While they may not be a good foundation to build upon, they are good marketers. Just a roundabout way of saying adoption begets adoption and barriers are the opposite (though sometimes the trade-off is worth it as may be the case here).
I would wager Flickr stopped growing significantly a while ago, and therefore doesn't benefit from any marketing that people with free accounts might do for them.
And as the saying goes in creative industries: you can't eat "exposure." The only way to make money is the charge money, and it's generally worth it even if it means pissing off people who expect stuff for free.
Heck I bet this change will drive up awareness of Flickr. I can't even remember what I have there, but now I'm going to look up my creds and log in to find out.
I have a cheap pair of polarised aviators I got from eBay that have the same effect as these glasses. I'm guessing when they were made, the lens material was oriented wrong during cutting -- vertical instead of horizontal, and thus cutting out screens. I like wearing them, though I don't entirely trust them as sunglasses. And when I get a call, I have to lift them to be able to see my phone's screen.
In the case of Scots and Scottish English, there's a lot of blurring and the distinction is of questionable actual value -- though I would make that distinction personally. I speak Scottish Standard English, and have a parent whose first language was a variety of Modern Scots. I find it very hard to follow them when they've switched into it to speak with someone from their hometown. Due to the difficulty in parsing it, both in my case and in the case of the other parent after 40-ish years of marriage, I'd consider it more than just a dialect.
Both Scottish English and Scots descend from the same root Anglic, but there's been divergence since then -- in the same way Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic are descended from the same root, are somewhat mutually intelligible, but are treated as two different languages. It's useful to make that distinction simply because there is a degree of unintelligibility.
Everyone on this website is speaking an Indo-European language, and I'd bet a majority of them have an Indo-European language as their first language. They're all from the same root, so are they all speaking dialects of Indo-European? Or are they speaking distinct languages? Where, exactly, you decide "this was a dialect, but now it's a language!" I can't say, but that point surely exists. It's obviously muddied by politics and national identity and a hundred other factors, but at some point, surely, a language ceases to be a dialect and becomes a language of its own.
That point exists, but it's contextual. You could draw the line at shared identity. Or political boundary. Or the existence of a body of literature. Or a certain bar of recognition. Or a certain number of university programs. Or some concept mutual intelligibility. Or whatever. But these distinctions will conflict with one another, so there is no clear line.
I have no real authority, but to me, I see no reason why Scots shouldn't be a language. English and Scots would certainly not be the most similar languages to be considered distinct. Plenty of other varieties of the English continuum, for that matter.
In modern usage, by speakers of Scottish English, it means "smelly". I'm not 100% sure, but I'm confident that "reek" in this context was borrowed from Scots and the meaning has just drifted over time.
Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) and Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge, often just called "Irish") are both direct descendants of Middle Irish, which ultimately comes from a Celtic root. Gaidhlig gradually replaced Pictish, now extinct, about a thousand years ago.
I'm prone to false etymologies, so take this with a pinch of salt. Rauch and riechen, Geruch are probably related, too, only very far back and with lots of different influences in the mean time. I thought that rex, the dog name, could be related to riechen more than roy, king, because that's what they do. I thought so because Egyptian 'fnd' ("fenedj" - nose) does remind a little of 'find'. I'm quite fond of the idea. I reckon, with Egyptian 'rh' ("rekh" - to know), I become somewhat convinced of the idea. It could be from 'r' - mouth, 'hr' - head, top, chief.
Last time someone mentioned a possible connection from Egypt to Europe, it was quickly denounced. I'm not sure why.
