f4f3 | (no subject)

Kicked off by a comment in Frankie's journal repling to http://www.livejournal.com/users/rparvaaz/ (I must learn to do tidy links) I did five minutes research on "We're all Jock Tamson's bairns", a made up Scots phrase I'm particularly fond of, and came up with

'We're all Jock Tamson's bairns' is a popular saying in Scotland and indeed is known in other parts of the world. The Reverend John Thomson {Jock Tamson} was a much-loved minister of Duddingston Kirk, Edinburgh from 1805 to 1840. He called the members of his congregation 'ma bairns' {my children}and this resulted in folk saying 'we're all Jock Tamson's bairns' which gave a sense of belonging to a small but special group. Nowadays, the phrase is often used to indicate we're all the same under the skin.'

First I’d heard of an actual Jock Tamson, to be honest.

Wikipedia has:

We're aw Jock Tamson's Bairns (Lowland Scots: we're all John Thomson's children) is a popular adage in Scotland, meaning approximately, "under the skin, we are all the same". Jock Tamson was also considered to be a very common name, so Jock Tamson may also been seen as a synonym for everyman. It has been suggested as a euphemism for God, so the saying could mean "we are all God's children". Scottish Gaelic also has the shorter saying "Clann MhicTamhais".
This is a common egalitarian sentiment in Scottish national identity, also evident in the popularity of the Robert Burns song A Man's A Man for A' That.
Jock Tamson's Bairns is used as a personification of the Scots nation.

And I can’t say fairer mysely, espescially about the popular egalitarian sentiment....