History Main / ThriftyScot

--->'''BrianBlessed''', ''HaveIGotNewsForYou''. [[note]]For transatlantic reference, £5 is around 8$, next to nothing in terms of US petrol buying and next to the square root of bugger all in more expensive Britain.[[/note]]

This trope may explain why Scotland has had comparatively little anti-Semitism compared to other parts of Britain and Europe -- they recognized the [[GreedyJew most]] [[AllJewsAreCheapskates common]] anti-Semitic stereotypes as things that were also frequently applied to them.

** One time, Connolly was on Conan O' Brien explaining that he once bungee jumped naked on his travel show. Why? The place apparently had a policy that if you jumped completely naked, it was free. When Conan asked why he did this just to save a few tens of dollars, Connolly replied "You'd have to be a Scotsman to understand".

* This, combined with ViolentGlaswegian, is a major part of Billy Connolly's act. "My uncle once dropped ten pence; he bent over to pick it up, and it hit him in the back of the head."

* The Scotch brand of tape gets its name from an incident where the first attempts didn't have enough adhesive on them, prompting buyers to call the makers "Scotch" (which used in this sense is a pejorative). The story goes that the tape was originally manufactured by 3M for [[MotorCity Detroit]] engineers and auto stylists to separate different colors of paint, e.g. in two-tone paint jobs. The original tape only had adhesive on the two edges, leading to bleeding paint. The Detroit guys sent a message to 3M's chief engineer telling him some variation on "take this Scotch tape to your Scotch bosses and tell them to put adhesive down the middle."

Compare the stereotypes about [[GreedyJew Jewish]] [[AllJewsAreCheapskates people]].

Compare GreedyJew.

--->'''BrianBlessed''', HaveIGotNewsForYou. [[note]]For transatlantic reference, £5 is around 8$, next to nothing in terms of US petrol buying and next to the square root of bugger all in more expensive Britain.[[/note]]

Along with being [[BraveScot brave]] and [[ViolentGlaswegian violent]], Scottish people are also often stereotyped as being thrifty with their money and belongings. Within Scotland itself, people from Aberdeen may be stereotyped as being especially thrifty. Probably TruthInTelevision, since Scotland has always been a poor area compared to England, not to mention being considerably less fertile than the south. Thriftiness is a necessity under such circumstances.

Examples:

* The Scotch brand of tape gets its name from an incident where the first attempts didn't have enough adhesive on them, prompting buyers to call the makers "Scotch" (which used in this sense is a pejorative). The story goes that the tape was originally manufactured by 3M for [[MotorCity Detroit]] engineers and auto stylists to separate different colors of paint, e.g. in two-tone paint jobs. The original tape only had adhesive on the two edges, leading to bleeding paint. The Detroit guys sent a message to 3M's chief engineer telling him some variation on "take this Scotch tape to your Scotch bosses and tell them to put adhesive down the middle."

** Also, it didn't help that this trope was pretty much enforced on the Scots of the time. The union was driven by an economic crisis in Scotland, a failed attempt to colonise Pnanama almost destroying the economy.

--->BrianBlessed, HaveIGotNewsForYou. [[note]]For reference, £5 is around 8$, next to nothing in terms of US petrol buying and next to the square root of bugger all in more expensive Britain.[[/note]]

--->BrianBlessed, HaveIGotNewsForYou. For reference, £5 is around 8$.

* [[DisneyDucksComicUniverse Scrooge McDuck]] hails from Scotland, probably because of his love of money.

* The characters Hamish and Dougal, created by Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer for the Sound Charades round in ''Radio/ImSorryIHaventAClue''. The CatchPhrase "You'll have had your tea?" is intended to be heard as "You're not expecting me to feed you, right?"

* The "Poet [=McTeagle=]" sketch from ''MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' chronicles what are ostensibly the poems of Scotland's greatest poet, but are actually all requests for money.

* An episode of ''DadsArmy'' involves Frazier maniacally hanging onto his stash of gold coins despite all Captain Mainwaring's attempts to get him to put it into his bank.

** "You may have heard that nasty rumour floating around that copper wire was invented by two Scotsmen fighting over a penny."
** One time, Connolly was on Conan O' Brien explaining that he once bungee jumped naked on his travel show. Why? The place apparently had a policy that if you jumped completely naked, it was free. When Conan asked why he did this just to save a few tens of dollars, Connolly replied "You'd have to be a Scotsman to understand".

* In the LooneyTunes cartoon "My Bunny Lies Over the Sea," the Scotsman whom BugsBunny messes with is shown as being thrifty. He has only one bullet that he has kept in the family for years, and he is tricked into lowering Bugs' golf score because Bugs makes it seem like an auction and his immediate reaction is to want a lower number.

* The Scotch brand of tape gets its name from an incident where the first attempts didn't have enough adhesive on them, prompting buyers to call the makers Scottish.

* In the Disney cartoon ''Pigs Is Pigs'', the conflict in the story is partially because the Scottish [=McMorehouse=] doesn't want to pay an extra 4 cents to have the guinea pigs shipped as "pigs" rather than as "pets" (probably justified in this case because 4 cents would be a lot of money in 1905).

* A large proportion of the jokes about GordonBrown while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer played on this trope (ha, ha, the frugal Scot is in charge of the country's finances! It's so funny!). Brown didn't help his case by playing into another stereotype about Scots: that of the "dour Scotsman" who [[TheStoic shows no emotion]] and is consistently gloomy in his mien if not his outlook. The jokes persisted somewhat during his tenure as [[TheMenOfDowningStreet Prime Minister]], given that he was overseeing the country during the financial crisis and money matters were front and center, but strangely, his Chancellor, the equally-Scottish (if born in London) Alistair Darling, did not receive the same treatment.

"In Scotland, panic buying of petrol is rampant, with Scots putting in as much as ''five pounds'' at the pump."

* Classic ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "Terror of the Zygons" used this stereotype a punchline to the last episode. The majority of the action took place in Scotland but for the finale the action moved to London and at the end the Doctor and Sarah Jane are retrieving the TARDIS. The local duke whom they had rescued then berates the Brigadier (who had been earlier wearing a kilt) for calling himself a Scotsman yet not getting the refund of the return tickets.

[[AC:Western Animation]]

[[AC: Real Life]]

[[AC:Live-Action TV]]
* The "Poet [=McTeagle=]" sketch from ''MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' chronicles what are ostensibly the poems of Scotland's greatest poet, but are actually all requests for money.
* Classic ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "Terror of the Zygons" used this stereotype a punchline to the last episode. The majority of the action took place in Scotland but for the finale the action moved to London and at the end the Doctor and Sarah Jane are retrieving the TARDIS. The local duke whom they had rescued then berates the Brigadier (who had been earlier wearing a kilt) for calling himself a Scotsman yet not getting the refund of the return tickets.

Along with being [[BraveScot brave]] and [[ViolentGlaswegian violent]], Scottish people are also often stereotyped as being thrifty with their money and belongings. Within Scotland itself, people from Aberdeen may be stereotyped as being especially thrifty.

* ScroogeMcDuck hails from Scotland, probably because of his love of money.