Tartan evolving into plaid

[wildrover]

Firstly, the word tartan is not Scottish (Gaelic) in origin. You may be surprised to learn that there is no specific Gaelic word for the pattern and it was historically called breacan meaning, amongst other things, speckled or multi-coloured. The use of plaid to mean tartan is an American practice and probably arose when non-Gaelic speakers misunderstood Highlanders referring to their plaid i.e. their clothing, and thought that they meant the pattern. Plaide (pro plaj-a) is the Gaelic spelling and literally means blanket.

Thanks for that explanation, the wearing of a plaide makes a helluva lot more sense now.

Breacan...pronounced like..."bracken"? If so, that would also make sense.

There are more complex aspects concerning the development of the tartan trade and the use of tartan as decoration but there is not space here to go into that.

I'm interested to read more about it, if you're willing to type it.

-Sean