1 Blethering Scots

-My favourite Scots word is stramash.

-Fankle.

-Gallus.

-Glaikit.

-Feart.

This is a celebration of the Scots language.

Rich, varied, moaning and funny.

We've asked a bunch of well-kennt faces to choose their

favourite Scots word, tell us why and celebrate a few others besides.

Oh, ya cheeky besom!

Argh!

-A nest of fearties.

-Look at those wee beasties.

You must dae that.

You rackle-handed gowk!

There's been a murder!

You know, one of my favourite old Scots words,

and one that I miss a lot, is fankle.

This is a classic example of a fankle. You do it all the time.

You know, the back of the stereo with all the wires, the fankle.

One of those really useful words, but I didn't even know what it looked like, cos you just said it.

You never wrote it down. But let's have a look at what it looks like.

It's... Wait a minute, no, no, this is a fankle for a start!

That's... from there to there to there

and, you see, we've unfankled it.

Fankle, a great wee word.

Actor Bill Paterson remembers his childhood well

and some of the words he used.

Growing up, if you used any Scots words, which we did...

We used glaikit and numpty, we used dreich and we used dour.

We used them all, but I could never have spelt them.

The idea of using them in school would have been unheard of.

You'd have got a row, if not the belt, for using the word glaikit in the class.

What really interests me now is that you can actually see these words being spelt and in dictionaries.

It's got a certain kind of shape.

The words never had a shape to us. They were completely oral.

They were something we heard and we passed on and we lived with in that way.

And for these school children in Aberdeen,

their version of Scots - Doric - is very much alive and kicking.

Stoater can refer to an attractive person.

It's a nice thing to be. To be a stoater is you're doing good.

I wouldn't mind if occasionally somebody described me as a stoater once in a while.

Not only is Scots still birling around the playground, but it's now found its way

into some classrooms too.

Wee Jackie Pirie sat on a chairie, hookin' oot plums fae a flan.

He lickit his fingers and said, "They're humdingers. Fit a smart little birkie I am."

Oh me, me, my granny touched a flea.

She roasted it and toasted it and had it for her tea. Yuck!

Sheepie sheepie blackface, fit's tha oo?

Nae that all, sir, three packets fu'.

Ane for the wifie and ane for the boss,

And ane for the auld loon that sleeps upon the close.

My mother used to use words like bein,

and of course, she used ashet for pies and gigot for chops.

One day I said, "You know, Mum, these are all French words." She said, "No, I don't know any.

"I've never spoken a word of French in my life." I said, "They are."

Bein, I believe, is from the French bien, meaning well, well-off.

I'd say, "Who are these bein folks?" She said, "They're well-off." "Mum, they're French."

The ashet pies that we knew, the pie is baked in a dish,

the French assiette. Old Robbie Burns with his

"Bring to me a pint of wine and put it in a silver tassie,"

that's using a French word, tasse.

"Tasse du vin" for a glass. So we had a wide influence, but none of them we ever saw written down.

I think it's fantastic now to think that we're studying these words and

kids are picking them up again and using them.

My favourite Scots word is gallus.

Cheeky, bold, mischievous and, let's face it, more than a little bit stylish.

That's me. Gallus.

Singer and television presenter Michelle McManus is wary of the weather,

especially when she's stravaigin in the country.

It's not easy being stylish in the Scottish weather.

If you're in the city, even on a dreich day like this, all you have to do is jump in a cab.

When you're out in the country, you never know what you're going to get. It can be hot, it can be cold,

it can be cloudy, it can be windy, or it could be pouring with rain.

And let's face it, nobody wants to get drookit.

Then it gets cold, really cold.

I am talking chitterin'.

When that happens, I like to put on a nice, big scarf, the more colourful the better.

Don't talk to me about the wind. When it is blowing a gale outside and you've spent

three hours doing your hair, you're left scunnered by it.

But the worst of all is the wind, the cold, and the rain. Nightmare.

In Scotland, it's no coincidence that we have many different words

for rain and cold, but not that many for sun.

I wonder why.

Surely the best Scots word for Scots weather is braw.

Fine, beautiful, excellent.

Anyway, enough about me. See you later!

My favourite Scots word is stramash.

A bunch of buys playing rugby, desperate to get their hands on this ball.

Having won 61 caps for his country, Gavin Hastings is one of the best

rugby players ever to come out of Scotland.

Stramash.

These big, hairy forwards just wrestling for the ball and giving it to the backs to try and score tries.

It was great fun. We used to get messy and muddy.

It was a big stramash.

I think there's occasions when really you feel that

a Scots word really sums up what on earth is going on.

