The "Donnington" thread on motoring had an aside on the Scottish word "outwith".
As a Scot I have lived in England for thirty-odd years and had no idea that the word was Scottish. My wife, English to her bones, still occasionally picks me up on Scottishisms that mean little south of the border. I now know that words such as "messages" and "staying" have different meaning down south. Also turnips and swedes mysterously swap meanings at some indeterminate point travelling south. And don't even start on specific words such as "pooroot"and "siever" or dishes such as "white pudding suppers" or "smokies".
It would be a shame if such diversity of language and delicacies were to die out between the nations and regions. Long may they continue!
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I initially attributed my use of outwith to working with Scots in noughties but thinking some more I first encountered it twenty years earlier when various rules in Scotland's Youth Hostels were relaxed 'outwith the season'. Routing of Calmac Ferries ran on a similar principle.
Somebody pointed out that the construction was directly related to the Easter hymn's Green Hill far away 'without a city wall'.
Retirral instead of retirement is another Scottish usage. That certainly dates for me from noughties and retirral of the Chair of the Quango's Scottish Committee.
I'm intrigued by pooroot and siever and while I know white pudding i'd associate it with breakfast.
As a Yorkshireman words like Ginnel and Jiggered are part of my natural vocab. BArm cakes and differnces between pikelets and muffins are another.
More to follow?
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 2 Aug 18 at 20:41
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Loke is the local equivalent of ginnel. A word that often throws visitors to the Broads is Staithe meaning a landing place.
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I was born in Scotland and we lived there until I was five. My mother picked up some Scots usages - we always spelled the word porage, and porridge still looks odd.
She also used to say "Do you have?" rather than "Have you got?" in shops.
To my mind they mean different things - the first means do you habitually have in, rather than the second, have you actually got any at the moment?
The green hill without a city wall is a famous puzzle to children. Presumably "outwith" doesn't have that meaning, or does it?
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>> The green hill without a city wall is a famous puzzle to children.
>>
Up there with Gladly the cross-eyed bear.
Do children sing hymns any more?
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Thu 2 Aug 18 at 21:31
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>> Up there with Gladly the cross-eyed bear.
And Lettuce With a Gladsome Mind.
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Barm = yeast. Hence a bit barmy. Soft in the head.
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>> The green hill without a city wall is a famous puzzle to children. Presumably "outwith"
>> doesn't have that meaning, or does it?
My recollection is of meaning being explained at school was that the green hill was outside the city wall. In that sense it could equally be outwith the city wall.
Other explanations may be available.....
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>> My recollection is of meaning being explained at school was that the green hill was
>> outside the city wall. In that sense it could equally be outwith the city wall.
>>
I know - we knew that really, but liked to pretend it was nonsense - why on earth would a green hill have a city wall, so why comment on a hill that hadn't got one?
Can outwith mean that? "I came outwith my umbrella, and now I'm going to get caught by the rain".
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Messages for shopping always strike me as odd.
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I remember my Scottish friend at college always used to refer to my packed (lunch) sandwiches as 'pieces'. As in 'ya got ya pieces wi' ya today?'.
In Coal-mining areas of Leicestershire, packed sandwiches for a break were referred to as your 'snap'.
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>> In Coal-mining areas of Leicestershire, packed sandwiches for a break were referred to as your
>> 'snap'.
Same in Yorkshire coalfield I think.
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Having brought up in the west riding, snap was very much a common word meaning the food you brought to work.
Outwith is one that is a bit a mystery. I've worked with god knows how many Scottish folk from all over. Never once heard the word spoken. Perhaps it's one familiar to those only from a certain background/industry?
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>> Outwith is one that is a bit a mystery. I've worked with god knows how
>> many Scottish folk from all over. Never once heard the word spoken. Perhaps it's one
>> familiar to those only from a certain background/industry?
As previously I came across it initially in various handbooks, timetables etc. Scots I met latterly in Quango were mostly associated with law/academia; possibly more Edinburgh than Glasgow and more Morningside than elsewhere.
Can Runfer throw any light on this?
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>> Having brought up in the west riding, snap was very much a common word meaning
>> the food you brought to work.
Whereabouts in WR Sooty?
I was Leeds - Horsforth then Guiseley.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 2 Aug 18 at 22:40
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Whereabouts in WR Sooty?
Heavy woollen district.
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>> I was Leeds - Horsforth then Guiseley.
Posh Leeds then ;-)
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Again in Leicestershire we went down to the brook as opposed to the drain, ditch or dyke as it's called in Fen.
We also went to the spinney to climb trees and watch badgers air their bedding but in this part of the Fen we don't have trees so there is no equivalent.
Haywain, do you remember the Okey Man?
Pat
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>> Again in Leicestershire we went down to the brook as opposed to the drain, ditch
>> or dyke as it's called in Fen.
Or leam, eau or lode?
I spent childhood in the fens and also Lincs/Leics/Rutland borders. I loved the fenland flatness and I still find close mountains with deep valleys very oppresive.
Strangely I don't recall ever hearing anyone, anywhere, refer to a brook. I think of it reserved for poetic use only. Dyke's an odd one. In the Netherlands it's an earth or stone bank, as with Offa's Dyke of course.
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One that we only hear in Scotland is "The door needs painted" or "The phone needs charged" etc but that may be local to the Fife area.
