MtheGM this topic has been hammered to death over the years. The answer is very simple: Scot is a noun, Scotch can be a noun or an adjective. Scotch was used extensively in the 19th century as an adjective to describe people but fell out of favour due to a narrow minded attitude which thought the use of Scotch to describe people compared them to whisky (whiskey) ... and please don't start on 'whisky' being Scotch (Scottish) and 'whiskey' referring to Irish.