Superstitious:  A correspondent informs me that in some parts of Mid-Lothian the people constantly use the word “superstitious” for “bigoted;” thus, speaking of a very keen Free Church person, they will say, “He is awfu’ supperstitious.”

Kail in England simply expresses cabbage, but in Scotland represents the chief meal of the day.  Hence the old-fashioned easy way of asking a friend to dinner was to ask him if he would take his kail with the family.  In the same usage of the word, the Scottish proverb expresses distress and trouble in a person’s affairs, by saying that “he has got his kail through the reek.”  In like manner haddock, in Kincardineshire and Aberdeenshire, used to express the same idea, as the expression is, “Will ye tak your haddock wi’ us the day?” that fish being so plentiful and so excellent that it was a standing dish.  There is this difference, however, in the local usage, that to say in Aberdeen, Will you take your haddock? implies an invitation to dinner; whilst in Montrose the same expression means an invitation to supper.  Differences of pronunciation also caused great confusion and misunderstanding.  Novels used to be pronounced no_vels_; envy en_vy_; a cloak was a clock, to the surprise of an English lady, to whom the maid said, on her leaving the house, “Mem, winna ye tak the clock wi’ ye?”

The names of children’s diseases were a remarkable item in the catalogue of Scottish words:—­Thus, in 1775, Mrs. Betty Muirheid kept a boarding-school for young ladies in the Trongate of Glasgow, near the Tron steeple.  A girl on her arrival was asked whether she had had smallpox.  “Yes, mem, I’ve had the sma’pox, the nirls[63], the blabs[64], the scaw[65], the kinkhost[66], and the fever, the branks[67] and the worm[68].”

There is indeed a case of Scottish pronunciation which adds to the force and copiousness of our language, by discriminating four words, which, according to English speaking, are undistinguishable in mere pronunciation.  The words are—­wright (a carpenter), to write (with a pen), right (the reverse of wrong), rite (a ceremony).  The four are, however, distinguished in old-fashioned Scotch pronunciation thus—­1, He’s a wiricht; 2, to wireete; 3, richt; 4, rite.

I can remember a peculiar Scottish phrase very commonly used, which now seems to have passed away.  I mean the expression “to let on,” indicating the notice or observation of something, or of some person.—­For example, “I saw Mr. ——­ at the meeting, but I never let on that I knew he was present.”  A form of expression which has been a great favourite in Scotland in my recollection has much gone out of practice—­I mean the frequent use of diminutives, generally adopted either as terms of endearment or of contempt.  Thus it was very common to speak of a person whom you meant rather to undervalue, as a mannie, a boddie, a bit boddie, or a wee bit mannie.  The Bailie in Rob Roy, when he intended to represent his party as persons of no importance, used the expression, “We are bits o’ Glasgow bodies.”