Lang may yer lum reek – especially in Alaska

In Scotland, traditional New Year greeting is

Lang may yer lum reek

meaning “long may your chimney smoke”.  So may you never be short of fuel for your fire.

So, if I understand this article rightly, this might be a bit difficult for Alaskans in 2017.

EPA To Alaskans In Sub-Zero Temps: Stop Burning Wood To Keep Warm

All through fear of particulates.  Which goes to show that, whatever differences may have been developing between the Britain and America since even before the War of Independence, the Official Mind still functions in the same way on both sides of the Atlantic.

Now for two bits of etymology.  The word reek originally meant “to smoke”, but later acquired the meaning of “to give off a bad smell”, which is how we would use it here in the South of England.  The cognate word in German has split into two separate verbs, rauchen “to smoke” and riechen “to smell”.  The original “smoke” meaning is also found on the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, whose name means “bay of smoke”, referring to the steam from the natural hot springs in that area..

As for lum, a lum hat is a Scottish term for a top hat, as Scottish Wikipedia tells us:

A lum hat is a flet-croun, braid-scruipt hat wuirn bi men an cleckit in the 1820s. It wis a gey common heidweir oot throu the 1800s an verra aerlie 1900s.  Thay wis made o stechie felt made fae beaver fur an syne for ordinar fae silk. A weel-likit version, in parteecular in the Unitit States oot throu the 19th centurie, an popularised bi Abraham Lincoln in his presidency wis the “stovepipe hat”. The stovepipe hat is a bittie heicher an disna git braider naur the tap.  Some lum hats (cried “opera hats”) hae huiddins inowre makkin it collapsible.

Lum hats is whiles associate wi stage cantrips.

An example of this fashion is found in “Putting on the Ritz”, below.

Old NID
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