I think it’s been farily firmly established that “janitor” does not have any special meaning in Scottish culture that is reflected in any aspect of the portrayal of Groundskeeper Willie. In fact, so far as I know, no one on The Simpsons has ever referred to Willie as being a “janitor,” although his duties seem to include that of a janitor. The fact that the word entered English via Scots seems an awful thin thread to hang any degree of significance on. It’s not even a notable coincidence, in my mind.
Willie lives on the grounds of an American public school, an unheard of arrangement here. He seems to have duties at the school beyond merely cleaning up,including disciplinary. I think we do have specific linkage of the janitor position to Scottish culture, both through the etymology (not simply that it entered English through Scots English, but the fact that it was a position in Scottish schools specifically), as well as the rather specific post of Futile Gesture of someone’s recollection of this job.
Otherwise this is a massive coincidence.
This site suggests:
So who and why become the questions. Is it really that off the wall that someone could have known about the expanded/archaic meaning of janitor and thought it was funny for that reason? I think it is funny, and one heck of an in-joke if there is a connection.
Here’s how the timeline would’ve gone:[ol]
[li]Script written. “Groundskeeper” character given a few lines.[/li][li]Voices recorded. Dan Castelleneta comes up with Scottish accent.[/li][li]Storyboard drawn. Hearing Scottish accent, animators draw a Scotsman.[/li][li]Storyboard reviewed. Script slightly rewritten, possibly additional lines added. “Groundskeeper” possibly renamed to “Groundskeeper Willie” based on Scottishness.[/li][li]Episode animated.[/li][li]Episode aired.[/li][/ol]Maybe at step 4, or in between steps 2 and 3, the writers said “Hey, Scottish, that’s great 'cause in the future we can use him as a janitor and tie into that whole historic ‘Janitor’ position thing.” But I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that their overriding concern was that it was funny.
No doubt. I believe Dan Castelleneta tells the same story on one of the season 3 commentaries, but I’m not sure. But your response to that might be that it’s become an institutional myth or something.
IMHO, you’re playing the literary criticism game of spotting allusions where none were intended. You’re smart, the Simpsons writers are smart, and you and the writers probably share many cultural influences. Therefore a lot of the references that they write in to the show are understood by you. But you’ve read things they haven’t. With a prior history of catching obscure references, you will tend to see something that you have familiarity with as an obscure reference, even if it wasn’t intended that way.
#1 - having spent a lot of years in school (about 55! I was a slow learner) I know that the janitors have a number of roles, both inside and outside the school, depending upon such things as the size of the school, the location, the nature and desires of the administration, the type of school, etc. So the question of “what does a janitor do?” has a lot of answers. I remember janitors who’d give you a swat because they were displeased with how you were acting. Formally assigned or not, that was an understanding they had with the faculty and the principal. If not their job, it was the expectation.
#2) As for Groundskeeper Willie, I always figured that “groundskeeper” was a reference to the job that is done on golf courses, and the connection seemed perfectly normal, since golf is a game of Scottish origin. He’s Groundskeeper Willie because he comes from Scotland and he takes care of the external and internal environs of the school.
Unfortunately, that’s a greenkeeper!
Doh! :smack:
Why is being Scottish funny all by itself? That I don’t get.
But not unusual here in the UK (both North and South of the border). Its just something that goes with the job.
What CC said. There’s no standard job description for a role like this - it varies from school to school and the disciplinary element is certainly something you wouldn’t see over here beyond the general respect for ones elders/school staff.
They may call it a Janitor up there, we’re just more likely to call it a Caretaker down here. The role is the same even if the term is different.
Just to comment, I don’t think the Brits here realize just how foreign the description of Scottish janitors sounds to American ears. Sure, the essentials of the job may be universal, but the specific scope of the job and the relationship to teachers, students, and the school itself are all completely unknown in the US outside of Harry Potter and, well, The Simpsons. (Americans, it should also be noted, have a peculiar fascination with these sorts of elements of British Culture, which is hard for Brits to grasp.)
So the OP’s hypothosis was not, on the face of it, implausible. That said, I think it’s been clearly debunked, though I suppose it is possible (though unlikely, I think) that this did in fact affect later development of the character.
Oh, and yes, being Scottish is, for Americans, funny all by itself. I’m not sure why, but I blame Canadian Mike Myers (with some help from Englishman Patrick Stewart) for this.