HOLIDAYS NEARER HOME
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
Sin,—I take it that Seumas Grannd is trying to be facetious, but these little jokes are apt to be misleading. In my many Highland holidays I only once .met (with great delight) a lassie who could only answer "yes "the only English word she knew—to all my remarks. One occasionally hears snatches of Gaelic on the roads, which is quickly changed to careful English on the approach of a stranger.
Mr. Blunt, I presume, was playfully referring to the High- land pronunciation, but I can assure him that no English visitor to the Highlands will suffer as much as we poor Northerners do when we go to London. ' I am English born and bred, but have lived in Scotland so long that to attempt to enquire my way about London is a nightmare. Policemen and 'bus conductors might as well be talking Arabic. -Sometimes a kindly passenger will interpret, and tell me—for example— that the two staccato quacks "au i " (as near as I can spell it) means "Hold tight" and not " Outside " as I had thought.
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