The author of Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character gives examples of mistake in humor…

He writes: A piper was plying his trade in the streets, and a strict elder of the kirk, desirous to remind him that it was a somewhat idle and profitless occupation, went up to him and proposed solemnly the first question of the Shorter Catechism, “What is the chief end of man?” The good piper, thinking only of his own business, and supposing that the question had reference to some pipe melody, innocently answered, “Na, I dinna ken the tune, but if ye’ll whistle it I’ll try and play if for ye.”

The author gave another example of mistake. He writes that a Scot was visiting London for the first time. He was staying at a hotel in Fleet Street, where many of the country coaches put up. On the following morning he saw such a crowd that he thought the people must have come from some “occasion” and must pass off in due time.

The author writes: Accordingly, a friend from Scotland found him standing in a doorway, as if waiting for some one. His countryman asked him what made him stand there. To which he replied – “Ou, I was just stan’ing till the kirk had scaled.” The ordinary appearance of his native borough made the crowd of Fleet Street suggest to him the idea of a church crowd passing out to their several homes, called in Scotland a “kirk scaling.”

Dean Ramsay gives another example of mistake in humor. He writes: On the question, “What was the pestilence that walketh in darkness”? being put to a class, a little boy answered, after consideration – “Ou, it’s just bugs.”

The author went on to comment that in Old English usage “bug” signified a spectre or anything that is frightful. He said a correspondent had since written to him and said that the boy’s mother might have read the boy a passage from an old Bible, for eg. Psalm 91: “So that thou shalt not need to be afrayed for any bugge by nyght, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day”.  So maybe the boy’s answer hadn’t been so comical after all.

-Readersvoice.com

-See Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character by Dean Ramsay, Published by Gall and Inglis, London and Edinburgh.