De-coding language in Scotland: A guide for the perplexed
Working with a student from outside Scotland
reminded me of the experience of working in the
East End of Glasgow as a newly-arrived Irish
immigrant and having great difficulty in
understanding what my service users were saying.
They were not ‘service users’ then of course but
never mind ....
Here is my attempt to help others in that position and
is a small gift to my student. All corrections and
additions welcome! This is a work in progress.
Braw
Bunker
Chum
Doo
Flit
Get your jotters
Greetin’
Hen
Ken
Moonlight flit
On the Bru
On the panel
Shuggley nail
Stookie
Stour
To hurl
fine, as in a fine night
in Edinburgh (maybe other places) the kitchen surface
accompany, as in ‘I’ll chum you to the shops’
pigeon
move house
be fired
crying
term of endearment to a female of any age
know – A’ ken or A’ dinnae ken – I know or do not know
move house without paying the bills
signed off as not well enough to work
Unemployed
as in ‘his coat is on a shuggley nail’ – he is under threat of being
fired or similar – his coat is hanging on a nail which is not very
secure
a plaster cast on a broken limb
a layer of dirt/dust, typically left after building work
to wheel, sometimes used to mean to push in a wheelchair
Moira Dunworth – just getting the hang of it after 37 years!
De-coding language in Scotland by Moira Dunworthis licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.