Jeremy Paxman, for whom teasing the Scots is an irresistible temptation, has crossed what many will see as the final barrier of good taste by mocking the national bard.

The Newsnight presenter, who once complained that Britain was run by “a sort of Scottish Raj”, and who believes that most Scots walk around with a huge chip on their shoulder, has dismissed the work of Robert Burns as “sentimental doggerel”. And he has done so in a work of reference that will be around for rather longer than one of his celebrated television interviews.

Writing in the introduction to the new edition of Chambers Dictionary, in which famous figures produce their favourite unusual or unfamiliar words, he seeks one to describe the state of being dog-tired - canvassing, first, the word “forswunk”, then turning to Burns as an afterthought.

“Although I'm afraid I find the Scottish national poet no more than a king of sentimental doggerel, one might as well have used his ‘ramfeezled' to describe our state,” he writes.

What Paxman may not have realised is that the word “ramfeezled” was first used by an English poet, not Burns. William Cowper (1731-1800) said that he found Burns's work

“extraordinary” - and that the only reason English critics underrated him was because they were “ramfeezled”, or overcome, by his Scots dialect.

The reaction to Paxman's aside was as predictable as he doubtless knew it would be. Furious academics unleashed what Burns might have called a “thrum” of outrage - a fit of pique and righteous indignation. Facile, daft and nonsensical were just three of the adjectives hurled across the Border, while a spokesman for the First Minister, Alex Salmond, labelled him a “gowk” - translatable either as a cuckoo or a species of tit.

Alan Riach, professor of Scottish literature at the University of Glasgow, said he detected a trace of “Scotophobia” in Paxman's views. While he conceded that an excess of sentimentality has been attached to the poet's work over the years, he insisted that the texts bore little trace of it.

Professor Robert Crawford, of the University of St Andrews, who is writing a biography of Burns, said that the introduction was another example of Paxman's well-documented antipathy towards Scotland. “I think you can sometimes sense, especially when he is interviewing Alex Salmond, that he has a difficulty about Scotland and Scottish culture, and it is possible that might be contributing to his views on Burns,” he said.

“Burns is a subtle and consummate poet and I don't think we need to worry about what Jeremy Paxman says about him.”

Neal Ascherson, the author and commentator on Scottish culture, said that Burns was an international poet with international ambitions. “One of the fine things about Burns is that he was not sentimental,” he said. “Of course he wrote a lot of trash, but at his best he respected ordinary people and took their feelings seriously.”

It is not the first time that Burns has been accused of sentimentality. In the Companion to Scottish Culture, edited by the late Professor David Daiches, Burns is described as “divided between satire and sentimentality, explosive vernacular and insipid English, vigorous bawdry and pietistic moralising, who was prevented from writing sustained poetry of the very highest sort...”

A spokesman for the First Minister urged the TV interviewer to delve further into the bard's work. “Jeremy Paxman should spend more time reading Burns. As Burns wrote in To a Louse: ‘O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us'. In light of his daft comments about Burns, Jeremy looks like a gowk.”

Scourge of the Scots

—Paxman said in 2005 that Scots had a “chip on their shoulder” about their nationality and that English were living “under a sort of Scottish Raj” because of the dominance of Scots in the Cabinet

—Earlier this year he expressed concern about the quality of Marks & Spencer underpants and reported “widespread gusset anxiety” after discussions with friends on the matter . “I have noticed that something very troubling has happened. There's no other way to put this. Their pants no longer provide adequate support,” he said

—In May 1997, an exasperated Paxman famously asked Michael Howard, who had been Home Secretary until 13 days previously, the same question 12 times

—Expressing pride in his Yorkshire roots, he once said: “Imagine coming from Middlesex. What a terrible, terrible thing to have to live with”

Source: Times database

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