|
|
|
SEPTEMBER SMEDDUM
This wird gangs back tae Anglo-Saxon smeodoma, meanin fine flour. In 17th century Scotland, it referred tae the finest particles o grain lost as stour in the grindin, sweepit up tae feed the miller's grice. A century efter, its meanin haed been extendit tae ony fine pouder includin a reid precipitate o mercury, an insecticide at Burns kent, for he wad gie the eponymous antihero o his poem To a Louse a dose 'of fell red smeddum'. The notion o efficacy extendit the meanin o the wird tae the pith, strength or essence o a substance and sae, in 1822, Galt describes guid snuff as 'sae brisk in the smeddum, so pleasant to the smell'. Smeddum wis applied figuratively tae spirit, energy and courage. Burns wrote in 1787 o fowk wi 'smeddum and rumblegumption'. This is the sense in which Lewis Grassick Gibbon used it for the title o a short story. But some o the auld sense o finely groond grain survived. Accordin tae the Scotsman o 20th August 1901, the sieved pouder fae crusht malt cuid be kneadit intil wee bannocks, baked on a griddle. Ideally the smeddum inside the baked crust shuid luik and taste like a thick dark syrup.
Wi pessimism, we find in the poems o J Milne (1790) that 'Afore he
wrote, bauld Ramsay saw the smeddom o' our tongue decay.' Milne, and
Allan Ramsay, micht hae been taen aback by the renewed smeddum in the
Scots language the day. As for the wird itself, not only has smeddum
ceased tae be the sweepins aff the mill flair but it is noo ane o the
maist valued qualities o the Scots character.
|