Comments on: Scotch http://www.dailywritingtips.com/scotch/ Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:41:25 +0000 hourly 1 By: Warsaw Will http://www.dailywritingtips.com/scotch/comment-page-1/#comment-392025 Warsaw Will Sat, 15 Oct 2011 08:21:53 +0000 http://www.dailywritingtips.com/?p=3875#comment-392025 As an afterthought to cmdweb, English people and Americans will often ask for a (glass of) Scotch. This is very rare amongst Scots, who will almost always ask for a (glass of) whisky. As an afterthought to cmdweb, English people and Americans will often ask for a (glass of) Scotch. This is very rare amongst Scots, who will almost always ask for a (glass of) whisky.

]]> By: cmdweb http://www.dailywritingtips.com/scotch/comment-page-1/#comment-210290 cmdweb Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:53:41 +0000 http://www.dailywritingtips.com/?p=3875#comment-210290 As a Scot, living in Scotland, I'm really pleased to see your post on this subject. One of my pet hates is use of the word 'Scotch' to describe things that are Scottish. In general, Scots isn't used much either, except in reference to language, e.g. The Auld Scots tongue. In Scotland, the word 'Scotch' has come to mean Scotch Whisky and the Scottish Government has recently enacted some controls around the use of the word in reference to whisky. The only other use of 'scotch', this time with a small 's' is in the context of putting an end to something, e.g. scotching a rumour. As a Scot, living in Scotland, I’m really pleased to see your post on this subject. One of my pet hates is use of the word ‘Scotch’ to describe things that are Scottish. In general, Scots isn’t used much either, except in reference to language, e.g. The Auld Scots tongue.
In Scotland, the word ‘Scotch’ has come to mean Scotch Whisky and the Scottish Government has recently enacted some controls around the use of the word in reference to whisky.
The only other use of ‘scotch’, this time with a small ‘s’ is in the context of putting an end to something, e.g. scotching a rumour.

]]> By: Don Maynard http://www.dailywritingtips.com/scotch/comment-page-1/#comment-209728 Don Maynard Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:25:01 +0000 http://www.dailywritingtips.com/?p=3875#comment-209728 I think it was James Joyce who informed me that whiskey comes from the Gaelic "usquebaugh" which means "water of life". Your column reminded me of that and also that "usquebaugh" was the Gaelic translation of "aqua vitae", which was the Latin way of saying water of life. Both meant distilled spirits. Wandering through the Internet, I found that the French had a word for it, too. Well, three words: eau de vie. This, for me, was where the search became interesting. I came across many references to another French phrase supposedly meaning distilled spirits. It was cau de vie. I had never heard of that, so I Googled it with quotes around the words to find exact matches. 15,200 hits. I am no language expert, but I don't think there really is a phrase "cau de vie". Looking through the articles which did contain cau de vie, I found many with exactly the same context and wording, as if they were all quoting the same source. Looking further I think I could have found that original "error". It was an article from the New York Times dated September 20, 1854, titled "The British in France". The error seems to have resulted from the use of OCR (optical character recognition) to translate the scanned copy into ascii characters. Eau de vie became cau de vie and 15,000 people went along with it. The danger of copy and paste. And the extent to which an error can propagate in the clicks of an undiscerning computer user. I think it was James Joyce who informed me that whiskey comes from the Gaelic “usquebaugh” which means “water of life”. Your column reminded me of that and also that “usquebaugh” was the Gaelic translation of “aqua vitae”, which was the Latin way of saying water of life. Both meant distilled spirits. Wandering through the Internet, I found that the French had a word for it, too. Well, three words: eau de vie. This, for me, was where the search became interesting. I came across many references to another French phrase supposedly meaning distilled spirits. It was cau de vie. I had never heard of that, so I Googled it with quotes around the words to find exact matches. 15,200 hits. I am no language expert, but I don’t think there really is a phrase “cau de vie”. Looking through the articles which did contain cau de vie, I found many with exactly the same context and wording, as if they were all quoting the same source. Looking further I think I could have found that original “error”. It was an article from the New York Times dated September 20, 1854, titled “The British in France”. The error seems to have resulted from the use of OCR (optical character recognition) to translate the scanned copy into ascii characters. Eau de vie became cau de vie and 15,000 people went along with it. The danger of copy and paste. And the extent to which an error can propagate in the clicks of an undiscerning computer user.

]]> By: Davin de Kergommeaux http://www.dailywritingtips.com/scotch/comment-page-1/#comment-209611 Davin de Kergommeaux Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:47:35 +0000 http://www.dailywritingtips.com/?p=3875#comment-209611 While the two spellings of whiskey often identify the origin of the spirit, as you state in your footnote, this is by no means always the case, nor does it necessarily hold in the world of whiskey. As you undoubtedly are aware there are at least five popular brands of whisky made and sold in the USA which use the whisky rather than the whiskey spelling on their labels. In Canada, we now seem to have settled on the no-e spelling but I can assure you this was not always the case. At least into the 1960's and probably much more recently than that we used both spellings on our labels. We still do, from time to time, and we still use both spellings regularly in the press. If you look at Charles MacLean's World Whisky, published in Oct 2009 you can find a picture of Hirsch Canadian Whiskey on page 277. It's made in Canada. In Ireland, both spellings were common on whisky labels right up into the 1970's and the move to a single spelling was based more on the fact that all but one Irish distillery went out of business so a single spelling was defaulted to rather than chosen. Here is an article I published a couple of years ago on the maltmaniacs web-site about the confusion caused by those who try to give the spelling of whisky more meaning than it has to those who make it. http://www.maltmaniacs.org/malt-109.html#0810 The take-home message? Although there are geographical tendencies, either spelling is correct in any country (or more precisely neither spelling is incorrect in any country). While the two spellings of whiskey often identify the origin of the spirit, as you state in your footnote, this is by no means always the case, nor does it necessarily hold in the world of whiskey. As you undoubtedly are aware there are at least five popular brands of whisky made and sold in the USA which use the whisky rather than the whiskey spelling on their labels.

In Canada, we now seem to have settled on the no-e spelling but I can assure you this was not always the case. At least into the 1960′s and probably much more recently than that we used both spellings on our labels. We still do, from time to time, and we still use both spellings regularly in the press. If you look at Charles MacLean’s World Whisky, published in Oct 2009 you can find a picture of Hirsch Canadian Whiskey on page 277. It’s made in Canada.

In Ireland, both spellings were common on whisky labels right up into the 1970′s and the move to a single spelling was based more on the fact that all but one Irish distillery went out of business so a single spelling was defaulted to rather than chosen.

Here is an article I published a couple of years ago on the maltmaniacs web-site about the confusion caused by those who try to give the spelling of whisky more meaning than it has to those who make it.

http://www.maltmaniacs.org/malt-109.html#0810

The take-home message? Although there are geographical tendencies, either spelling is correct in any country (or more precisely neither spelling is incorrect in any country).

]]> By: Jimmy Jet http://www.dailywritingtips.com/scotch/comment-page-1/#comment-209468 Jimmy Jet Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:53:00 +0000 http://www.dailywritingtips.com/?p=3875#comment-209468 Oh great, now I'm thirsty *and* hungry. Oh great, now I’m thirsty *and* hungry.

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