Quote Originally Posted by Jock Scot View Post
thescot.


Oh dear, you really have put me on the spot here! Haggis and Robert Burns are acquired tastes and I have to report that I have singularly failed to acquire the taste of either. So I am most certainly not the chap to ask! Sorry.
I may have to slit my wrists. I am crestfallen. Singularly disappointed and dismayed. Somehow, the world just isn't as bright as it was before, nor will it ever be again.

I confess that I acquired a taste for Burns only after I became an English teacher. Studying the poetry--more than just the usuals of "Mouse" and "Louse" and "My Luve... ' caused me to really admire his work and, dare I say it? (Dare, dare), genius. Then I began to read about his life and work and masonic affiliation, and, well, there you are. As for the haggis, it was love at first bite.

I guess I was thinking that it was the linguistic part of the article that I was hoping you might comment on. That "guid-willie" and "willy-waught" thing.

As to the versions, I copped the words for our program from a site that did have the willy-waught version and just didn't check to see if it was different anywhere else. It is, as mentioned. Apparently the article I stumbled onto was pretty old, 1897 in fact by Wm. Hand Browne, and copyrighted by the Johns Hopkins University Press. It was an article in the journal, Modern Language Notes, vol. vii, no 2. ("You can look it up." Yogi Berra) In fact, you can look it up here: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2919364

I'll put up a copy of the program and photos after the evening, of course. And I shall insist that we sing "guid willie-waught" and not "guid-willie waught." Bwahahahahahahaha.