There's more: 'rkh' - to burn; 'rh-nswt' - "acquaintance of the king" (nswt or nsw - king, god king; 'sw' - day, also 'hr' - day, if there's a connection from day to sun, sky, this could be analog to 'deus', 'divine', if I say so myself, otherwise 'swt' - sedge [a reed plant?] is considered as symbol of upper Egypt, giving king of the sedge; reeds, especially papyrus is related to writing and knowledge, so ... Ger. 'Gesetz' [law] is probably just from 'setzen' [set]; 'nswt' is not to be confused with German "Naseweiß" [cheeky, smart aleck]; 'rh' as ray is rather attractive, ie. rays of knowledge, rays of the sun figuratively as friends of the king, if connected to 'rkh' [to burn]); 'rht' - royal subjects, humanity [subjects of the king?]; 'rhs' - slaughter [from 'rkh' - to burn?]; 'rhn' - to depend on; 'rk' - time, age, era;
There's a discredited theory by Vennemann that linguistic evidence indicates Phonicians traveled from Spain to the north sea. There are actually finds of DNA that could corroborate something like this https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35179269 - incidentally 'bbr' means babylon, one could think that's related to bereber. 'fnhw' - means and is the root of the word phoenician, but I'm not going to make jokes about anyone's nose, because the theory is that 'fnh' means carpenter. 'fn' means something like misery, by the way, Egypt had problems with Lybian Berbers. They say Jesus was a carpenter. This is getting out of hand, I don't know when to stop.
Common Scottish English usage I encounter daily: "that bin reeks", "my dog rolled in fox poo and she reeks", "I was reeking of sweat", "that place reeked".
For what it's worth - I'm from Perth, Australia (presumably named after Perth, Scotland), and we use the word the same way here. "Oh my god, that absolutely reeks" would be a common usage.
I would take that with a huge pinch of salt. Census data is self-reported, and most people don't know that Scots is a distinct language from Scottish English, albeit one sharing the same Anglic root and with a lot of borrowed words and phrases.
I live in Aberdeen, and I'm pretty sure if I was to leave my flat and ask people I met in the street whether they spoke Scots or English, I'd get a disproportionate number of Scottish English speakers tell me they speak Scots; I'd also probably get some of the Doric-speaking locals tell me they speak English, even though Doric is actually a descendant of Scots.
In school it's likely you were speaking Standard Scottish English. Received Pronunciation (RP) is an accent, not a dialect -- though most RP speakers speak Standard English, so there's a strong correlation between RP and Standard English. I've yet to come across and RP speaker who speaks another variety, excluding the occasional phrase or borrowed word.
Outside of school you were almost certainly speaking Scottish Standard English, rather than actual Scots. Scottish English is a branch of English that's been influenced by Scots and borrowed vocabulary from Scots, but isn't actually Scots. Almost no-one in the 20th century speaks actual Scots; those who do are immediately identifiable and generally hard for a non-Scots speaker to understand. The last vestiges of Scots language speakers are parts of Aberdeenshire and the Borders.
Sources: Highlander born and raised, living in Aberdeen for >10 years. One parent is a Gael whose second language is English, the other parent is from the Borders whose first language is that variety of Modern Scots. Native speaker of Scottish Standard English, with a little time spent studying linguistics and an interest in the subject.
Here's a repost of an earlier comment[1] I made on the relationship between Scots and English, which also applies here:
I think you're confusing dialect with language here. Scots and Scottish English are distinct from one another. The latter does borrow some from the former which leads to confusion. Scots is a language, historically equivalent and closely related to English but still distinct.
It's a stretch to argue that "many modern English speakers derive from Scots root". At this point in history, most Scots speak Scottish English with some borrowing from a Scots root -- not the other way around. This is evident in the fact that the vast majority of a modern Scottish person's vocabulary is from mainline English and intelligible by someone from London. That doesn't happen by Scots borrowing vocabulary from English -- it happens from English absorbing vocabulary from Scots.
This is the situation for the vast majority of Scottish people. Coming across those who don't fit into the English-with-Scots-influence only reinforces this. Doric is arguably a descendant of mainline Scots which has converged on English, rather than the other way around, and means it's sometimes difficult to parse even for other Scots. Quite a lot of the Borders also speak a dialect which derives from Scots which has converged on English, and is difficult for other Scots to parse. They sound very similar to each other to someone who speaks neither, but are actually quite distinct -- mistaking someone from Selkirk for an Aberdonian will cause offence!
The Wikipedia has a pretty good article on Modern Scots, though I think it overstates the pervasiveness of modern Scots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Scots It's also worth noting that most speakers of Modern Scots also speak Scottish English, and code-switching takes place frequently and fluidly.
