Scotland is a magical place to visit, but life there is far more than just about haunted castles, haggis, windswept moors, dinosaur-laden lochs, Hogwarts, and endlessly changing weather. To truly understand the country’s way of life, you need to get to grips with its humor.
Luckily, the popular ‘Scottish Patter’ social media project is here to help everyone with that task. It shares some of the wittiest and hilarious memes, jokes, and insights related to the Scottish perspective. We’ve collected some of the finest ones to share with you. Scroll down for a good dose of comedy, and if you have a good laugh, be sure to spread it some more.
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Scotland is one of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom, the others being England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Scotland comprises nearly a third of the territory of Great Britain and is home to over 5.4 million people. Part of Scotland’s territory comprises more than 790 islands.
It's an increasingly popular destination to live in. The National Records of Scotland reports that the Scottish population in the year up to mid-2023 rose to 5,490,100. This is 43,100 people more than in the middle of 2022.
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The BBC reports that this 0.8% increase in population is the biggest single-year jump since 1946-1947. The biggest reason for this growth is more Brits and foreigners moving to Scotland.
“Almost two-thirds of people moving to Scotland came from outside the UK. We also saw a fall in the number of people leaving Scotland. Without migration into Scotland, the population would have fallen,” the National Records of Scotland head of demographic statistics, Esther Roughsedge, explained.
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However, the population situation isn’t as rosy as some might think. “Deaths outnumbered births by the highest amount on record. There were 19,100 more deaths than births,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Scottish population is getting older, with over a fifth of residents aged 65 and over. Only 16% of Scots were aged 15 or under.
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The ‘Scottish Patter’ project has been entertaining and amusing the internet for a long while now. Originally, its Facebook page was created in late November 2016, nearly 8 years ago.
As the idea behind the page started gaining traction, the humor-loving team behind it branched out to Instagram, too, in April 2017.
We've reached out to the team curating the project to learn more about its history, and we'll update the article as soon as we hear back from them.
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At the time of writing, ‘Scottish Patter’ has an impressive 730k followers on Facebook. The page has also garnered an impressive 601k likes on the social network. Meanwhile, on Instagram, the project has seen an even greater deal of success. Currently, there are 1.1 million Scottish-humor-loving internet users who follow the account there.
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The ‘patter’ in ‘Scottish Patter’ doesn’t just refer to rain (a common sight if you’ve ever visited the country). ‘Patter,’ according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is continuous and sometimes funny speech or talk.
Often, it’s related to entertainers speaking or someone trying to sell you something. Between the reference to rain and entertainment, it’s such a clever play on words. It’s fitting for a culture that values puns so much.
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The linguistic fun and depth of the ‘patter’ part of ‘Scottish Patter’ goes even further. To continue, ‘patter’ can simply refer to talking, according to the Dictionaries of the Scots Language. For example, someone just chatting away. In other contexts, it’s more akin to banter, meant to impress or amuse someone.
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‘Patter’ can also mean any kind of insider’s language and someone’s street smarts. This interpretation can refer to the idea that you can’t really comprehend a different culture without having experienced it firsthand.
In this case, ‘Scottish Patter’ memes, while witty and illuminating, might not always be comprehensible to outsiders. There will always be a few jokes that require some firsthand life experiences and unspoken context to make you laugh aloud.
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Which of the memes featured here did you enjoy the most? Have you ever visited or lived in Scotland? What do you personally love the most about Scottish culture, dear Pandas? Tell us all about it in the comments section.
Meanwhile, if you enjoy this type of humor, be sure to follow ‘Scottish Patter’s’ socials for the freshest memes.
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