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Sunday, May 19, 2013
Tories begin defecting to Ukip over 'loons' slur
The Daily Telegraph wins my Headline of the Day Award - paywall or no paywall - and quite possibly my Headline of the Year Award too.
I stand to be corrected by Caron Lindsay but I always thought 'loon' was a perfectly good Scots word* for one of the riff raff,a dishonest rascal, a rogue etc -in which case why are we surprised by the description
The word "Tory" derives from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe; modern Irish tóraí: outlaw, robber or brigand, from the Irish word tóir, meaning "pursuit", since outlaws were "pursued men"
I stand to be corrected by Caron Lindsay but I always thought 'loon' was a perfectly good Scots word* for one of the riff raff,a dishonest rascal, a rogue etc -in which case why are we surprised by the description
ReplyDelete* Concise Scots Dictionary, Aberdeen Univ Press
Ah but Wikipedia:
ReplyDeleteThe word "Tory" derives from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe; modern Irish tóraí: outlaw, robber or brigand, from the Irish word tóir, meaning "pursuit", since outlaws were "pursued men"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory
So Tory loon seems quite appropriate