Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 May 1

= May 1 =

Scotyn - Welsh word, Anglesey remedy for nausea
In Miss Parry writes of her seasickness crossing the Bay of Biscay. "At long last there was a knock on my door by Captain Richards begging me to say what I could eat. I managed to say "scotyn" - the Anglesey remedy for nausea. The Captain, himself an Anglesey man, expressed his approval by a roar of laughter". What is scotyn? Google translate says "spot" which is not helpful. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 01:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Between Wales and England: Anglophone Welsh Writing of the Eighteenth Century (p. 130) has 'Scotyn coegfalch which is translated as "arrogant Scot" (i.e. a Scottish person) written in 1801. Note the apostrophe before "Scotyn", don't know what that means. So I think here it must refer to Scotch whisky, which many pages of Google results testify as a cure for sea sickness (although I enjoy the odd glass of single malt, I can't think of anything worse for a queasy stomach). Interestingly, the Welsh Wikipedia page for Scottish people is called Albanwyr and Scottish as a general adjective seems to be Sgotiaid in modern Welsh (there isn't an article for Scotch whisky, but the Wisgi article has Wisgi yr Alban). In the late 19th century, there was an effort by campainers like Daniel Silvan Evans to drive out English loanwords from the Welsh language, which may explain the difference. Alansplodge (talk) 11:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks Alan, that would make sense. I've asked the Lloyd George Museum if they can confirm that scotyn means Scotch. It may be a dialect form. Our article about the apostrophe says "Welsh uses the apostrophe to mark elision of the definite article yr ('the') following a vowel (a, e, i, o, u, y, or, in Welsh, w), as in i'r tŷ, 'to the house'. It is also used with the particle yn, such as with mae hi'n, 'she is'". DuncanHill (talk) 13:01, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I can see the abbreviated article in the preceding a'r ("as the") where the "y" of yr is omitted, but then a further apostrophe precedes Scotyn. Well, my efforts to learn Welsh never got very far. Alansplodge (talk) 17:02, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Examples of ’Scotyn in print abound, but mainly (only?) in older (pre-WWI) texts:, , , , . --Lambiam 18:24, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Out of curiosity, I attempted a machine translation of the poem in Lambiam's third link: "Britain with a smile of love / Extends her apology / To the hand of her Blessed daughter / Saying from the heart "Welcome" / The Welshman is smiling and the English / In answer to the Irish smile / On Scotyn extending a voice / To swell the manly high (?)". Can't make much sense of the last bit, but clearly referring to Scotland there. Alansplodge (talk) 19:00, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * One search suggests a possibility different from those offered above: I can't see this newspapers.com scan of a 1958 page of The Guardian, but the snippet in the Google search result that led me there contains "a strike or lock-out meant a diet of crusts soaked in tea, or scotyn, the Welsh version of kettle broth". Crusts soaked in tea sounds like something that might be requested by someone suffering from mal de mer. Deor (talk) 19:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)