Alex Massie Alex Massie

Why Scottish public schools are in a field of their own

It's only partly because most of the country seems so uncomfortable with them

issue 14 March 2015

In 1919 the literary critic G. Gregory Smith coined the term ‘Caledonian antisyzygy’, by which he meant the ‘zigzag of contradictions’ that so dominated the national literature that it might be reckoned a useful summation of the Scottish character itself. ‘Oxymoron,’ Smith observed, ‘was ever the bravest figure, and we must not forget that disorderly order is order after all.

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