For me stramash is just fantastic, particularly when applied to rugby.

I'll tell you a word that I really, really like

but I very seldom get an opportunity to use. And here it is.

What I'm much more likely to do is this, to blether.

-'Call Kaye on BBC Radio Scotland.'

-Good morning, good morning.

I hope I find you well even though it is a guy dreich day out there. Never mind.

It's Kaye Adams' job to talk, and as a broadcaster on both radio and television, language is her business.

I really enjoy using the Scots language.

I get a kick out of these words and sometimes dropping them into conversation,

knowing that the people that I'm with won't have a clue what I'm talking about.

But I absolutely feel that we should be sharing them

and sending them out there and making them part of a great big mix.

'0500 82 95 00. Call Kaye now.'

It's so enjoyable actually using these words and as I think about it,

I realise that I censor myself,

because when you're in a professional situation,

for some reason, you think you've got to be proper.

I shouldn't really, should I?

There's so many words that are just so expressive.

You bampot. You clype.

Tumshie.

You eejit. You blethering skyte. You cheeky besom.

I remember on one occasion

talking within Loose Women and it got very passionate and heated

and I said something like, "This is a ridiculous stooshie."

Everyone just stopped because they didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

So I had to kind of back play a little bit there.

So I suppose it goes back to the time that I was brought up.

You know, you had a posh voice, you had a telephone voice,

you had to speak properly if you wanted to get on in the world.

Frankly, we don't have that feeling quite so much now because

we all travel so much more as people and generally enjoy language.

Most people enjoy language, enjoy playing with it.

Any time that I have been outside Scotland and I've used words

that are very Scottish, whether it's dreich, or even the word wee, tiny wee, toatie wee word.

Used all over the world and interestingly, most usually used

in just the right sense, because it means more than just size.

Wee has got a whole kind of atmosphere to it as a word.

It's incredible how people of all different nationalities click right into it.

Argy bargy is another one. One of those words that has just transcended a nationality.

Everyone uses it, so everyone enjoys it, which is a great thing. Minging.

Perhaps not such an attractive word, but Scottish originally,

but now happily used by anyone and everyone. Minging.

One of my favourite Scots words

is mirk. Dark.

I'm here on the dark side of the toon.

The streets of Glasgow have been the haunt of actor John Michie for quite some time.

He's played more than one famous detective

and a lot of his characters have to do at least some of their work at the very spookiest time of day.

From this, the gloaming, to the howe dumb deid,

the very darkest moments, the dead of night.

So... there's been a murder.

I wonder...

whether they smoured...

or thrappled.

All the best murder mysteries are surely set in the mirk, in streets

like these, with a touch of fog for an acting detective to get lost in.

As the sky slaley turns, there's always Lochiel's lantern

to light the way and maybe an occasional fire-flaucht,

a shooting star.

And I'll be needing this as the gloaming turns into the mirk o' the howe dumb deid.

One of my favourite Scots words is glaikit.

I love the sound of glaikit, it's onomatopoeic.

It sounds exactly as it means, which is a face empty of all intelligence.

I guess the nearest English equivalent would be gormless.

Glaikit is just a great word, full of character.

Poet and children's novelist Jackie Kay was raised in Glasgow

and the words she heard as a child form an important part of her work.

Scots language for me is a great cauldron full of riches.

You can just dip into it and get different things and different flavours and tastes every time.

If I was a cook, I would definitely be using the Scots language,

because you get a great big boost in flavour, you get lots of character,

you get a sense of uniqueness and a sense of time and place.

I like the syntax, the use of repetition.

My mum might say, "I'm not tired tired, but I'm tired."

"I'm not hungry hungry, but I'm hungry." I like that.

I think of that as a Glasgow double,

somewhere between these two tireds, these two hungries, you know exactly what she means.

As a writer I've always used Scots language in different ways

and explored the way that you lose bits of your language when you move country.

I live in England now and I have a kind of nostalgic relationship

to some words that I don't get to hear anymore or I only get to hear when I go back to Glasgow.

This poem's called Old Tongue and I wrote it for my partner, who left Scotland,

my ex-partner, who left Scotland when she was eight and went to live in England.

It fascinates me when people leave a country

what they often most miss is the language that they've left behind.

Old Tongue.

When I was eight, I was forced south

Not long after, when I opened my mouth

A strange thing happened

I lost my Scottish accent

Words fell off my tongue

Eejit, dreich, wabbit, crabbit

Stumour, teuchter, heidbanger

So you are, so am I

See you, see my ma

Shut yer geggie or I'll gie ye the malkie

My own vowels started to stretch like my bones

And I turned my back on Scotland

Words disappeared in the dead of night

New words marched in, ghastly, awful

Quite dreadful

Scones said like stones

Pokey hats into ice cream cones

Oh, where did all my words go?

