"DUM SPIRO SPERO" To allay any first-seen ideas, the above title has nothing whatever to do with Spiro Agnew.
The term "spiro" seems to be bring up memories of the flamboyant Governor of Maryland and Vice-President of the United States for a time. His is remembered positively as a prime user of subtle English terms and negatively because of corruption in office.
All that was years ago ...now, notice that the opening word "Dum" is a followed by "spiro" and "spero" - with the "i" in the first one and the "e" in the other.
It is the proud motto of the Lindsay Clan in Scotland and translates as "While I Breathe , I Hope."
I know one member of the Lindsay clan who recently moved to Texas from Southwestern Virginia. Sam Houston, I'm told, is an important name down there and I find it interesting that she has moved from a hundred from Sam Houston birthplace and at about the same distance to the south is Austinville,Va birthplace of the Vice President of the Republic of Texas.. With a house by a lake, she hasn't moved so far away after all. And she can still
It reminds me so much of what my father used to tell people when they asked him how he had attained the 95 years or so of age. He admonished them to "Just keep on breathin', Brother." It is so close to the same idea of the Lindsay motto that I have wondered if the McCaskey's, on behalf of the MacLeod, ever mixed it up with the Lindsays at one time or another long ago.
Visiting Dunvegan Castle in the Skye area might indicate some pattern of association of the one clan, and its septs, with the other. I will assume it is in Latin. until someone tells me differently. I don't remember enough High School Latin to recall the "dum" ..."Dom" seem logical, but "dum" conjures up the image of Spiro Agnew once again because he did some dumb things in his public career. Dumb Spiro. Like a fox, perhaps?
I have often though that it would have been rather rough for a person to have to live up to some of the family slogans we read about. This one for the Lindsay's would, however, seem to encourage members to look after their good health and maintain standards of survival. Of course, it could have been that were being told to exercise special care in clan warfare if they expected to be around for a few more centuries.
The Lindsay family is one I have never inquired into thus far, and I don't know that they were one of the more warlike clans of the Highlands or not. The motto told them that, if they should fall, they should get up again and continue in the fray. It urged them, I would say, not to give way to despair in times of negotiations and disagreement, but to stick right in there to the bitter end and they would win out eventually. If they fell they were to get up quickly. Only in doing so, could they maintain the bulwark of "hope" which would serve as the means of their ultimate success.
A.L.M. May 2, 2005 [c547wds]
