As the old joke goes, what is a Canadian's favorite color? Plaid! And you'll see lots of what folks call “;plaid”; at this weekend's Scottish Festival at Kapiolani Park.

However, we need some schooling on the subject. The term is a bit of a misnomer.

In the United States we call almost any sort of checkered cloth “;plaid,”; although in Celtic nations a “;plaide”; is actually a blanket, albeit generally woven in checkers. Plaid is a noun, not a descriptive adjective.

And so, when you see a stout lad wearing a kilt doubled with a pleated cloth over the shoulder in the same pattern, he's wearing what is known as a “;full plaid.”; This is because in olden times, Scotsmen often had to sleep where the trail took them, and so they carried their blankets with them as part of their national dress.

The pattern of colors and checks is created by weaving worsted wool dyed in various colors, and the patterns are called “;setts,”; almost a mathematical formula for achieving certain patterns on the loom. The various designs are called “;tartans,”; and they are claimed by Scottish families and organizations.

But don't fall for the notion that tartan history goes back into the dark ages. Scots had to use natural dyes for coloring, and the mottled appearance made for good camouflage while hunting and warring. It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that stable, bright colors became available, and it wasn't until Queen Victoria became besotted with Scots' culture that tartans burst forth in colorful glory.

And so, the stylized Scots' tartan really only goes back a couple of centuries.

The showcase for such tartan patterns is the kilt, worn by Celtic men as national dress, although if you go to Scotland today, the average Scot is wearing bluejeans. Kilts are mostly worn during ceremonial occasions, like Scottish Festivals.

The kilt is not simply a tartan-patterned skirt. (That's what the lasses wear in Catholic school.) A true kilt is thick woolen cloth, sewed in pleats in the back and crossed in the front in a double layer of flat sections called aprons. It takes so much cloth that a large chap takes “;the whole nine yards,”; which is where that expression comes from.

A properly constructed kilt is heavy and hangs straight, and it takes a mighty wind to lift one, which is good, because a Scots fellow in a kilt is considered out of uniform if he's wearing underwear.

Since kilts don't have pockets, it's normally worn with a sporran, a kind of pouch that hangs around the waist. These sporrans can get fancy.

Their other accessories include a broad belt about the waist; knee-high stockings referred to as hose; the kilt pin on the lower edge of the free apron flap in front, adding weight to the edge; and the “;sgian dubh,”; a small knife shoved into the top lip of the knee hose.

There you have it, a refresher course, Kilts and Plaids 101. Whether one has the extreme fashion sense to wear a kilt is up to the individual.

And here's one more old joke: Many have tried to make fun of a man in a kilt—and none have succeeded.