Category Archives: Scottish words

Scottish words: Fankle

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Fankle is the Scottish word for tangle. It is a word that always seems to be in use at this time of the year. Inevitably the Christmas tree lights are always in a fankle when you dig them out of the box that they have been living in over the past year.

It seems that no matter how carefully you pack them away after the festivities are over, the lights have obviously spent their time dancing the nights away like sugar plum fairies. The desperate cry goes up over the whole country – They’re all fankled up! How does it happen?

Other things that get fankled or in a fankle are hair, particularly mine in the terrible winds that you get here coming off the North Sea. And of course people here don’t get their knickers in a twist when they are panicking about something. Their knickers get into a good old fashioned fankle.

Scottish words Haver

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As ever, there is some controversy over how this word is spelt. I have seen it written as haiver, however in The Proclaimers lyrics for I’m Gonna Be (500 miles) it is written as haver.

So, haver just means to talk nonsense or rubbish. It’s very useful if someone is being particularly stupid, annoying and long winded about something, then you can use just one word “Havers!” to deflate them and succinctly tell them what you think.

Or – What are you havering about now? gives the distinct impression that the speaker is ALWAYS talking rubbish.

When The Proclaimers released their single 500 miles, in America, it caused a bit of consternation as the Americans got it into their heads that havering was something rude so they were thinking about banning it. In Britain banning anything usually makes it an instant hit. Anyway, the Americans were reassured that the sky wouldn’t fall down if Craig and Charlie sang the word haver and it has been their biggest hit ever.

Scottish words Swithering

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Swithering is a word which I use on a regular basis, because I’m not very good at making up my mind about anything. So I spend a lot of time swithering. If you can’t decide whether to choose a chocolate eclair or a meringue, then you are swithering. Of course you could always solve the problem by having both cakes, but then that only brings more problems of the, “My God how did I get so fat variety.”

I suppose, in English you would say that you were undecided about something, but swithering has a much better ring to it, I think.

Stooshie

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I like the word stooshie. It usually comes after the words ‘There was a bit of a’ stooshie. It means that there was a bit of trouble going on, a fracas, a commotion. Nothing serious, no real violence, well maybe a few threats but nothing much to speak of.

For some people, life would be a dull thing without a wee bit of a stooshie now and then. In fact there is a bit of a stooshie going on here and now as my husband thinks that it should be spelt stoushie. But I’m sticking to my guns, you very rarely see Scottish words down on paper anyway and I think it is easier to spell them as they are pronounced.

Scottish Words.

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Bidey-in.

In Scotland if you are – as my mother would have put it – living in sin with someone, then they are described as being your bidey-in. I really like this wee phrase as it describes the relationship perfectly and it is the same whether it is a man or a woman. They are the person that you stay in with, rather than just someone that you go out with.

I don’t like this modern thing nowadays where everyone is described as someone’s ‘partner’. I’ve even heard the ‘p’ word being used to describe wives and husbands, which I really can’t understand. I wouldn’t be at all chuffed to be described in that way, seeing that we went to the bother of actually getting married and paying £7.50 for the marriage licence.

We had a family meal out last night and our youngest son and his lovely ‘bidey-in’ managed to come through from Dundee for it, but I’ve got a horrible feeling that they describe themselves as partners on Facebook.

It would be great if everyone would adopt that lovely non-sexist term of bidey-in. It just sounds so homely to me.

I’m scunnered by partners. They should all have their bahoukies skelped, and become bidey-ins.

Scottish Words: skelp and bahookie

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I had intended only doing one Scottish word each week but this week it will have to be two as they go together like fish and chips.

Skelp.
A skelp is the Scots word for a good old fashioned smack. I know that it is all terribly unPC and such but who cares. There are times when small children just have to be skelped because they are too young to reason with.
Nothing works better than a quick skelp, especially when you have just about had a heart attack as you have caught the wee darling doing something completely mental like sticking a screwdriver into an electric socket. And don’t say that the sockets should have had safety covers over them. We tried that and the kids could remove them in a second, in fact their dad had to ask them to remove the safety covers for him when he wanted to use a socket as his big fingers couldn’t get a grip on the covers to prise them off.
The word which skelped is usually followed with is the lovely word,

Bahookie.
I think that it will be obvious what this word means. It’s a bottom or bum of course – or a backside if you prefer.
So the phrase – If you don’t watch it you’ll get a skelped bahoukie was probably one of the most used threats when I was growing up and I’m pleased to say that it hasn’t quite died out yet.

You have to be careful though as there is a cut off age – after which the threat might be used but not actually administered, especially if you have boys. After all, you don’t want them to grow up paying some “lady” to skelp their bahoukies for them.

Scottish Words

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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.