My sister here in Brisbane where our temperatures just now range between 20 °C and 30 °C commented recently, when it was feeling a bit coolish relatively speaking, that she could have got a 'foonerin' ......... as in 'got a chill or worse from the cold weather'. Does the word 'foonerin' ring a bell with anyone else? I understand that it is from the word 'founder' as in 'to perish or be benumbed with cold'. It is an interesting old Scottish word and I am curious as to how wide spread it was or is still used. In the older Scots language there was a tendency to drop the 'd' at the end of words and the 'ou' was pronounced as 'oo' hence 'fooner' from 'founder'. Sam Heron

It won't surprise me if noone here can answer this question. It's rather on ancient history. I want to account for the sudden explosion of a particular M284 (Y DNA I2b1a) haplotype in Scotland around 300 AD. Not asking for help with the genetics, only the history. M284 may be indigenous to Britain and certainly was in England at that point. Its pattern suggests that it spread to Scotland from England. THen a single haplotype suddenly exploded there, allegedly 1700 years ago. I don't think they can have that 300 AD date exactly pinned down. On the Internet I found a vague reference to a famine in Scotland stretching from 100 BC to 300 AD, followed by a sudden population explosion, which certainly fits with the behavior of this subclade. But the only specific information I can find is data collected by the Romans on the weather. There were intermittent extreme weather and famines all over Eurasia, but these did not focus on that time period or on Scotland. There were atleast two major volcanic eruptions someplace, one thinks most likely Iceland, during that time, that caused red rain or red snow. These events did not affect the weather for more time than you'd expect them to. (Major volcanic events commonly disrupt agriculture badly but only for two to fifteen years.) The north Atlantic may have been having a warm and wet event. Which should have led to good crops, I would think. Beyond that, I need any information on what the population north of the Scottish border was in that time, if the population was lower say in the west than in the rest of southern Scotland, and if there were any influxes of people from England or from Europe in that time - besides Romans. However, major settlements of Rhineland German or Belgian (eg Frankish or Saxon) soldiers might fit the bill if that had happened. Don't think it did in Scotland. Apparently under the Romans the Scottish border was pretty much where it is now, though some Roman generals had bases established farther north, like Hadrian's wall. Does anyone have any information, or any ideas where to look? Yours, Villandra Thorsdottir Austin, Texas

Hi Sam We were from Glasgow and my mother used to say she was "foonered" meaning freezing cold. She also used it to say it when she was full up or had too much too eat. We could have done with a bit of the freezing "foonering" last week when Sydney was sizzling.. Pity I can't ask my mother or father. We used to have a lot of fun with the auld words. Cheers Ella Ross My sister here in Brisbane where our temperatures just now range between 20 °C and 30 °C commented recently, when it was feeling a bit coolish relatively speaking, that she could have got a 'foonerin' ......... as in 'got a chill or worse from the cold weather'. Does the word 'foonerin' ring a bell with anyone else? I understand that it is from the word 'founder' as in 'to perish or be benumbed with cold'.