Scottish and proud?

Here's an interesting verb: de-Scottishfy.

Last week Eamonn sent me a link to the BBC article about the Harris Tweed company who had announced that they were de-Scottishfying their products. Harris Tweeds Hebrides' creative director Mark Hogarth was quoted as saying:

"We have been getting a lot of feedback and we have had to de-Scottishfy the image of the brand. If he had not been released we would not have altered anything."

Hogarth was, of course, talking about the release of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi.

I have real doubts that "de-Scottishfy" will enter the dictionary, though. How can you de-Scottishfy something? How could you de-Scottishfy whisky? Everyone knows it comes from Scotland. If someone wants to boycott Scottish products, then that should be their choice. It's not up to the producers to respond by pretending the product is no longer Scottish. It's not going to fool anyone, is it?

If I wanted to de-Scottishfy myself, I'd have to either stop talking or speak with a different accent. But which accent would I choose? English? Never! You can take the girl out of Scotland, but you can't take Scotland out of the girl!

Harris Tweed Textiles director, Alan Bain commented: "There is strong support of the brand in the US and to distance Harris Tweed from Scotland would be a grave mistake."