KinSource - Tale of the Week - He'd Lost the Burr

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The Minneapolis Journal, August 16, 1901, page 6

HE'D LOST THE BURR

Dave Burtie Couldn't Recognize the "Hoot Mon" Dialect.

HE WAS BORN IN SCOTIA HIMSEL'

But When a Bonnie Scotswoman Spoke to Him, He Called an Interpreter.

The Americanization of Gateman Dave Burtie, of the union station, has been so complete that he has apparently forgotten everything he knew about the land of his nativity. Burtie is a Scotsman, born and bred, and it was not until a few years ago that he wended his way to the new world to become a part of our cosmopolitan people. He has been anglicized so thoroughly that he has not only abandoned the use of the language of his fathers, but he is absolutely unable to understand his mother tongue when it is spoken by a thoroughbred Scot. Thus it happens that his associates at the station have a good joke on Burtie.

An immigrant woman arrived at the station yesterday afternoon and approaching the gate asked Burtie a question in the pure Scottish dialect which the gateman had heard in his boyhood. Yet he failed to recognize it. He went into the lower waiting room and finding Immigrant Agent Groettum, said:

"Groettum, there is a woman out here, Swede, I guess. I can't understand her. You'd better take care of her and see that she gets her train."

Mr. Groettum escorted the woman to a seat and asked her in Norwegian where she was going. She shook her head to indicate that his question was not understood. He then repeated it in Swede, and again she shook her head. The agent went back to Burtie and said he thought the woman was from Scotland, but the gateman laughed heartily and told Groettum that he had made a bad guess. Together they went over to the woman again. "Aren't you a Scotswoman?" asked Mr. Groettum.

To Burtie's great surprise she nodded her head vigorously.

Groettum motioned to Burtie and the woman asked him a question in her own language. Burtie could catch a word here and there, but couldn't understand what she was driving at. Then to the great surprise of both the attaches she said:

"Isn't there anyone here who speaks English? I want to go to Stevens, Minn."

The woman came from Duluth and had been a resident of Canada for several months, where she had learned a good deal of English. But the most startling disclosure was that Burtie can no longer pose as a Scotsman.