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Cliff, I could tell you where the brook is down the gated road just outside of Tilon on the Hill. I could point to the actual tree in the spinney we used to climb to watch the badgers at dusk, but if I did I'd have to kill you because the sett was always a closely guarded secret from the townies:)
I love the rolling hills of Leics and Wales!
Pat
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>> I love the rolling hills of Leics and Wales!
Rolling hills are fine, it's towering peaks and deep defiles that panic me.
We spent a week last month in the Cambridge to Kings Lynn area, revisiting some of the places we family boated in decades ago (well, half a century actually).
I pointed out lovingly to my wife all the miles of flatness with Ely just visible on the horizon, as if to say, "Well, here we are!" but she was not impressed.
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>> I pointed out lovingly to my wife all the miles of flatness with Ely just
>> visible on the horizon, as if to say, "Well, here we are!" but she was
>> not impressed.
Not surprised, as far as scenery goes, the ferns has none. Miles of nothing, just another low brown field, just another slimy drain, maybe if you are lucky broken by a weak leaning tree....
Great driving roads tho, straight and at speed with impossibly challenging dips and off camber sharp bends.
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Northants has its charms, albeit little known.
East of county is begining to look Fen like but there are nice villages and areas like Fineshade woods. Down my end, west of the A5, it's rolling low hills all the way out to the Cotswolds. Great untrafficked roads crying out to be explored by bike.
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I do understand your wife!
I can stand in my bedroom window and see Ely cathedral on the horizon, and I'm not impressed either.
Pat
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"Again in Leicestershire ..............."
We used to call the bloke in the ice-cream van, the okey-man - but I'd no idea of the spelling because I'd never written it down, or seen it written down.
My mother used the word 'ormin' (I've never seen it written down) to describe somebody who was clumsy/uncoordinated - hence a clumsy, large youth would be referred to as an 'ormin-gret-bugga'.
I believe that 'brook' and 'stream' are more or less interchangeable and both in common usage, though I generally think of 'brook' as being slightly larger. I think the words ditch (widely used throughout), drain and dyke (common in the fens) are basically man-made as opposed to natural watercourses.
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As a born and bred Southerner, I learned a lot of Scots dialect through reading 'Oor Wullie' and 'The Broons' as a kid (and an adult). Neeps and tatties, different meanings of words like messages and tablet, plus of course exclusive words like scunner, braw, drookit, ken, fitba..... wonderful words (or meanings) that simply don't exist south of the border.
A German friend of mine visits the UK every year, and she loves the way accents and traditions change so markedly just by travelling an hour or so down the road. Such changes require much more extensive travelling in other countries, and are often more subtle to boot.
Take Birmingham and Liverpool. Less than 100 miles apart, yet imagine how those accents sound to someone with English as a second language.
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>> As a born and bred Southerner, I learned a lot of Scots dialect through reading
>> 'Oor Wullie' and 'The Broons' as a kid (and an adult). Neeps and tatties, different
>> meanings of words like messages and tablet, plus of course exclusive words like scunner, braw,
>> drookit, ken, fitba..... wonderful words (or meanings) that simply don't exist south of the >> border.
these are a wonderful mix of east Scotland (Dundee) with a bit of Glasgow thrown in. I have a collection of the annuals of both over many years, since I am no longer in range of that wonderful piece of journalism known as the Sunday Post.
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I'm a fan of the many and various Scottish accents. There's a slightly obscure Scottish sketch show, now on Netflix but originally on the BBC, called Burnistoun.
Here's one sketch (YouTube) about the Scottish accent and voice recognition, for example.
youtu.be/sAz_UvnUeuU
When I watch an entire show on Netflix I need subtitles for some of the sketches.
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Re my original post. A seiver is a street gutter drain grating. Presumably derived from sewer?
The pooroot was a tradition whereby the bridegroom threw a handful of coins from the wedding car for waiting urchins (including me) to grapple over. Certainly happened in Edinburgh up until the 1960's but I suspect long gone. Mrs Martin has never heard of it in Southern England. Was it ever done in other parts?
I do get confused now between sink and basin so much so that I now forget which is the English term and which the Scottish one.
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What's the difference between a buffalo and a bison?
You can't wash your hands in a buffalo...
Anyway, how's your roans Martin, clogged or clear?
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>> Anyway, how's your roans Martin, clogged or clear?
>>
I did mine last week, not too difficult with a bungalow.
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Runfer, Roans are fine thanks. Water runs down the pipe, out over the setts and then straight into the burn at the foot of the brae.
Mark you I picked up a spale when I used a rough dod of wood to clear a blockage in the cludgie and that was a scunner.
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Bet yer dod o'wid is well manky then?
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Oh dear Runfer you need another lesson from the dominie. Its not well manky. Its fair clarty. Anyway I've left it in the vennel for now. The bidie-in can put it away later.
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>> The pooroot was a tradition whereby the bridegroom threw a handful of coins from
>> the wedding car for waiting urchins (including me) to grapple over. Certainly happened in >> Edinburgh up until the 1960's but I suspect long gone.
>>
In Glasgow it was just a scramble and could be either the Groom leaving the ceremony or the Bride's father when he and bride were leaving for the ceremony, again we are talking 1950s / 60s
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It's just practice for marriage really. Chucking money away to random people for no obvious personal benefit...
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>> It's just practice for marriage really. Chucking money away to random people for no obvious
>> personal benefit...
>>
Indeed, how many bikes is it now?
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The delights of our varied islands - Bromptonaut
