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From: "Diana" <>
Subject: Re: [WIG LIST] pronunciation of McGeoch
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 16:44:04 -0000
References: <20040127123035.EHGS16066.mta02-svc.ntlworld.com@[62.253.8.149]>


----- Original Message -----
From: "bill.copland" <>
To: <>
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 12:29 PM
Subject: [WIG LIST] pronunciation of McGeoch

Sorry Bill, an unfortunate choice of word I used. I do apologise.No offence
intended to anyone. How can I make amends.?Perhaps "local pronunciation"
would have been better.
Each of my grandchildren in primary school in Stranraer at some stage has
learned a poem "in the style" of Robert Burns.
Diana


> Hi there
>
> The pronunciation of the surname McGeoch as M'G-yoch is not 'slang'. It
is
> the way it has been traditionally pronounced in Galloway for generations,
> and it is still the way that the older residents of Galloway pronounce it.
> There was an article in the newsletter of the D&G FHS concerning a very
> eminent and respectable dynasty of Galloway McGeochs in Glasgow, and they
> still insist on using the traditional pronounciation.
>
> Sadly, an increasing number of the younger generation in Galloway use the
> pronunciatin M'Gee-uch.
>
> Readers will thus realise that Ian McClumpha and I come from the older
> generation, while Diana is obviously just a wee young thing.
>
> This is not the only example of traditional pronunciation dying out. As a
> wee boy I spent my summer holidays with my grandfathers in Stranraer and
> Wigtown, and everybody I met pronounced the names McDowall and McKeand as
> Ma-Dole and M'K-yand, but now they have become Mc-Dow-al and M'Keend.
>
> This co-incided with a period in the 1950's and 60's when it was
considered
> socially uncouth and educationally unacceptable for people to use
> traditional scots words in polite society or in schools and universites.
> Sadly, it was our schools and schoolteachers that caused the greatest
> undermining of the traditional scots tongue. The novelist McIlvanney
often
> recounts how he was belted by a primary teacher in the 1950's for using
the
> scots word 'sheuch' in the classroom. One of my own primary teachers
would
> go apopleptic if any of the pupils used such common scots words as 'aye'
or
> 'wee'.
>
> One unfortunate result of this is that most scots under the age of 40 have
> trouble understanding the works of Robert Burns and other Scottish
writers.
> Ironically, our educationalists have now realised that the traditional
> language of the Scottish Lowlands is under serious threat, and
> schoolteachers are now being encouraged to include aspects of what is
called
> 'Lallans' into the curriculum in primary schools and in secondary school
> english departments.
>
> Cheers
>
> Bill
>
>
>
>
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