Help: Lake of Menteith

Subject: Lake of Menteith
From: Bagpuss
Date: 21 Jul 00 - 06:41 AM

Does anyone know why the Lake of Menteith is so called, when all other similar bodies of water in Scotland are lochs? This has puzzled me for a while, and nobody i ask seems to know.

Thanks

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: Help: Lake of Menteith
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 21 Jul 00 - 09:45 AM

The best explanation I can find is that it's the result of confusion -possibly cartographic- between Scots "laigh" or "laich" (low lying ground), which applies to the whole area, and English "lake".  One of the Menteith family websites has it that early 19th. century usage was still "loch" of Menteith.

Malcolm