The materials in this book were drawn from a wide variety of sources and informants, both oral and written. Several printed sources were particularly important:
Black, Ronald, ed. The Gaelic Otherworld. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2005.
Campbell, John L., ed. Gaelic Words and Expressions from South Uist and Eriskay. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1972.
Dwelly, Edward. The Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary. 1901-1911.
Nicolson, Alexander. A Collection of Gaelic Proverbs and Familiar Phrases. Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1881.
Cursing
Many of these curses were originally printed in the following:
Anon. “Gaelic Expressions of Wish and Adjuration.” The Highland Monthly 3 (1891): 400-407.
Campbell, John L. “The Rev Dr Kenneth MacLeod’s Collection of Gaelic Asservations, Exclamations, and Imprications.” Scottish Gaelic Studies 17 (1996): 71-81.
Clachan [pseud.] “Gaelic Terms Expressive of Affection and Terms of Invective.” Series in An Deò-Gréine 7-8 (1917-1918).
Swearing
Discussion of Gaelic terminology about types of verbal expressions can be found in John Shaw, “The Ethnography of Speaking and Verbal Taxonomies: Some Applications to Gaelic,” in Celtic Connections: Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Celtic Studies, 309-23, ed. Ronald Black, William Gillies and Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1999). The exclamations were taken from a mixture of printed and oral sources.
Snuff and Tobacco
I published a 19th-century Gaelic anti-smoking song in Warriors of the Word: The World of the Scottish Highlanders. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2009, 357-58.
There was also a versified debate about the merits and vices of tobacco between two 19th-century Cape Breton poets. Their poems are given in Smeòrach nan Cnoc ’s nan Gleann, collected by Bernard Gillis and Dr. P. J. Nicholson, ed. Hector MacDougall (Glasgow, 1939, 78, 142).
“Ode to a Snuff Box” was taken from The History of the Feuds and Conflicts among the Clans (Glasgow: Printed by J. & J. Robertson, for John Gillies, Perth, 1780), 136-37. The text is poorly written and there are a couple of terms which are difficult to interpret.
“Ode to the Tobacco Pipe” appeared in The Glengarrian, September 24, 1897.
Drinking
For more about the functions and associations of alcohol in Scottish Gaelic culture, see Michael Newton, Warriors of the Word: The World of the Scottish Highlanders (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2009).
Information about the four drams of the morning is taken from R. MacDonald, “A dictionary ramble,” Scottish Language 13 (1994): 82-87.
The two variants about the effects of one, two and three drinks appeared in Litir do Luchd-Ionnsachaidh 547 (January 8, 2010) by Ruairidh MacIlleathain, which he collected from the Gaelic tradition of Caithness.
The older Deoch an Doruis was taken from The Celtic Monthly 5, vol. 18 (May 1910): 97.
“The Finger Lock” (A’ Ghlas-Mheur) is taken from An Gàidheal 3 (1874): 74-75.
“A Thousand Curses on Drunkenness” was originally printed in The History of the Feuds and Conflicts among the Clans (Glasgow: Printed by J. & J. Robertson, for John Gillies, Perth, 1780), 137.
The anti-whisky quatrain was published in Co-chruinneacha Dhan, Orain, &c (Inverness: Friseal, 1821), 182.
Sex
Many of the terms in this section were contributed by friends in Scotland and Nova Scotia. Many other terms, and most of the quatrains, were taken from the rare booklet H. Welter, Gaelic Erotica (Paris, 1907). Several other terms were gleaned from recent editions of neglected Gaelic materials, particularly:
Black, Ronald. An Lasair: Anthology of 18th-Century Scottish Gaelic Verse. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2001.
———. “A Bawdy New Year’s Rhyme from Gaelic Scotland.” Scottish Studies 35 (2010): 1-35.
Some others are also taken from:
Black, Ronald. Review of The Wedding Poems of Dáibhí Ó Bruadair, Scottish Gaelic Studies 27 (2010): 128-35.
Wentworth, Roy. Gaelic Words and Phrases from Wester Ross. Self-published, 1996.
There is a good general discussion of the Celtic poetic tradition of the praise (and dispraise) of genitalia in Sharon Arbuthnot, “A Context for Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s Moladh air Deagh Bhod,” in Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig 2000, ed. Colm Ó Baoill and Nancy McGuire (Aberdeen: An Clò Gàidhealach, 2002).
“Quatrain on Flirtation” was originally printed in Coinneach MacCoinnich, Òrain Ghaidhealach (Edinburgh, 1792), 140.
Moladh air deagh bhod, “In Praise of an Excellent Penis,” was printed in Alexander MacDonald, Ais-eiridh na Sean Chánoin Albannaich (Edinburgh, 1751), 158.