The Charm In Scotch

1895

I wonder if persons who can write Scotch are sufficiently aware of the great literary advantage they have over writers who are not born to that ability. It is no credit to them that they can do it. It is a gift to nature dropped in their lap. I never heard of any one who learned by artificial means to write Scotch. Scotch writers do it, and no one else. It has long been obvious that the proportion of good writers to the whole Scotch population was exceedingly large, but I do not remember that it has ever been pointed out how much easier it is for a Scotchman to be a good writer than another because of his innate command of the Scotch tongue.

There are such delightful words in that language; words that sing on the printed page wherever their employer happens to drop them in; words that rustle; words that skirl, and words that clash and thump. — Scribner's.