The Height Atween Tintock-Tap And Coulter-Fell
Is Just Three Quarters O’ An Ell.These hills are the most conspicuous objects in a district of Lanarkshire, which is in general rather flat; and the rhyme seems merely to denote that they are nearly of the same height.
p16 in ‘The popular rhymes of Scotland’ by Robert Chambers (1826).
Can it really only refer to something so mundane? It sounds like an aphorism you would speak sagely in response to a certain situation. You wouldn’t say:“There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip. This seems merely to denote that some people have messy table manners.”
The Scottish Mountaineering Club are still adjusting The Munros List even in these days of GPS and satellite mapping. Of course back in the day the locals wouldn't be able to tell that Tinto was a mere 707 metres (the bronze age burial cairn on the summit takes it up to 711 metres) compared to Coulter Fell with 748 metres.