What Is The Scottish Saying For
"Fools And Half Baked"?

Discover Scotland Guestbook > Half Baked

By Steve Gould, from Brampton, Ontario, Canada

Hi John,

Your 'Discover Scotland' website is wonderful. Useful, interesting, easy to read.... You've done a great job.

My Father is Scottish. His father was born and bred in Greenock, and his mother was born in Edinburgh. (My mother's family is Russian/Ukrainian.) When I read the line you wrote "...we can glorify failure, we never give up, and we don't take ourselves too seriously." I said outloud: "I am so Scottish."

My Grandfather was a great man. Sharp as a tack, and brilliant. He died in 1988, but I can still hear him counting "one, two, shree, four.." LOL He had all kinds of wisdom and expressions but the one that I try to live by, and pass on is: "A genious doesn't know all the answers, a genious knows where to GET all the answers". He said that often, and he always found the answers.

My Granmother (his wife) had an expression or 'saying' she always said when someone commented or 'judged' a project or job that was not finished. The saying basically said don't make any conclusions till the job is done. Words in the saying that I can remember are something like 'fools' and 'half-baked', I just can't remember the whole thing.

Do you have any idea ? Ever heard anything close ? This has been driving me nuts for weeks. I've been searching old proverbs on the internet and haven't had any luck. That's how I found your site and some of the 'sayings' you have I had heard but long forgotten. The one about the blind horse, for example.

Hope you can help me out with that old Scottish Saying. Again... Great work !!! Fantastic web site.

Cheers from Canada,
Steve.

My reply :

Thanks for taking the time to write this Steve. Greenock is right next door to my home town of Port Glasgow, where I still live. I can't place the saying you're asking about, I've only heard about a job being half done being referred to as "half baked" or an idea not fully thought out, being "half baked", and I'm not sure if this saying originated in Scotland.

Maybe my visitors can help? If you're reading this, can you answer Steve's question? If so please Please Send It In, and put us out of our misery.

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