Peculiarities in a people's phraseology may prove more than we are aware
of, and may tend to illustrate circumstances of national _history_. Thus
many words which would be included by Englishmen under the general term
of Scotticisms, bear directly upon the question of a past intercourse
with France, and prove how close at one time must have been the
influence exercised upon general habits in Scotland by that intercourse.
Scoto-Gallic words were quite differently situated from French words and
phrases adopted in England. With us they proceeded from a real
admixture of the two _peoples_. With us they form the ordinary common
language of the country, and that was from a distant period moulded by
French. In England, the educated and upper classes of late years
_adopted_ French words and phrases. With us, some of our French
derivatives are growing obsolete as vulgar, and nearly all are passing
from fashionable society. In England, we find the French-adopted words
rather receiving accessions than going out of use.
Examples of words such as we have referred to, as showing a French
influence and admixture, are familiar to many of my readers. I recollect
some of them in constant use amongst old-fashioned Scottish people, and
those terms, let it be remembered, are unknown in England.
A leg of mutton was always, with old-fashioned Scotch people, a gigot
(Fr.
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