The Blood of This Ilk Runs Through Me Veins !

SCOTTISH GENEALOGY :
. . . And so ye see, auld Pittoddles, when his third wife dee'd, he got mairrit upon the laird o' Blaithershins' aughteenth dochter, that was sister to Jemima, that was mairrit till Tarn Flumexer, that was first and second cousin to the Pittoddleses, whase brither becam laird efterwards, an' mairrit Blaithershins' Baubie -- an' that way Jemima becam in a kind o' a way her ain niece an' her ain aunty, an', as we used to say, her guid-brither was mairrit to his ain grannie.
-- Book Of Scottish Anecdote : Hislop (quoted in The Scots Book, by Ronald Macdonald Douglas, published in 1995 by Senate / Tiger Books International plc, Twickenham, UK).

Forever Young

Ironic and somewhat amusing is the number of my Scottish female relatives who fibbed about their ages on census records and even their marriage registrations. One great grandmother consistantly reported herself as being born in 1862, when she was clearly recorded in the 1861 census as a two year old. Usually female age fibbers did so in the instance that their husbands were 5 to 15 years younger than themselves, and closer to the age when their ability to produce offspring might come into question. Understandable, when marriage and family was almost the only career option for women until the 20th century. Amusing is the part where , as they grew older , the age gap between them and their younger husbands ususally grew smaller (as in census records) and when they became elderly they often started telling the truth about their birth year.
Ironic is the part where, in my family, the the most blatant and habitual "offenders" were the girls of the Young family !

Our American Cousins

Two hundred years ago the vast majority of immigrants to the New World came from Europe, most from Great Britain, France and Germany. Many of my ancestors first came to Canada, and later relocated to various areas of the U.S. I find it fascinating that over the past century and half , is the difference in the way Canadians and Americans use the English language. For instance, I find quite puzzling and would love to have someone explain to me ,is the phrase I hear all the time on American television :
"I'll FIX you a sandwich" or "Let me FIX you some breakfast" or "I'll FIX lunch".
As far as I know there are two definitions of the word "fix" :

1. To mend something which has broken
2. To fasten something down in order to render it unmoveable

So an American about to PREPARE lunch might be saying that they are going to first repair the broken roast beef sandwich and then nail it to the table so that it does not get away??
Maybe that is where the expression "fast food" really originated !