Burns Night, neeps and Sassenachs

It's the anniversary of the birth of the Scottish poet Robert Burns today. I wrote on the haggis last year, so here's that post again.

An article in The Guardian asks whether neeps are turnips or swedes. The author suggests that neeps may be a contraction of 'new turnips', which is the Scottish term for swedes. The OED is no help on the matter as it defines neep as turnip, swede and parsnip, although thinks that the word comes from the Latin napus, meaning turnip.

Sassenach is a term used by the Scots to describe an English person. It comes from the Scottish Gaelic word for Saxon.