‘Tea-table Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scots Sangs’ (1733)

Scottish History 1 Minute

This is collection by Allan Ramsay of Scottish songs popular at the start of the 18th century. As there’s no music accompanying the verses we can only really read them as poems. They’re super quaint and the widely recognised Scottish wit is prevalent throughout. At the back of this compilation is an “Explanation of the Scots Words” for the English speaker. The 4th last word under ‘W‘ is surprisingly “Wow!” which is explained as meaning; “wonderful! Id. [idem = the same] ah! This led me to wonder if I should take it as read “wow” was a word of Scottish origin. Google helpfully satisfies that curiosity when you search for “wow definition” by telling us it was “first recorded in Scots in the early 16th century”. I’ve added the screenshot of the information given on this at the bottom of the page.

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‘Tea-table Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scots Sangs’, Allan Ramsay (1733), Front Cover, Spine, and Back Cover.

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‘Tea-table Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scots Sangs’, Allan Ramsay (1733), Inside of Front cover.

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‘Tea-table Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scots Sangs’, Allan Ramsay (1733), Portrait of Allan Ramsay and Publisher’s Page.

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‘Tea-table Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scots Sangs’, Allan Ramsay (1733), Dedication, pp.iii & iv.

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‘Tea-table Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scots Sangs’, Allan Ramsay (1733), Preface, pp.v-viii.

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‘Tea-table Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scots Sangs’, Allan Ramsay (1733), Explanation of the Scots Words, “Wow!”, p.364.

Google Wow

Published by FlikeNoir

My name's Jenny, I'm in my late-thirties, from Glasgow and I'm your friendly local (as everything online has become) Scottish historian.

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18 thoughts on “‘Tea-table Miscellany: or, A Collection of Scots Sangs’ (1733)”

  1. Here’s a contemporaneous source for many (unfortunately not all) of the tunes of the songs in Ramsay’s Tea Table Miscellany, for anyone who would like to put the poems and the music together.
    https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/rbc/id/2955

    “Musick for Allan Ramsay’s collection of 71 Scots songs” (a.k.a. Musick for the Scots Songs in the Tea Table Miscellany) Edinburgh, ca. 1726

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