Getting caught up and caught up fun to say two things at once. Starting to connect the dots, thanks for the link to the previous discusion very informative. It mostly seems a game of linguistics and lexicon of the era and simple mistakes of translation or just assuming things to be there that are just not supportable with better source material.
Could it be that in haste to ban highland dress they wrongly lumped things to gether and purpousely left it ambiguous to allow for greater persicusion of the highland man. This to include plaids (refering to the cloth) and coloured cloths such as tartan patterns.