My old words, my lost words

Did you ever feel sad when you lost a word?

Did you ever try and call it back like calling in the sea?

If I could have found my words wandering

I swear I would have taken them in

Swallowed them whole, knocked them back

Out in the English soil

My old words buried themselves

It made my mother's blood boil

I cried one day with the wrong sound in my mouth

I wanted them back

I wanted my old accent back

My old tongue

My dour, soor, Scottish tongue

Sing-songy

I wanted to gie it laldy.

One of the Scots words I love to use is clarty, and that means when you're covered in mud.

As a zoologist I'm out in the field a lot, hunting for animals and bugs, and you get covered in mud.

When that happens, your hands get clarty.

You sometimes have to give them a dicht, which means a wipe on your trousers or your jacket.

It's such an expressive word.

Look at that. There's loads of them here, look at that. Fantastic.

I'm going to have a wee keek at these bugs.

You can tell it's a beetle larva because it's got three pairs of legs at the front.

George McGavin is a man with a passion for creepy-crawlies

and it leads him to some pretty unusual places.

Very often, when you're hunting for animals, especially if they're insects,

you have to get into a tight space and that usually means getting dirty, or clarty.

So I usually come home covered in mud.

But that's the only place you can find really interesting things.

I think there's something lurking behind here,

so I'm going to give that.... a prise off. Now look at that.

That's interesting. Something's been eating up here,

hidden away here, and all this is falling down.

Ah!

Yes, very clarty.

I'm often asked why I find animals and plants interesting.

Obviously there's history and music and art and stuff, but if you take

all that away, you take everything away, what have you got left?

The answer is animals and plants, the natural world, so I just find it much more interesting.

At the right place, at the right time, they can be extraordinary.

This is just breathtaking.

These are just some of the amazing insects of Borneo.

It's a huge cicada.

The whole of the abdomen's hollow.

Hear?

That's probably one of the ones that wakes us up in the morning.

That's a beauty, an absolute beauty.

Back in Britain in early spring, insects are a little harder to come across, but thankfully a lot smaller.

An average eight-year-old child could find out something new

about the world of insects in their back garden if they just looked.

If I had £1 billion, I would buy every kid a hand lens like this,

because you can see things happening on the ground, in soil,

in bits of dead wood, that you just wouldn't believe would happen.

There are so many words that are just brilliant when you're outside.

Like if you're in a stream in mud, you're hae'in a guddle.

Or if you're just out for a walk, you'd say, "I'm just away for a birl around these woods".

It's a walk, basically, a look. A keek.

All these words that I recall from being a small boy.

The first spring day, like today, when a few folks are in their shorts,

you say to yourself, "Look at his legs. They're awfully peely wally." They're pale.

My favourite Scots word has to be feart. I love the way it sounds.

It's a really descriptive and expressive word.

Catriona Shearer reads the news for the BBC around 30 times a week.

The first time I ever did a live news broadcast, I was so nervous.

My heart was pounding, my palms were sweaty,

I had to hook myself up to London and I was really feart.

Nowadays I manage to slip in the occasional ocht or dreich into a news bulletin,

especially when handing over to the weather presenters.

But like most news readers these days, I just blether on in English.

Good morning. Scottish and Welsh nationalists are joining forces at Westminster...

Scots words are only occasionally heard on television today,

but back in the 16th century, Scots was the most dominant national language.

It was spoken in Parliament and almost all official documents were written in Scots.

Now these words are rarely written down, except perhaps in poetry.

But what if Scots hadn't declined?

Would the language still be alive and spoken more widely on the radio and television?

The Queen has opened a new Scottish Parliament building...

Here's a recording of the news on 9th October, 2004. It's in English.

The Presiding Officer George Reid said the people, the Parliament and

the Palace had come together to mark the Royal opening.

Here's our home affairs correspondent, Reevel Alderson.

Officially at home, the representatives of Scotland, the MSPs.

Now here's that news again in Scots.

Good evening. The Queen has jist appened the brand new Scottish Pairlament,

beginning with a challenge to wir MSPs to mak sure

that Holyrood is seen as a lawndmerk o' 21st century democracy.

The Presiding Officer, George Reid, said that the folk, the Pairliament,

and the Palace had came thegither to handsell in the royal opening.

Here's wir hame affairs correspondent, Reevel Alderson.

Since devolution, Scots has made a tentative return.

