I am currently corresponding with a gent who lives in Scotland....I said that I am always careful to say someone is a Scot or is Scottish, and NOT Scotch. Here is his answer; "Quite right Sandra, Scotch as a drink and a few others like 'Scotch Mist', but WE are Scots or Scottish, NEVER Scotch! -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.2/370 - Release Date: 6/20/2006

"Quite right Sandra, Scotch as a drink and a few others like 'Scotch Mist', but WE are Scots or Scottish, NEVER Scotch! I wouldn't call a Scot "Scotch". I recognize and am proud of my Scottish roots in four grandparents traced back to PA in the 1700's, and in almost every branch of my family tree despite many having living in Ireland for some generations before they emigrated. That said, Scotch-Irish is a commonly used term that I know to be generally applied to certain waves of immigrants in a context of genealogy and US history. I don't believe it's a slur or an insult in current usage or in the common usage for the last hundred years or more. Yet the term seems to be one that trips up conversational usage and distracts from the conversation at hand even though we all know what is meant by the usage, and many seem to suggest it's a uniquely American term used incorrectly only by ignorant Americans. That simply isn't so. It has quite a record of historical usage outside of the US also. I realize that in general the term Scotch is widely misused to apply to Scots and that it could be seemed as offensive to some, even though I doubt it is intended that way by most that use it. But when used as a modifier to identify those Scots who emigrated to Ireland but retained their Scottish heritage I don't think it's a slur or an incorrect usage, especially given that this has been used that way for over 500 years now. I don't think George Washington meant it harshly or as a slur when he said, at Valley Forge: "If all else fails, I will retreat up the valley of Virginia, plant my flag on the Blue Ridge, rally around the Scotch-Irish of that region, and make my last stand for liberty amongst a people who will never submit to British tyranny whilst there is a man left to draw a trigger." Then there's the society founded in 1889, The Scotch-Irish Society of the United States of America, which hasn't yet seen fit to change their name. See http://www.rootsweb.com/~sisusa/ This site suggests there's even a 16th century English historical context for the term Scotch-Irish: http://www.scotchirish.net/What%20about%20the%20name.php4 and it notes: "But the first to use the term, Scotch-Irish, was Queen Elizabeth as far back as 1573 when in a manifesto she said "....We are given to understand that a nobleman names "Sorely Boy," and others, who be of the Scotch-Irish race, and some of the wild Irish, at this time are content to acknowledge our true and mere right to the country of Ulster and the Crown of Ireland...." Its obvious from this that the Scotch Irish as a people have been recognized to have existed some 500 years ago." The link above goes into historical references in the 1600's, 1700's, and attempts in the 1800's to claim that this was a uniquely American term. It isn't, and I can't bring myself to believe that there's any great controversy over the usage. I just checked a 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica and find the term used in over 20 articles there. Consider the 288 books with Scotch-Irish in the title found at Amazon.com, some published as recently as the last decade. Scotch-Irish is also found in about 1,860,000 web pages. Obviously the term is not going to go away and remains in common usage despite any protests from Scots or others. Personally I don't think it matters much, especially if it gets in the way of getting past a word that may be mis-used to find anything that might help us with research. Labels serve a purpose, and even mis-used labels convey useful information. Quaker was a term originally used in scorn that has become accepted as a commonly used label even by the Society of Friends. So I'm not going to pretend that the term Scotch-Irish in reference to genealogy and a migration of specific peoples hasn't been an acknowledged, if not widely used term, for well over 5 centuries, especially when it comes to citing books that used the term long before I was born. And, back to Scotch, while Scots may protest it the use of the term to apply to Scottish has persisted and is found in dictionaries even as the primary definition of the word, in some cases above the use of the word to apply to a drink. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. NOUN: 1. (used with a pl. verb) The people of Scotland. 2. Scots English. 3. Scotch whisky. ADJECTIVE: 1. Scottish. See Usage Note at Scottish. 2. Tight with one's money; frugal. ETYMOLOGY: Contraction of Scottish. I checked 4 or 5 dictionaries and all include the definition in some form and only two noted that the term may be considered offensive by Scots. One of those, Dictionary.com, even goes into the history and explains that at one time the term was even used in Scotland but then fell in disfavor: "Usage Note: Scottish is the full, original form of the adjective. Scots is an old Scottish variant. Scotch is an English contraction of Scottish that came into use in Scotland as well for a time (as in Burns's "O thou, my Muse! guid auld Scotch drink!") but subsequently fell into disfavor there. In the interest of civility, forms involving Scotch are best avoided in reference to people; designations formed with Scots are most common (Scot, Scotsman, or Scotswoman), but those involving the full form Scottish are sometimes found in more formal contexts. Scotch-Irish is the most commonly used term for the descendants of Scots who migrated to North America, but lately Scots-Irish has begun to gain currency among those who know that Scotch is considered offensive in Scotland. There is, however, no sure rule for referring to things, since the history of variation in the use of these words has left many expressions in which the choice is fixed, such as Scotch broth, Scotch whisky, Scottish rite, and Scots Guards." I honestly didn't even realize that there might be any offense taken in the use of the term, and I've heard the common comeback jokes about how Scots aren't drinks thousands of times and always assumed that was intended with a sense of humor more than a sense of outrage. I lived in San Francisco for a decade and there are similar responses to the use of the term Frisco such as Ogden Nash's "May I boil in oil: And fry in Crisco: If I ever call: San Francisco 'Frisco'." I suspect you could find many examples like this that may irk some people but aren't likely to incite a bar brawl if the words are met with jokes in response protesting them. But back to the Scotch-Irish, I can see no other simpler way to describe the ancestors, such as my own, who were of a strong Scottish heritage despite generations in Ireland before emigrating. So I think it's fairly silly to ignore the historical use of the word and to insist on use of the term Scots-Irish, especially in regard to an article from 1926 that uses Scotch-Irish. That said, I'd like to again cite the fine article on early Scotch-Irish settlers in PA, as many may have missed it buried in the lengthy response about Baileys. There's a wealth of info including names and dates of early settlers and historical divisions of some of the townships and counties many of us are focused on researching. Call it what you will, but please take a look: http://www.horseshoe.cc/pennadutch/people/scotirish/scotrish.htm Here's another good site I found that covers the migrations from Ulster circa 1718 and includes a petition list where I find a few familiar names on including some from my tree: http://1718migration.org.uk/s_background.asp

My background on my dad's side is Scottish and he brought us up the same way - "Scotch" is a drink (or, living in Minnesota, a tape!). Vicky Munro Sandra Ferguson wrote: > I am currently corresponding with a gent who lives in Scotland....I said > that I am always careful to say someone is a Scot or is Scottish, and > NOT Scotch. Here is his answer; > "Quite right Sandra, > Scotch as a drink and a few others like 'Scotch Mist', but WE are > Scots or Scottish, NEVER Scotch! > > > > -- Vicky Munro University of Minnesota Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) 325 Johnston Hall 101 Pleasant St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 612-625-3853 munro001@umn.edu