shawn
Chip Clark
>
>To be fair, I have never heard anyone suggest that the whole 9 yards
>was from anything but football, let alone from kilt manufacture.
thing - (here refering to the sporan, kilt, socks, garter flashes, ect)
I deeply appologize for attempting to make a joke that was completely missed
by those outside of the USA.
>Sounds to me like the americans you got this from are what the Scots
>call "Professional Scots" !->. You know the type, they wear 3-5 different
>tartans at once, all of them traceable in their family ancestry, go to
>dinner parties where they all get to play dress up.
I do not wear any tarten besides the clan MacDuff - nor any clan badges
or anything of the sort. If my pride in my ancestry is an affront to
true Scot's I am sorry and perhaps I should rethink the wearing of the
colors. I do not wear them to be laughed at, but rather to show pride
in who may ancestors are. My linage can be traced to the MacDuff clan
which is the oldest surviving clan in Scotland - of which I take GREAT
pride.
Perhaps those in Scotland should express to me how they feel about
American's "Playing Dress Up" so that I can be assured that my want to
be affiliated with thier country and kin is not considered a slap in the
face - but rather a complement to their culture.
-----------------------------------------------------
Don't ge me wrong, I have a sense of humor. And I like to make jokes (or
laugh at other's jokes) as much as the next person. But I do not think
it is fair to make someone the brunt of a joke - intentional or otherwise.
So, if Scot's feel I am (by wearing the clan colors) making their history
a joke, I would like to know.
Chip Clark
cmc...@novell.com
Shawn Mehan
I was pushing for two points. 1)That the local experts I talked to
said that it was perfectly alright and even common practice for
a member of clan A to wear clan B tartan. I do not have to be a MacDuff
to wear Macduff and the vice versa. 2)I am not even remotely suggesting
that all americans are playing "Dress Up". I am simply saying that
there are many, many twits out there who simply want to wear a kilt
because they think it is cool, which in itself is fine. But when they
think they are actually being true to form, it makes some Scots wince.
A case in ppoint; Some friends from Scotland attended the Grandfather
mountain Highland games for the first time recently, games which the
promoters say are used as models in Scotland (I kid you not, this was
in a TV documentary). The people in question were all Scots and went in jeans,
while there were several hundred non-Scots, all in splendid tartan, usually
several at once. Women walking around in kilts, which I was told is not
the way to go, rather women should wear kilted skirts or a tartan over
the shoulder. A great many of these people were SCA (Society for Creative
Anachronism) and walking about with their own trusty Al claymo/r.
At the same time, there were a lot of good, well meaning people there
and many people learned a good deal that was acurate and had a good time.
I recently went to an American Scottish society event at a presb.
college here in N. Carolina. What I found was a lot of rich old
people (avg age ~55, stddev 15 yrs. My wife and I were two of 4 people
under ~35 who were not staff of the college. There were some 100 attendants).
Most of the old people there were wearing things that the Scots I went with
said would never be done in a formal situation in Scotland. One of the other
young people, he was ~25, came in obviously inspired by the picture of
bonnie P. Charlie on the Walker's shortbread package. He was wearing
7 different tartans and Jacobitean (sp?) style dress. This the stuff
I term "Dress Up".
Also, I recently posted about the original use of the tartan. I spaced
and put down bardach as being the word, but that was all wrong. In hopes that
this might interest some of you without access to Dwelly's, here is an excerpt:
breacan, -ain, pl. -an, s.m. Highland plaid. 2. Tartan. Parti-coloured
cloth was used by the Celts from the earliest times but the variety of
colours in the _breacan_ was greater or less, according to the rank
of the wearer. That of the ancient kings had seven colours, that of the druids
six, and that of the nobles four. In the days of Martin that tartans seemed
to be used to distinguish the inhabitants of different districts, and not
the members of different families as at present. He expressly says that the
inhabitants of the various islands were not all dressed alike, but that the
setts and colours of the various tartans varied from isle to isle. As he
does not mention the use of a special pattern by each family, it would appear
that such a distinction is a modern one, and taken from the ancient custom
of a tartan for each district, the family or clan originally most numerous
in each part eventually adopting as their distinctive clan tartan tha tartan
of such district. Martin's information was not based on hearsay, he was born
in Skye and reared in the midst of Highland customs.[Faclair Ga\idhlig Gu
Beurla Le Dealbhan, Dwelly, pg 117]
Sla\n
-Shawn
Jack Campin
> ch...@novell.com (Chip Clark) writes:
>> [...] if Scots feel I am (by wearing the clan colors) making their history
>> a joke, I would like to know.
> I am not even remotely suggesting that all americans are playing "Dress Up".
> I am simply saying that there are many, many twits out there who simply want
> to wear a kilt because they think it is cool, which in itself is fine. But
> when they think they are actually being true to form, it makes some Scots
> wince.
On top of this, most Americans don't really get the social meaning of kilts
here. There are, as I see it, three main ways the things are worn:
- very casually with none of the fancy trimmings, either just with a plain
leather sporran or maybe a nylon bum-bag, and usually a sweater, hiking
socks and Doc Martens. Some people use this as genuine work clothing (for
forestry, etc) but it's also often adopted as an urban image. Goes with an
up-yours working-class identity and a sticker on your chest opposing water
privatization. The tartan is likely to be army surplus Black Watch.
- the whole bit with the black jacket, tasselled sporran and topaz-handled
knife in your sock, as worn to a wedding or a graduation party. A lot of
middle-class Scots have done this but they'll usually hire the gear for the
occasion.
- something in between with the topaz-handled knife but a tweed jacket, as
daily clothing rather than for special occasions. This can mean one of
two things: upper-class Tory bampot(*) or right-wing nationalist bampot(*).
The Scottish aristocracy likes to ponce around in this gear. This tends
to be what Americans get sold on, since publications aimed at the Scottish
diaspora love to promote an image of Scotland as a fantasy-novel society
where commoners and aristocracy live in an idyll of social peace. In fact
an American adopting this dress code is signifying alignment with a class
the great majority of Scots have regarded with loathing and disgust ever
since the Highland Clearances. Even the far-right element in the Scottish
National Party that goes for this image and its associated cultural politics
is minute; the SNP members campaigning with their IT'S SCOTLAND'S WATER
banner on Saturday mornings where I live in the East End of Glasgow would
never dream of wearing kilts, they know how it would alienate people. I've
literally never seen anyone in a kilt on the street within a mile of my
flat in the six or seven years I've lived there.
(*) "bampot", or "bam" for short, means something like
"self-important obsessionally deluded fruitcake".
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