And why the scare quotes around ‘greatest living Scotsman’? Surely there can be none other! He’s been in at least three films involving airships, after all.

I completely agree that ‘leftenant’ is an important (and correct) one, but the irony is that it has now come to be rather lumped-in with ‘Raif’ et al. However, high Tory Scottish aristos do use a pronunciation register which genuinely differs from the majority of Scots, and always has done - see ‘Hume’ for ‘Home’. Hence their pronunciations of some names may genuinely be the correct ones, not ‘affectations’.

It is all socio-linguistics, of course. Perceptions change over time. Ming Campbell’s greatest achievement may prove to be that he brought the ancient ‘z=ng’ pronunciation back into everyday use. Because he is generally well-liked north of the border, everyone dropped their fear of seeming ‘pretentious’. Even the English learned a new phonetic sound! Some slogans and headlines praising Ming while criticizing ‘Flash Gordon’ (Brown) also helped. (Although I don’t think even Brown’s biggest fans would call him ‘Flash’ these days…)

I’m sure Mel Gibson wrestled with all of this when he rekindled our desire for ‘freedom’. Perhaps Shir Shean Connery, the ‘greatest living Scotsman’, gave him some vocal coaching. But if McGrath ever brought the derided Imperial game of glorified Rounders to Scotland the crowds would simply adapt. They would, doubtless, chant ‘ooth, aath, Glenn McGrath’!

With Menzies, I’m sorry to report that he was about the only person who pronounced his surname that way, being proud of his Scottish ancestry — at least in my lifetime it’s always been said the way it’s spelled. But it is the reason why he was often called by his nickname, Ming (except, that is, when he was called ‘Pig-iron Bob’ for his role in forcing striking dockworkers to load scrap iron onto ships bound for Japan. In 1938, mind you …) Of course I always thought this came from Flash Gordon (as he was sometimes called Ming the Merciless too). It’s all good …

McGrath and Strachan (there was a well known Strachan here too, a glam rocker from the ’70s — pronounced Strawn too) are a bit odd — naively I’d expect mispronunciations to be more phonetic, not less. McGrath I suppose is less odd, the -th wouldn’t be too hard to lose (plus ‘ooh, ahh, Glenn McGraTH’ just doesn’t work), but how did we get from Strachan to Strawn? I blame the Cholmondeley-Featherstonehaughs.

OK, another question: if Culzean is pronounced Cullane, how would you say ‘Tarrinzean’? ‘Ta-rain’?

After all, Sir Alec Douglas- was, indeed, ‘Hume’, even though he was Home. Likewise, the most popular chain of newsagents in Scotland for decades was called ‘John Menzies’. The entire population south of Perth (Scotland!) pronounced this as it is written (as I think you Aussies did with your former PM?) Only when Sir Ming became leader of the Lib Dems did we all accept that it should, in fact, be pronounced ‘Ming-is’. Prior to Ming, that pronunciation was considered rather affected.

Then there is the distinguished Professor Hugh Strachan. I simply cannot make myself pronounce that as ‘Strawn’. It may well be ‘correct’, but to me, and 99% of Scots, it is ‘Strachan’ - using our famous guttural ‘ch’, as in ‘loch’ (which the English are incapable of distinguishing from ‘lock’. And which is a sound they struggle to master when they try to learn Spanish). Likewise, there is your national hero ‘Glenn McGra’. No-one in Scotland would miss out the ‘-ath’, and we get very annoyed indeed when the BBC choose to adopt these types of (mis-)pronunciations.

But who is truly ‘correct’ on these ones, in either historical or phonetical terms, I can’t say with accuracy. Many are genuinely debatable. Victoria Wood summed this all up beautifully when she quipped that everywhere in Scotland seems to be ’spellled Kircudbright but pronounced Eccelfachan’.

I do know, however, that Kircudbright is definitely ‘Kircoodbry’ and Culzean is ‘Cul-lane’. And, as I often wanted to scream down the phone, ‘Buccleuch rhymes with **** you!’

Actually, no I didn’t know that’s how you pronounce Buccleuch — luckily it never came up in a social situation or I would have been dreadfully embarrassed! Maybe you can help me with another aristocratic Scottish name: how would you pronounce Haldane? I was surprised the other day to hear somebody refer to J. B. S. Hawl-dane, which I might have just assumed was just received pronunciation, except that it was prefaced by his telling that as a child his family stayed with Naomi Mitchison (J. B. S.’s younger sister) at her home in Kintyre. So maybe that’s how I should be saying it instead of my Aussie-inflected, short, Hal-dane.

I hope someone taught you how to pronounce Buccleuch? I used to live in Buccleuch Street in Edinburgh. What a delight that was every time I had to give my address over the phone. I used to get credit card bills addressed to ‘Buckloo Street, Edimbrough’. (Sent from Croydon, or some similarly non-exotically named place….)