The parliamentary enemies of that remarkable sailor and reformist Thomas Cochrane, 10th earl of Dundonald, referred to him disparagingly as a Sawney, which from context I knew to mean a Scotsman. What’s wrong with that, I thought, he was Scottish after all. So I looked the word up and found that although it is an alteration of Sandy, short for Alexander, in British use it also meant fool or simpleton. A neat insult.