I think that the various countries and regions that make up Britain all have dialect words of their own which are in danger of being lost.
My son’s partner comes from Rochdale and the only word which she knows from that area is ‘crockle’ – which apparently means to go over on your ankle. I really like it, but it isn’t a word which you can use very often, unless you’re unlucky enough to have very weak ankles.
I’ve noticed recently that quite a few Scottish words have found their way into mainstream British vocabulary. The words manky and minging spring to mind and I think that possibly we have Justin and Colin to thank for those ones being taken up by the rest of the country. At first my attitude was — they’re nicking our culture, but I’ve decided that it is a better option than the alternative, which is losing the words altogether.
Scottish dialect words tend to be looked down upon by the so called ‘middle classes’, I think they are seen as being ‘common’, and we can’t have that can we? So quite a lot of words have been in danger of dying out, which would be a real shame.
To combat this I’m starting a series of weekly blog posts featuring one Scottish word each week.
This week’s word is – scunnered.
Scunnered means that you are sick fed up with something or someone, you are totally disgusted to the point of feeling ill.
In the childrens T.V. programme Supergran there was a character called Skunner Campbell, slightly different spelling but he had the name because he was a dastardly character whom Supergran was absolutely scunnered with.
I am scunnered with the government because they seem to be letting the bankers away with everything and won’t step in to stop them from giving themselves massive bonuses.
So you get the general idea of scunnered, I’m sure. Use it – don’t lose it.
I am scunnered that Scots has now, sadly, more or less declined to being a dialect of English.
It was, once, on its own, one of the great languages of mediævalEurope,capable of producing outstanding works such as Ane Satire Of The Thrie Estaits (1552) by David Lindsay.
Hello Jack, Yes it’s a tragedy that the language has been allowed to almost die out, especially when you think of all the money which has been thrown at Gaelic over the years to try to keep it alive. Absolutely nothing has been done to keep Scots going, so we will just have to keep using the words and passing them on, even into English usage which is better than the alternative.
I agree wholeheartedly with Jack. The Scots tongue or language is really older than English, and although there ARE many slang words we use, most of the Scots words we use ARE just that – SCOTS! We have our own grammar too. We say I’ll have my tea poured. In English you’d have your tea pouring. I discovered that one when I first moved to Yorkshire and the coalman asked if I wanted the coal he was delivering mixing. Did I want the coal mixing meant nothing to me! Mixing what? I wanted to ask.
Evee,
When we lived in Essex I discovered that Scots say – Where do you stay? And English people said – Where do you live?
I think the Scots is more logical because you live everywhere that you are while you’re alive. But you only stay at your home. Well I think it makes more sense anyway!