The Scots

By David Ross

What makes the Scots SCOTTISH: A guide to understanding the Scots that gets under their kilts to reveal all in an affectionate and humorous fashion.

The Scots like to feel that they are a rather flamboyant and colourful people – tartan inside as well as out.

Reviews

‘If anyone wants to understand who the Scots are, what makes them tick, and what makes them different from the English, this is the book for them. It packs an amazing amount of information into such a short space, and makes it entertaining as well as informative. As a Scot (albeit one exiled across the North Channel) I can say I have never read a more useful guide to my people. Most enjoyable.’ Reviewer residing in Northern Ireland
‘Bullseye! Hits the mark every time. Painfully accurate (and funny) description of us – here’s tae us, wha’s like us?’ Reviewer from UK
‘I love the Xenophobe’s Guides and this one all the more because of my Scottish ancestry. Amusing, seemingly honest and very readable. A great book.’ Reviewed by Jess E
‘Aye, no’ bad. Very interesting, filled with anecdotes, it’s an entertaining book.’ Review from ‘A customer’
‘Illuminating, entertaining look at what makes the Scots tick. A sympathetic (but not unquestioning), highly entertaining, accurate, and short book which also explains some the qualities that have helped them make a contribution to so many other countries where they have settled.’ Review from ‘a Scot’

If you would like to comment or submit a review on the Xenophobe’s Guide to the Scots please do so in the box to the right.

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Links to make you laugh

“Let it Snow, Let it Snaw, Let is Sneesl”. Scotland has more than 400 words and expressions for snow, according to a project to compile a Scots thesaurus. Click on the image below for a flurry of other terms.

About the author

David Sutherland Ross is a fully fledged member of that well-established species, the Scottish literary exile. Born in Oban, Argyll, and furnished with a Scottish education, he migrated to London intending to become a journalist, but became a publisher instead.

Having learned from writing blurbs for other people’s books how to represent a tangle of ill-assorted elements and random events as a unified whole, he was eminently qualified to write a history of Scotland. The outcome was Scotland: History of a Nation. He went on to become a full-time writer and compiler of anthologies, including Awa’ and Bile Yer Heid, a collection of Scottish insults and invective described as ‘rich and ripe offensiveness’. Its success assures him of a pile all to himself in Scottish bookshops.

His latest book, Auld Enemies, is a not-entirely serious examination of the thousand-year relationship between the Scots and the English.