BY GUSTAVO ARELLANO

Dear Readers: My recent column regarding the dissimilarities between Scots and Mexicans provoked a surprising amount of angry responses — by real Scotsmen furious that letter writer Great Scot could be so pendejo. Here's the best reader carta:

Having just read Great Scot's question and your response, I can't help but think that he is one of those Americans who calls himself Scottish because his surname starts with Mc or Mac or his great-great granny once drunk a whisky. These are the types of people who are so insecure about being American they have to latch on to any European heritage to feel like they have some history. As I was born and raised in Scotland 'til the ripe old age of 21, I can tell you this: there is NO Scottish person that I've ever heard of who identifies with Celtic history who would ever boast about the 1707 Act of Union. So, Great Scot has given himself away as being not a Scottish person at all but rather an American that so desperately wishes that he were Scottish. There's nothing that annoys me more than when people find out I am Scottish, and go on to tell me how they are Scottish, too, with their American accents. I even had one dumb-as-dirt female respond with a flick of her ginger locks and, "Oh, I'm Scottish too, can't you tell?" No, because hair colour isn't really the best indicator of national origin. Nice try, Great Scot. Maybe you should try passing yourself off as another type of foreigner in the U.S.A because as far as acting and sounding Scottish, you're just about as bad as Sir Sean himself.

A Non-Fraud Scot

P.S. America would be shit without Mexicans!!!!!!

Dear Thrifty Gabacho: I didn't realize you Scots were as jingoistic, macho, and rambling as us Mexicans — gracias for the clarification and love!

Dear Mexican: Why shouldn't the United States demand 100 barrels of oil from Mexico for each illegal Mexican as a compensation for the cost of their impact on our sovereign country?

Christ, Hispanics Endanger Very Rigid Oil Numbers

Dear CHEVRON: Because if Mexico did the same — demand 100 barrels for every time el Norte meddled in Mexican affairs — your Toyota would run on peat moss.

I accidentally broke out some Spanglish at an inappropriate time the other day, which elicited strange looks from my gabacho coworkers. It got me thinking: Do other immigrant populations mix languages the way Mexicans do? Do Koreans always find themselves accidentally slipping into the native tongues of their parents? How about when Italians were the new wave of immigrants — did their kids grow up speaking their own form of hybrid English? And what about immigrant populations in the rest of the world?

No Es Very Bueno

Dear Wab: Yes, ne, s", s', Don't believe the custodians of Cervantes: Spanglish is a beautiful cosa, as is every other pidgin tongue. Such mongrelization is inevitable, is proof that a language is alive, that a culture can not only adapt to new environs but thrive and even enrich the host nation. I don't know about language patterns amongst immigration populations save for those who invaded America, and their impact on American English is what makes it so vibrant — on that subject, I defer to H.L. Mencken's pioneering The American Language or the recent How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads. Buy those gems after buying my recently released paperback — what, ustedes thought I'd go a week without a shameless plug?

Get all your Mexican needs at youtube.com/askamexicano, myspace.com/ocwab, and themexican@askamexican.net!

Gustavo Arellano is an investigative reporter on staff at the OC Weekly in Orange County, California. His "¡Ask a Mexican!" column began in 2004 and today is syndicated in 32 publications nationwide. He is also the author of a book by the same name. An extensive interview with Arellano can be found in the EW archives online for Nov. 29, 2007. Arellano can be contacted at TheMexican@AskAMexican.net