Gaelic is spoken by ~57,500 people in Scotland. Some of them have English as a second language, having been raised with Gaelic as the language of the home. In some cases this does show their English usage. One common tell is slightly unusual phrasing -- one typical and quite common usage is "You will be having tea?" rather than the more common "Will you be having tea?" Even then, they're still speaking a variety Scottish English and not Scots.
tl;dr: Every Scottish person speaks at least one of the dialects of Scottish English. Some also speak a dialect of Modern Scots. An even smaller number speak Gaelic.
Sources: Highlander born and raised, living in Aberdeen for >10 years. One parent is a Gael whose second language is English, the other parent is from the Borders whose first language is that variety of Modern Scots. Native speaker of Scottish Standard English, with a little time spent studying linguistics and an interest in the subject.
Canada has the highest number of Gaidhlig (Scottish Gaelic) speakers outside of Scotland. Nova Scotia -- literally "New Scotland" -- has strong ties with Scotland, being originally colonised by Scots and they celebrate that heritage quite openly.
GordonS is right: Gaidhlig is only ever referred to as "Scottish Gaelic" or, more commonly, just "Gaelic" by Scots on a day-to-day basis. The concept of "Scottish" as a language is pretty murky and is generally not used seriously. Even in these days of awakened Scottish national identity and independence referendums, we all still speak English of a Scottish variety and call it English.
Calling Gaeilge "Irish" and Irish English "English" makes a lot more sense, frankly.
I think you're confusing dialect with language here. Scots and Scottish English are distinct from one another. The latter does borrow some from the former which leads to confusion. Scots is a language, historically equivalent and closely related to English but still distinct.
It's a stretch to argue that "many modern English speakers derive from Scots root". At this point in history, most Scots speak Scottish English with some borrowing from a Scots root -- not the other way around. This is evident in the fact that the vast majority of a modern Scottish person's vocabulary is from mainline English and intelligible by someone from London. That doesn't happen by Scots borrowing vocabulary from English -- it happens from English absorbing vocabulary from Scots.
This is the situation for the vast majority of Scottish people. Coming across those who don't fit into the English-with-Scots-influence only reinforces this. Doric is arguably a descendant of mainline Scots which has converged on English, rather than the other way around, and means it's sometimes difficult to parse even for other Scots. Quite a lot of the Borders also speak a dialect which derives from Scots which has converged on English, and is difficult for other Scots to parse. They sound very similar to each other to someone who speaks neither, but are actually quite distinct -- mistaking someone from Selkirk for an Aberdonian will cause offence!
The Wikipedia has a pretty good article on Modern Scots, though I think it overstates the pervasiveness of modern Scots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Scots
It's also worth noting that most speakers of Modern Scots also speak Scottish English, and code-switching takes place frequently and fluidly.
Gaelic is spoken by ~57,500 people in Scotland. Some of them have English as a second language, having been raised with Gaelic as the language of the home. In some cases this does show their English usage. One common tell is slightly unusual phrasing -- one typical and quite common usage is "You will be having tea?" rather than the more common "Will you be having tea?" Even then, they're still speaking a variety Scottish English and not Scots.
tl;dr: Every Scottish person speaks at least one of the dialects of Scottish English. Some also speak a dialect of Modern Scots. An even smaller number speak Gaelic.
Sources: Highlander born and raised, living in Aberdeen for >10 years. One parent is a Gael whose second language is English, the other parent is from the Borders whose first language is that variety of Modern Scots. Native speaker of Scottish Standard English, with a little time spent studying linguistics and an interest in the subject.
Hey, parent poster here, also living in and around Aberdeen for most of my life :)
You're bang on about Doric being difficult for people from elsewhere in Scotland; I have family from the central belt and they really struggle to understand some folk up here!
The BBC's postwar campaign to establish Recieved Pronunciation made the UK largely comprehensible to each other but at great cost to it's unrecorded linguistic diversity - at the time sadly considered vulgar.
Lang may yer Lum Reek ! ( Long may your chimney's smoke - a Fifer greeting )
Linguistic flattening had been going longer before the Second World War -- the introduction of railways helped it a long a bit, but radio really sped up the process. My grandmother told me that radio, listened to by all the family, was the first time English was spoken in the family home.
The green-topped bottle in the linked piece is 20g sugar per 100g, but I've seen some in the UK that are 25g or even 30g. I don't eat the stuff myself, but know a lot of people who do and they often put on quite a lot -- definitely more than 1/96th of a bottle serving.
