
‘Dreich’ tops poll of favourite Scots words (2013) - MaysonL
https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/dreich-tops-poll-favourite-scots-words-1593175
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ggm
Do not believe Reddit's view of what the Scots think is their favourite word.
(grew up in Scotland, 1960s-1970s) The C-word is not actually that common. (I
don't mean "chips")

However, if you learn a word from reading the immortal words of D.C.Thompson's
"Oor Wullie" or "the Broons" It may or may not reflect reality. To my mind,
nobody used "jings" un-ironically but an older generation did use "braw" in
its true sense. And the adjective "wee" is heavily used. As in "wee dram"
which means "DO NOT STOP POURING THE BOTTLE UNTIL I SAY SO"

~~~
ck425
Folk say c __t all the time. I went to a very international uni and was
shocked by how offended Americans and English folk got by it. Americans also
got weirdly offended by saying f __k. That made working with them at the start
of my career somewhat difficult as it barely registers in my brain as
inappropriate.

~~~
3dbrows
It's folk in the west who lack airs and graces who say it all the time.

No true Scotsman would use such language so casually. ;-)

~~~
ck425
No true Scot bothers with airs and graces.

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stevekemp
A better article here, with more fun words:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-50476008](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-
scotland-50476008)

My personal favourite Scots word is "wheesht", which I grew up hearing, to
mean "be quiet now". I'm no longer in the UK, but I still find myself saying
it, almost reflexively, to our boy here in Finland. He understands it just
fine!

~~~
GordonS
You can also expand it to "haud yer wheest!", which instead is something like
"shut your mouth!"

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smackay
Don't forget that Scots is generally spoken in the south. There is a rich
selection of dialects around the country, notably in the the north where Norse
is the strongest influence.

[http://www.caithness.org/dialect/](http://www.caithness.org/dialect/)

~~~
arethuza
When I was growing up it was possible to tell by accent whether someone came
from an inland farm or from one of the fishing villages along the coast - even
though the farms might only be 1km or so from the villages.

~~~
stevekemp
The UK is like that as a whole, the accents and dialect can vary enormously in
very short distances.

Even simple things like what people call rolls of bread can place people
pretty accurately:

[https://i.imgur.com/mwoYYYQ.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/mwoYYYQ.jpg)

I call a small roll of bread a "bread-cake" because that's what my mom called
it. My dad would call it a "morning roll". Now I'm an adult I can, and do,
alternate between the two terms but I have a preference for my mother's term.

Some words I take my mother's terms and some my dad's. So I guess there's a
blending from Scotland and Yorkshire. Now raising a bilingual child who is 50%
Finnish who knows how he'll talk, and what he'll call things!

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lb1lf
A Scot chief engineer I once worked with claimed you only needed four words in
your vocabulary to keep up conversation with a true Scotsman - Aye, Nay, Fook,
Shite; if you'd been to university, you could expand your vocabulary with
Bastid, too.

After a couple of weeks offshore with him and assorted other Scots, I came
around to believing he was mostly right...

~~~
arethuza
I got told off at my first job (in 1988) when debugging a problem on site at a
religious book publishers I was apparently cursing without realising it....

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DonaldFisk
I once used the word snib in conversation in England, and got blank looks. I
then realized I didn't know the Standard English word. After describing one, I
was told it was a latch. Other words I prefer that would draw blank looks are
skelf (splinter), bike (wasp's nest), and oose (fluff).

~~~
GordonS
Another Scot here - and I just learned from you that snib and bike aren't used
in general English!

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op03
I recently discovered Still Game on Netflix. It's been my intro to Scotland
:)) It's like watching Golden Girls but with old men, so much more cussing but
in a Scottish accent. Turn it on when ever I need a good laugh. Highly
recommended.

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GordonS
A Doric phrase that people often find amusing is "foos yer doos?" \- it
literally means, "how are your pigeons?", and is used as a salutation like
"how are you?".

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rob74
The only word I already knew from this list is "beasties" \- once again thanks
to Lemmings
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2hQxtvncaQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2hQxtvncaQ))
- gotta finally visit Scotland to expand my vocabulary :D

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arethuza
I'd probably go with "drookit" as my favourite Scots word - although if we
allow phrases I would probably go with the greeting of "fit like" or possibly
my mother's advice before exams at school to "keep the heid".

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dboreham
A word that comes in handy from time to time here in Montana since there is no
equivalent English word. But I'd place "wairsh" higher in my favorite list.
Another word with no direct English translation.

~~~
Freak_NL
According to Collins the (British) English equivalent is simply 'wersh'¹.
Still a Scottish loanword though.

1:
[https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/wair...](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/wairsh)

~~~
thombat
And they define it as:

1\. tasteless; insipid 2\. sour; bitter

So providing three contradictory definitions in just four words. What do you
mean by it when you use it?

~~~
dboreham
It's to do with bitterness and definitely not tasteless. The best way to
understand its definition is to imagine two people picking berries. One goes
to a new bush, plucks a berry, puts it in their mouth then makes an expression
indicating unpleasant taste, puckering. Their friend asks "Nae gid?" they
respond "Aye, yon's offey wairsh".

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grey-area
What about dwam, as in away in a dwam (dreamworld)?

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test1235
weirdest one I came across is 'oxster' ... means armpit

'piece' means sandwich, and a 'ginger' is a soft drink

I like 'glaikit' (no idea how you spell that) ... it's basically a verb to be
a daydreamy, dozy f*ck

~~~
amouat
"oxter". It's a common word in Shetland (island to the north of Scotland),
less so on the mainland.

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fergie
If you want a deep dive into modern Scots as its spoken today check out
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottishPeopleTwitter/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottishPeopleTwitter/)
if you haven't already done so

~~~
3dbrows
Personally I find that subreddit is a cringeworthy series of posts wherein
people go overboard with Glaswegian patterns of speech and then label it
"Scots". I wouldn't regard it as a reference for how people actually talk.

~~~
ck425
It's definitely more Glaswegian than generic Scottish but it's also definitely
accurate!

