rùsg - fleece

[Droigheann]

Is simple rùsg also used in Gaelic with the meaning "(modern) fleece jacket"? In other words, if I say "chuir mi orm an rùsg agam", wouldn't people get an impression that I'm some New Ager running around in sheepskin?

[akerbeltz]

It would only conjur up the caveman image I'm afraid, Droog

[Droigheann]

What should one use then, "seacaid rùisg" or simply "fleece"? (No 's dòcha "flìs"?)

[akerbeltz]

I would stick to using fleece. My rule of thumb is that if the Germans don't on the whole use a German word for it, it becomes a holier-than-the-pope issue i.e. there's probably not much harm in just sticking to using the English. Words like flìs give me a nosebleed I know they're tempting but the problem is that too many of them will seriously mess up the letter to sound rules. Flìs suggests */fliːʃ/ but I would bet a lot of money that */fliːʃ/ would not be understood or indeed used. Worse, if you write flìs and say /fliːs/, it becomes another telebhisean word (which is /tele/ not */tʲele/). In short, there's no easy way of making this Gaelic.

To be honest, I'd worry much less about using English words in Gaelic than about badly re-spelled words, poor idiom and suchlike. A lot of these words are pretty transient, i.e. if you consider that in 50 years time, if humans are still around, we probably won't be wearing fleeces any more, the need for coining something lessens quite a bit. But if we mess up the letter to sound rules, that will stay with us for a looong time. Sorry, rant over, not aimed at you at all, it's just that you brought it up

[Droigheann]

Oh, that's fine - in fact it's reassuring to know that other people also use this principle of "if my L1 doesn't have a word for it, there's no need to insist on Gaelic having one". I was out of my depth here though, because fleeces are rarely worn here even now, never mind in 50 years, and if there is a word for them it's unknown to me, so I had nothing to compare with.

(Generally, however, there is a tendency to change the spelling, but that's because the language tends towards the IPA rule of "one sound - one letter", so one doesn't have to consider letters "working together", hence my poor attempt at Gaelicising the English pronunciation.)