This is a little interruption to my series on canntaireachd. It is not altogether unrelated. Keith Sanger recently sent me a cutting from The Scotsman that set me thinking. Dastaram gu seinnim pìob (PS 91) literally means ‘I am seized by passion to sing the pipe’, or ‘Hurrah that I sing the pipe!’, or possibly ‘I am mad about singing the pipe’. In any case, […]
Gaelic
Sorley’s Black Dog
The children’s game ‘Telephone’ (called ‘Chinese whispers’ in the UK) can have hilarious results. It works best when the seed phrase is unexpected. The same is true in oral transmission: bigger changes occur when the model is unfamiliar. If no template exists in the listener’s memory, then the closest fit can produce a laugh. The prize for the funniest garbling of a pibroch name […]