Favourites from my Scots cousins and mother:

Stramash - smash up, disturbance, verbal conflict (maybe also non verbal!)

Peely-Wally - sick looking, off colour, pale

Bawhair - a short distance away ('THAT close!')

Clarty - unclean, of bad hygiene

Heid - head

Blether - talkative (in its use as a noun, an incessantly chatty person)

Confab - a conversation

Drookit - soaking wet

Glaikit - stupid, slow on the uptake (my cousin has repeatdly speculated if I was glaikit...)

Greetin - crying ("see yon wee bairn greetin' an squawkin")

Moose - mouse ("A wee moose in his wee hoose")

Scunnered - bored and fed up

Shoogly - shaky, wobbly

Skoosh - a fizzy drink, but me mum talks of Skeeter-Skoosh (spray insect repellent)

Telt - told ("How do you know if an Englishman's been telt today?" "If he's got a black eye. And if he has twa, he's been telt twice!")

Weean - little one (likely from "wee one")

Wally Dugs - a particularly ugly porcelain statue of a shaggy, sad faced dog (usually coming in pairs) - my mom has a set

Baffies - slippers

Sataboot? - What's that about?

Bawlikin - Getting yelled at (possibly from 'getting a bollocking')


Phrases:

"Aye, Right!" or "Aye, that'll be right!" - calling horse puckey on some statement of dubious plausibility

"Geeza haun" (give us a hand, likely from 'gie us a hand')

"I'll gie ye a dint in the bru!" (punch in the noggin)

"I'll gie ye a box in the lug!" (swat in the ear)

"Lang may your lum reek" (literally may your chimney reek, which meant health in the household so this is a wish for good health)

"Black as the Earl of Hell's waistcot!" (pitch black)

"Dinnae fash!" (don't get overwrought)

"Is the cat deid?" (you are flying low)

"Haud yer wheesht!" (be silent or shut up)

"Ah dinnae ken..." (I don't get it)

"It's a dreich day!" (cold, damp and miserable - archetypal Scots weather!) (and most popular for infantry exercises)

"Gonne no dae that!" (No, I won't do that.) (My cousin could just have ran this on a loop.... intransigent... no half!)

"At daes my nut in." (That hurts my heid)

"Awa' and bile yer heid." (Go boil your head - or go soak your head - somewhat milder than p*ss off!)

"Yer aff yer heid!" (You are daft!)

“It taks a lang spain tae sup wi’ a fly Fifer!” (folks from Fife were reckoned sly and maybe wise to keep a distance from)

"Not on your bumbaleerio” - (no chance!)

"Haste ye back" - (hurry back)

"Doon the pits" - (in the coal mine - my father's father's father worked in the mines, as did my mother's father and his father)

"Malingerer!" - (someone lazy - Grandad used to tease me with this and accused me of "Swingin' the lead" as well.

"A Gleskie Kiss!" - A head butt (Glasgow Kiss)

"Yer faither wasnae a glazier!" - (Get out of the way - your father wasn't a window maker and thus you are not a window!)

"Damn ye for a Campbell!" - Glencoe still hangs in the conscious of some despite the long sweep of time that has passed



Cultural Practices that would be fun to lift:

Hogmanay (long new years celebration) and First Footing (showing up first at a friend's in the new year traditionally in black face often done with coal as good luck).

Traditional Amazing Grace on the pipes at funerals

Folk who wear a stocking knife and the superstition is it must draw blood before it is drawn or an ill fate will befall the wielder (your own blood will do so you can prick yourself)

In a clannish (Gov't Type 1) situation, you could have clan feuds which would embroil unwary travellers.





On Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 11:31 PM Timothy Collinson - timothy.collinson at port.ac.uk (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:


On Tue, 9 Jun 2020, 01:48 Phil Pugliese - philpugliese at yahoo.com (via tml list), <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
This all reminds me of when my Dad (USAAF,USAF, WWII, Korea)  went TDY to London for some months when I was young.
It was way when they still used 'old money' (penny,shilling,pound) & the family actually had fun learning how that worked by using the rhymes that were taught in the local schools. Anyway, the main thing I remember, besides all the different names like 'lift' etc, was the we out out exploring & ran into someone who, for thw life of me, I could NOT comprehend most of his words! Dad could as he had been stationed on a joint RAF/USAAF base during WWII & later told me that it actually *was* a form of english known as 'Cockney'! I was flabbergasted!


Yes, I would probably struggle with a full on Cockney - say two in conversation with each other.  Though I doubt there's any actual Cockneys (technically: born within earshot of the bells of Bow church in London) that couldn't communicate in more standard English if they needed too.

On the other hand, there's a fair number of Cockney phrases that have made it into the mainstream.
Trouble and strife for 'wife'
Dog and bone for 'telephone'
Jimmy Riddle for 'to urinate'
Tea leaf for 'thief'
Joanna for 'piano'
Use your loaf for 'use your head'
For example.

Others like Adam and Eve for 'believe' and china (more properly china plate) for a 'friend' (mate) or have a dicky (more properly dicky bird) for 'have a conversation' I would know and just possibly use but only for 'effect' as it were and a conscious knowledge i was trying to sound Cockney - most likely for humorous purposes.

tc


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