Very occasionally we hear a hint of the language of the old Parliament.

What do the people want of the place?

They want it to be filled with thinking persons, as open and adventurous as its architecture.

A nest of fearties is what they do not want.

A nest of fearties! Doesn't that just sound great?

And that's all from us for the moment. Our next update's at 1:30. Hope you can join us then. Bye-bye.

My favourite word in Scots would be braw.

Rab Wilson is a man who lives his life in Scots.

He writes it, he speaks it, and he makes his living from it.

-You been busy today?

-It's been good, yes.

Brought up in East Ayrshire, Rab became a writer and poet

and he's now a passionate advocate of the Scots language.

I left the school about 16 and I done an engineering apprenticeship for the Coal Board.

So I worked down the deep mines for eight year, so I was immersed in this local dialect.

But later, when I was post 30 year old, it became apparent

that this language had been used

by local poets and rhymers for centuries.

So I thought to myself, "Well, if I'm going to write, I'll write in that language too."

It's a tremendous thing that you can still walk doon virtually

ony street in ony village or toon in Laland Scotland

and hear this... a seuch o' this wonderful lede

still being spoken there.

I mean, it's such a braw, braw thing.

But if you ask thae folk to write in Scots,

they just couldnae dae it. They wouldnae be able to dae it.

There is a wonderful word, mawdelit.

M-A-W-D-E-L-I-T. Mawdelit.

It's a crazy word really. Only the Scots could have invented such a word as that.

It means inventing - no, feigning, feigning an illness in order to avoid going to a court appearance.

Now how weird is it that we should have a such a specific word

in the Scots language as mawdelit?

But yet that word came directly from France

because in France, that would be mal de lit,

an illness that puts you in your bed.

So it's travelled ower the watter here to Scotland

where it's been kind of corrupted in its pronunciation into mawdelit.

I remember I got said to me one day to "away and fetch the big Monday, son." I went, "Whit?"

"Away and get the Monday hemmer." I said, "Why is there a hemmer called Monday?"

I didnae get it, I went and only asked for the hemmer. Now a heavy hammer is

like a nine-pund mash hammer, but the Monday hammer is a hammer that's about 20 pund.

It's a great, big, giant floor hammer.

If you cannae get something to shift or move with an ordinary hammer,

you use this great, big, giant Monday. Go and fetch the Monday.

And of course, it wasnae till years after the penny dropped.

It's Scots. It means maun dae.

This is the thing that will do.

You maun dae that.

You will do that, you must do that.

You know, this is the hammer that must, that will dae the job.

You know, when everything else fails, ya bigger hemmer!

I think my favourite Scots word is probably gowk.

Fool, clown, simpleton.

It's basically an insult.

"You called my mother a gowk and now you must die! Argh!"

Like most adults, I've a lot of regrets about my childhood.

The wrestling, for example, never took off. I was supposed to be The Laminator.

I wish I'd learned how to breakdance.

I wish I'd finished building that quite large particle collider.

And I really, really wish that I'd been taught how to speak Scots.

I was three years old when the family moved to Scotland from England. My dad was from India.

He wanted me and my brothers to learn Punjabi, which was fair enough,

part of my cultural heritage and all that, but not much use in the playground.

What I was actually reading was Oor Wullie, much more helpful.

Oh, help ma boab!

Scots is a great language.

It's expressive, it's muscular, it's brilliant for comedy and it's brilliant for insults.

You see, the ability to deliver a class insult is an art form and it's part of the Scottish psyche.

Wee Scots, and big Scots, are all about being grounded.

Don't get any ideas above your station, pal.

Don't get too big for your boots, son. That hat with those shoes, Mum?

We like to burst arrogance, to explode pomposity.

And the best way to do that is with an insult.

And the best language for insults is Scots.

I wish I'd known a bit of Scots that day in Primary Seven when I'd experimented with my hair.

What you looking at, ya scabbit wee puddock? Ya scourie raggabash.

Ya carnaptious scroosh.

Yeah, baby, who's crying now? Sorry.

Wha's greetin' the noo?

Here's my gift to you, the best Scots insults ever.

Take them away, play with them, practise in the mirror.

Ya mislushious skrink.

Ya pooshinous sloosht.

Ya nebbie snauchle.

Ya rackle-handed gowk!

The next time you've got toilet paper on your shoe in a casino, you know exactly what to say.

Oh, before you go, my favourite Scots joke, right?

What do you call a Scottish guy with one foot inside the front door?

Hamish.

Hame-ish!

Aw, get out my house, ya bucksturdie scurliquitor!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]