Scots and British values

[ by Charles Cameron — Scots by clan, audibly British to American ears, and American by friendship, long residence, and weather preference ]

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Here’s a pair of tweets I picked out to comment on a while back, when writing was a lot more effort than is is now — and will hopefully be in the near future. The second is pretty obviously a serpent-bites-tail example, but I suspect “haggis” and “Scottish” are close enough conceptually (staggeringly close) to qualify the first as a serpentine loop too — why else would Rifkind have mentioned the Scottishness of the fiver?

Man in North London butcher just turned down my Scottish fiver when I was literally buying a haggis with it. This is a new low.

— Hugo Rifkind (@hugorifkind) December 23, 2016

I wonder if politicians should have to swear an oath to the British value of not making people swear oaths to British values.

— Hugo Rifkind (@hugorifkind) December 18, 2016

Serpent-bites-tail logic is pretty cut and dried — but it can express itself in some pretty elusive / allusive forms.

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Scots wha hae!