The Scottish body politic has ignored my suggestion that we debate independence only on a Tuesday.
Mark my words, there will be severe outbreaks of referendumitis and electoral ennui before we get to voting day on September 18 next year. Especially if the debate is only about money.
This Tuesday, let's talk about language. After independence we will obviously not want English as our official tongue. It will be Scottish. (Not Scots, of which more later.)
Nor even Scottish English, as the way we speak up here is also described. Scottish will be very similar to Anglish, the native tongue of those who live in Angleland. As you know the Angles were a horde of illegal immigrants from Germany who came over and stole all the early Britons' jobs and houses in the days when there was no UK Borders Agency or Conservative government to do anything about it. There were also Saxons and Jutes with many of the latter coming to Dundee to work.
Scottish will be like Anglish but much more expressive because it will have words such as dreich, drouthy, and daftie. Guid auld Scots will come into the linguistic mainstream and will not just be for tea towels in gift shops. English gowks are aye complaining about not understanding what Scottish folk say so let's gie them more about which to be dumfoonert.
With native Scots more prominent and encouraged in daily use we can resist the temptation to elevate this leid business to an official second language. Not that I have anything against braid Scots.Well done, by the way, to those naturists who gathered in Dunoon at the weekend for a naked Burns supper. I hope they had a right good willie waught. And their hurdies were like distant hills. Please fill in your own Burnsian anatomical allusions.
There will be a lot of snobbery at the thocht of us speaking Scottish. According to Wikipedia, "Scottish Standard English is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with focused broad Scots at the other- there is a shift to Scottish English in formal situations or with individuals of a higher social status". Apparently, we're no better thigither.
*A random thought: Instead of a trial run for Mrs Thatcher's funeral, couldn't they just have buried her in the early hours of yesterday morning? Life is not a rehearsal.
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