The Caledonian Mercury: “Scotland’s first truly online newspaper”. Plus, Useful Scots Words.

I’ve just discovered a “new” Scottish online newspaper that’s been around for nearly 3 years but which I hadn’t heard of until yesterday. It’s the Caledonian Mercury, which was launched in January 2010. Their Heritage pages include a section on Useful Scots Words that looks very tempting. I discovered the Caledonian Mercury itself (I wonder …

Empty-nest syndrome – a linguistic side-effect

I became an “empty-nester” when my daughter moved away in September to attend Leeds College of Music. Harry, our son, had left two years earlier. So lots of changes — emotional changes and practical ones too (for example, loading up the washing machine far less often and struggling to get to 30 items to qualify for …

Nouning and verbing: an ask too far?

It’s been a while since I wrote about my (and your) favourite or least favourite words. But at Glasgow’s State of the City Economy Conference last week (9 Nov), some of the buzzwords and -phrases used by the speakers set my teeth on edge. And then I read a Macmillan Dictionary blog post on nouning and verbing, so …

Creative printing

This is great fun. For anyone who’s got old printer/fax/scanner hardware kicking around. All you need is a bit of creativity. Brother ‘Printer Orchestra’ by Chris Cairns from Partizan on Vimeo. Disclosure: having tried — and not at all liked — Canon and then Brother, I’m delighted and very relieved to be back with Epson. …

Glasgow’s times present: international ambitions, but we won’t speak your language

I attended Glasgow’s 15th State of the City Economy Conference today. There was a lot of talk about the importance of global marketing, exports, tourism, international financial services: international business, in short. There was talk too about education, training and skills, from school to college to university to apprenticeships. But not one word about the …

Glasgow’s times past

Looking for “doon the watter” links for my “Coping with Sandy” post, I discovered an amazing blog for anyone living in, from or interested in Glasgow. It’s called “Glasgow History” and describes the “Achievements and Archive Photographs of this Great Scottish City”. Glasgow’s politicians and planners have done unforgivable damage to the city and in …

Coping with Sandy: Hunkering and coorie-ing

Merriam-Webster’s “Trend Watch” reported a spike in lookups of the word “hunker” in the run-up to Hurricane (Superstorm?) Sandy. They give this CNN headline as an example: “From Maine to South Carolina, states hunker down for storm.” Here’s the definition of hunker, from the Online Etymology Dictionary: hunker (v.) “to squat, crouch,” 1720, Scottish, of uncertain …