Where are ye, JockScot? We need you on this one.

Since we'll soon join hands at the Burns Supper--kilted, of course--and sing The Bard's own verse (slightly borrowed according to him) as we close, I thought I'd do a little research.

I ran across this little snippet which might be heresy--or a bit of scholarly truth. I just love researching such minutiae and dropping it at the most appropriate moment to demonstrate my vast storehouse of useless informatino.

"'And we'll tak a right guid willie-waught,' as we have read it fifty times before, and the usual note 'willie-waught, hearty draught'; one editor copying the text from another, like sheep jumping over a hedge.

It takes but a very moderate acquaintance with the Scottish tongue to know that there is no such word as willie-waught, which nobody ever saw except in this line. A waught, or waucht for a draught, is common enough, and so is guid-willie, for hearty, cordial. . . ."

The writer goes on to assign this to a printer's error in misplacing the hyphen in Johnson's Museum, and the rest is perpetuated historical mistake. This is just the kind of thing that I find fascinating (while causing my wife to call me a nerd).

So, anyone else ever heard this? How 'bout it, Jock ole man? Comments?

Todd?