"AULD LANG SYNE."

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11485, 19 January 1903, Page 6

"AULD LANG SYNE."

to thb Korroa or thb fbess. Sir,_Jlf you are noi already skk «nto death of letters about Bums and "Auld Lang Syne, there is a possibility of room being found in. your columns for few lines more. In regard to one writers remarks atxrat Mr Stead being probably agood authority on .tramways, but one-hardly to be trusted on matters concerning the poetry of Burns, may I be permitted to ask what debars M*r Stead from being a good authority on both of these subjects. It the writer who swept Mr Stead away so gaily with a single of his pen had put himself to the trouble to find out aJi about it, he would have seen that onl}a close student of Burns would have had the hardihood to risk such a letter to "The Press' , as Mr Stead wrote. Again, he would have been surprised to learn that there is, on the. maternal side, a very large f,tra.Ln ol »>oot3' blood in Mr Stead's veins, and to this, probably, is due the levelhead«dm»« which everybody recognises_ iU the man. The members of the Christchurch Highland Rifles" recognised Mr Stead's Scottish blood vrhtn they offered him the captaincy of tibeir corps. Now as to the "guid-willie wauoht." I have always accepted tae phrase as meanrog ;v good-will drink, jomeiliing equivalent to the Gaelic "-deoch .<?!aint«." I have heard Scots bacchanalians sing "waly" often .enough, but they did po with a 'leer that plainly rhowed they kn«w they were taking liberties wi'-h th* text. If there is any doubt in any Scotsman's mind about the meaning, he must have b>en led astray by the music, as ttre Ibar accent in the strain falls on '"willie," and this perhaps made aim separate the word from the other wiih which it is compounded. An- ; other writer refers to "ie as in common use in Scotland. So i& is, but he mentions Aberdeen ana' as being most guilty in ! this respect, and in this he in hardly corI rect, for the whole of the north-east coast people usa it in erery sentence. Aberdeen people—at 'least, of thirty or forty years ago—spoke in a different way when they had recourse to the diminutive, as the following laaes from an old Aberdeen swng will show: — '"There was a wee bit wifickie Was gairn tae the fair. She got a wee bib drappickie That cosi her muckle care." '"Horsickie and mannickSe" for 4iorse and man were common. Wβ Scots have reason to thank Mr Stead for stirring up the question, seeing tliat the discussion has made two things perfectly clear—that Burns meant a .good-wiil drink, and tint whether he wrote the whole yong or not the world is indebted to him for the song in its i>resent form.—l am, etc., ■MACLEAN DUN.