Scottish Inventors

[Mauser]

Ha, ha, ha. Educate the colonies!!!

[Draggar]

Isn't Scotland the home of the collie?

Queen Elizabeth I had one has her pet, and she loved it so huch, and everyone else loved it, they became a very popular breed, even the effects of that being felt today.

Lassie was a collie, even one of our dogs is a collie (his name is MacLeod, since we used to live in Highlands, NJ, it seemed to fit, plus we both like the Highlander movie (the first one).

I'm sure a lot more came out of Scotland. Bagpipes? Kilts?

(I know Scottland and Ireland were close in history, not sure which place either of those are from).

In the grand things of the whole world, maybe Scotland didn't contribute a lot, but it may be the same way I look at my home, New Hampshire. What NH give the world? Alan Shepherd Jr, Christsa Macauluf (sp?), and Bradly Delp (form the rock band, Boston).

But to those who live there, its a great place. And from pictures I've seen, Scotland has some beautiful scenery unlike anywhere else in the world.

[Jonah]

“The average Englishman in the home he calls his castle, slips into his national costume — a shabby raincoat — patented by Chemist Charles Macintosh from Glasgow, Scotland.”

Why the sneering reference to a castle? This is a proverb suggesting your home should be private and secure. This is an alien concept north of the border?

I had no idea we all wore a Mackintosh. I wouldn’t be seen dead in one, but then I never notice anyone else wearing one, so obviously I’m mistaken. Since when has a coat design been an invention? Should I list some world famous English designers? The mackintosh relies entirely on vulcanised rubber, an American invention, so is entirely a clothing design.

By the way, if England has a national dress, it isn’t a raincoat, it’s the business suit which (like our language) has taken over the world. Unlike Scottish “national dress”, tartan, which is Austrian (and the kilt is Roman) and is used only for making tourists think you have a culture.

“En route to his office he strides along the English lane, surfaced by John Macadam of Ayr, Scotland.”

Macadam road surfacing was a method of surfacing that speeded up road construction in the age of the horse and cart. Modern roads, as with most modern construction, is indebted to mainly English inventions and innovations, e.g., Portland cement and tarmac.

Macadam, like Watt, came up with his design while living in England, with English co-workers, funded by English money. That would be sufficient for Scots to claim an invention as theirs if the other way around, wouldn’t it? See the Wiki “Scottish inventions” page: all inventions by Scots and anything invented IN Scotland! Wow! Mysteriously, the English aren’t allowed such leeway. The patronising PC treatment of small countries vs larger ones.

“He drives an English car fitted with tyres invented by John Boyd Dunlop, Veterinary Surgeon of Dreghorn, Scotland.”

Dunlop adapted the pneumatic tyre (not his invention) to the bike. Someone else put it on cars. Almost, though.

“During the day he uses the telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell”

Do I even need to point out that the genuine inventor, Meucy, was in the process of suing Bell when Meucy died?

“At home in the evening his daughter pedals her bicycle invented by Kirkpatrick Macmillan”

No, the bike is another French invention and this is another Scottish lie.

“He watches the news on T.V. an invention of John Logie Baird”

No, the TV doesn’t have a single inventor and an Englishman and two Americans have a much better claim. Baird was the first to demonstrate it (in England, of course) and it was immediately superseded by the type we essentially have today. And that’s nothing to do with the Scots either.

“ the U.S. Navy founded by John Paul Jones of Kirkbean, Scotland.”

Now I’ve heard everything! The USA is a tin pot country where any fool can bowl up and found a navy. The US navy was founded by and act of Congress, you patronising fool.

I’m willing to wager that this Jones sort, like Bell, was an American citizen? If you are arrogantly re-assigning the nationality of anyone with the merest hint of Scottish ancestry (as is the Scotsman’s wont, at least with anyone they approve of) I hope you don’t also hide behind a population of “only five million” when it suits you to hide inadequacies.

“He has by now been reminded too much of Scotland and in desperation he picks up the Bible, only to find that the first man mentioned in the good book is a Scot — King James VI — who authorised its translation.”

No, James VI was English with an English father and a French mother.

“He could take to drink but the Scots make the best in the world.”

What an arrogant statement! What drink would this be? The Irish drink whisky, perhaps?

“ He could take a rifle and end it all but the breech-loading rifle was invented by Captain Patrick Ferguson of Pitfours, Scotland.”

He designed a breech, but not the rifle. Someone else had to work out how to fit it.

“If he escaped death, he could find himself on an operating table injected with Penicillin, discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming”

No, penicillin was first described by Irishman John Tyndal 50 years prior to Fleming.

“Chloroform, an anaesthetic discovered by Sir James Young Simpson, Obstetrician and Gynaecologist of Bathgate, Scotland.”

No, that was French chemist Eugene Soubeiran.

“Out of the anaesthetic he would find no comfort in learning that he was as safe as the Bank of England founded by William Paterson of Dumfries, Scotland.”

Correct, but a quite pathetic link. Was the author of this “poem” eight years old?

“Perhaps his only remaining hope would be to get a transfusion of guid Scottish blood which would entitle him to ask –

wha’s like us?”

This is an offensive and arrogant ascertain of racial superiority.

Needless to point out that an English version of this (and we wouldn’t have to lie about our inventions, scientific advances and innovations) wouldn’t be allowed on tea-towels, post cards and other tourist paraphernalia. Neither should this tripe. I’m amazed the decedents of the genuine inventors haven’t filed a lawsuit; or hasn’t it come to their attention yet?

[Platypus]

Welcome to WinDrivers, Jonah, but please don't make a habit of responding aggressively to 8 year old postings. I'll close the topic now so in due course it will fall gracefully back to the obscurity it deserves.