SEMMIT n a vest

Perhaps because underwear is not a fitting subject for literary discourse, the early records of this word are very sparse. The only quotation in A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue is from Gilbert of the Haye’s Buke of the Law of Armys (1456) and seems to refer to a tunic: “Julius Cesar brocht with him nouthir wapyn ... na othir defence bot in his semat”. Tentative etymologies suggest a link to ‘samite’ a fine silk fabric far different from the wool, flannel or even string of the modern Scots garment. The word then disappears from the written record, to resurface again in the report of a case from 1865 in the High Court of Justiciary itemising “1 knitted woollen semet”. Once into the twentieth century, we find that the semmit has become as much part of the everyday language as of wardrobe. From O Douglas’s Priorsford (1932), we have this model of industry: “I’m at ma twelfth semmit, an’ I’ve made six pairs of socks”. This eident knitter might have been of great service to the learned gentleman addressed in John J. Lavin’s Compass of Youth (1953): “Yer semit an’ drawers, Professor, are gey the waur o’ wear”. Anyone who as a child suffered ‘a dook in a saucer’ instead of a bath will sympathise with the victim in Margaret Sinclair’s Soor Plooms and Candy Balls (1993): “Sit up oan the jaw box. Jist take aff your semmit”. Inevitably, the jaw-box or kitchen sink was in front of an uncurtained window. The indignity might well be followed by a similar situation to this, related by Sheena Blackhall in The Bonsai Grower (1998): “Mrs Mathers rugged aff Maisie’s playin claes an plunkit her inno a steen-cauld scratty semmit new aff the claes-line, far the icicles jinglit like coo bells in the jeelin win”.

 Scots Word of the Week is written by Chris Robinson of Scottish Language Dictionaries