In the midst of the weekend's trauma (is trauma too strong a word? well...) of our failing to find Daughter 2 a wedding dress, she provided us with a smile.
In her research, she came across a range of wedding dresses called "Sonsie". Now, this is probably funny only to Scots, but "sonsie" is a Scots word which means "solid" or "chubby". It's admittedly not inappropriate for this comely young lady, but it's not a word that a Scot would aspire to be called. One would really not be tempted to buy a wedding dress thus labelled.
My darling and beautiful Daughter 2 isn't sonsie at all.
You might have come across the word in Robert Burns's "To a Haggis". This poem starts:
Fair fa' your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin' race."
In other words:
Blessings on your honest solid face,
Great leader of all the puddings.
You will probably know that a haggis is a savoury dish made of unmentionable bits of animals mixed with oatmeal and stuffed inside a sheep's stomach. Not quite the connotation I'd want for my big day...
Edited to add - many thanks to Loth, who has reminded me in her comment that the poem goes on to describe the haggis further - Your hurdies like a distant hill. Hurdies are... well, buttocks.
No - still not doing it for me.
"Your hurdies like a distant hill..."
ReplyDeleteNope, not the kind of compliment I'd be aiming for on my wedding day!
I like the word sonsie though....I'd take it over solid or chubby any day...
ReplyDeleteLesley xx
Haha -- bet they don't sell many dresses with that label. And it seems to me that Mr. Burns might have been comparing the wrong body part to the distant hill???
ReplyDeleteIsabelle your blog just cracks me up every time. I loved the haggis photo too. And your description of your cats as faithless.
ReplyDeleteHere's hoping daughter 2 has a well developed sense of humour!
ReplyDeleteI love, love, LOVE haggis, and I would have had it on my wedding day if I could have. Instead I made do with a wonderful whole pig roast.
ReplyDeleteOnly two trips to find a wedding dress so far? I think we did about twenty for DD. We weren't going to pay very much because you only wear it once. We didn't want strapless. Guess what? Paid the national debt of a small country for a one-off strapless dress from her favourite 'we can't possibly afford him' designer. But oh my, it was so worth it! We knew it was the right one because it was the only one that made me go all teary when she tried it on - and you couldn't even tell if she had hurdies, let alone sonsie ones!
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