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Sunday 24 February 2013

Readers might be interested in The Scottish Place Name Society, "Comann Ainmean-Aite Na h-Alba" http;//www.spns.org.uk/ , and links, ,http://swap.nesc.gla.ac.uk/  and  www.twitter.co/scotswap  The latter link is a forum for informal discussion and information about Scots words and colloquail and unofficial place-names, (Scots Words and Place Names, SWAP ).

It was tragic to hear about the tragic deaths of seven young people in two seperate avalanches recently, one on the slopes of Bidean nam Bian, in Glencoe, on the 19/01/2013, and the other in the Cairngorms, at The Chalamain Gap, near The Lairig Ghru on the 14/02/2013.These were no inexperienced tourists, but experienced mountaineers, amongst them,two female medical doctors and two R.A.F. Personnel.


There is also a forum, SWAP, (Scots Words and Place-Names), link to the Scottish Place Name Society at  www.facebook.com/scotswap  I attended the initial conference at The University of St, Andrews on the 17-Feb-1996, with my brother, Alasdair, and the Society was founded that very night, and has gone from strength to strength. Readers might also be interested that there is a Ainmean-Aite na-Alba ,Gaelic place-names of Scotland, the national advisory board for researching Gaelic forms of place-names in Scotland, AAA's research is being uploaded to the National Gazateer of Gaelic Place Names, a free online database available on  www.ainmean-aite.org  ,which has over a 1,000 entries at the moment, with links to digital maps, and sound files to aid pronunciation.