If you hear the word ‘slogan’, you probably think of advertising and Don Draper (or, if you’re a little bit older, of Samantha’s husband Darren in ‘Bewitched’). And you’d be right – the OED defines a ‘slogan’ as ‘a short and striking or memorable phrase used in advertising’. That might make you assume that ‘slogan’ is a fairly modern word. But you would be wrong. Very wrong, in fact…
‘Slogan’ first appeared in writing in the 16th century, but it’s actually much older even than that. Let’s take a little trip to the beautiful Scottish Highlands. ‘Slogan’ comes from a Gaelic term, ‘sluagh-ghairm’, which means ‘battle-cry’ or ‘war-cry’. Scottish Highland clans cried these cries to rally their troops, signal that they were ready to start kicking some ass and to intimidate enemies during battles. Each clan would personalise their battle cries to reflect their identity, heritage and allegiance. I couldn’t find any specific examples of the exact words they used, but historians seem to agree they’d be something along the lines of ‘Die, you English bastards’.
‘Sluagh-ghairm’ was adopted into English as in the 18th century as ‘slogan’. And, as the need for rallying battle cries diminished, it came to represent a memorable phrase used to convey a message.
If all this talk of Scottish battle cries means you’re now thinking of Mel Gibson yelling ‘they’ll never take our freedom!’, then you’d be right. It’s very likely that Scottish warriors at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 (during the First War of Scottish Independence), led by Mel Gibson, sorry, William Wallace, used sluagh-ghairm battle cries to bolster their spirits and unsettle their English adversaries. They didn’t do it in kilts, however, as these weren’t widely worn until many centuries later. Oh, and there was a bridge at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, even though the creators of ‘Braveheart’ decided not to include it.