Unwell, I turn my back for twenty minutes and this is what happens. I had prepared a witty or half-witty rejoinder, but the truth is there are things that make even the most enthusiatic cringe a little.
In the earlier thread, I was still able to summon some spirit; but no more. Not much, anyway.
If ye'll keek ablow aiblins ye'll see ma puckle effusion tae the delusion o' this collusion, but dinna speir ower faur. The chiel that wrote it is cruisin' fur a contusion. Fur me, Ah've reached ma conclusion.
Well, the Doric tongue is alive and well - both written and spoken - up here in North East Scotland. Every Monday, Robbie Shepherd produces his column in the daily Aberdeen Press and Journal newspaper and recently he was bemoaning the introduction of trendy new words in the English language:
----------------------- It gyangs athoot sayin that I wid be interestit in the lassie's chyce o the Doric tongue as pairt o her PhD studies, a Buckie quine quaarter't noo in York.
Hooiver, neist tae the bit screid on her findins in Tuesday's paper, we hid "the buzzwords o the year". On that, did ye ivver read sic dirt?
Wirds are creepin in tae the English language that Shakespeare wid hae a helluva job fittin in till's lamgamachies.
I can tak "Demob" richt eneuch as the buzzword o 1920 jist efter the first warl waar an weel I'll hae tae pit up wi "Trainers" at cam inta fashion in 1978 bit "Chav" for us eer I jist canna accept.
They spik o Doric as bit a dialect in's death thraas bit surely the English language is in mair danger o tummlin tapsalteerie wi sic blin-lumps appearin than the use o the bonnie birlin wirdies o oor ain, wir mither tongue.
"Chav" ye read is linkit tae feel gypes o loons weerin chape jewellery an baseba caps clappit on their heids bit up here "Chauve" taks on a different meanin.
"Foo are ye daein?" "Ach, jist chauvin awa!"
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Tiz very difficult to write in the vernacular, it never rings true for the speakers of same and is incomprehensible to outsiders, I have a book of comic verse by a local pitman poet, it does not read like Geordie at all to me, and to someone like Mr Davaar may as well be in Venusian, one pictures Mr Davaar as speaking very posh now.
I agree with Dr draper. Your Aiberdane “quiney” is as incomprehensible to your Glesca keelie as Glaswegian “Gerrup rurr sterrs fur honey perrs” is to your Aberdeen choochter or Angus peuch. What does "The Turra Coo" mean in the Gallowgate? No much!
I call Fru Flaps in aid. I believe, subject to correction, that until the arrival of Ibsen or thereabouts late in the 19th century, there was no literary or official Norwegian. The country, physically and demographically, has much the shape of Chile: a long string of loosely related communities, all speaking something akin, but all with variations.
So it is in Scotland and England both. In England one variety became dominant in writing and speech over a long time and is now received English.
Shakespeare and the Authorised Version of the Bible really completed the groundwork. In Germany the Lutherbibel did the same for German, although Frau Davaar still shakes her head at Bavaria.
Received English still leaves the dialect of Cornwall, incomprehensible to me when I was at Culdrose, and the dialect of Cambridgeshire, equally a mystery when I lived there (every morning my steward would come in with the tea, say something, and I'd say Yes, hoping it was right), and Geordie and no doubt a dozen others.
In Scotland there never was a dominant written form, although there were writers from Dunbar, Gawain Douglas, Barbour, Blind Harry and others on to Burns and Hugh MacDiarmid, and most recently Mr Lorimer with his wonderful New Testament in Scots, who wrote in their own idiom of Scots.
What say you, Flaps?
Now then, lesson over, what is this nonsense:
1. Ach, jist chauvin awa! 2. one pictures Mr Davaar as speaking very posh now.
????????
That’s jist a curn havers. Yes’re baith ower Chauvinistic.
Ah, The Turra Coo.........would be known in the Gallowgate in Aberdeen but not the one in Glasgow............for those who might be losing sleep over this, it was a cow in the Aberdeenshire town of Turriff which was distrained for debt in the early part of the last century because the farmer who owned it refused to pay his employees' National Insurance contributions.
As for "jist chauvin awa", chauve means a hard struggle or an act of labouring so the meaning becomes clear.
"tummlin tapsalteerie" is so descriptive, so much better than "going arse over tit", and a "blin-lump" so succinct as a boil that doesn't come to a head!
"Jist chavin' awa" is generally the time honoured response to the question "Fit like a' day". It may also be followed by an enquiry as to the financial health of your agricultural aquintance "Foo's yer neeps". Humility and pride prevent the response being anything more than a subtle "Och, nae bad", although one would never confess to ones' neeps being anything less even if they were rotting in the ground.
Of course, farming in Draperland can result in an inordinate amount of "clarts ower yer workbeutz".
See you, see me, Ah'm gonny tell yese. Some are wearit o' the Doric, but aiblins Ah had ma wey, there's words an' phrases in the English Ah'd ban, viz:
1. With a Fa-la-la-la-la-la (with or without the optional "la-lala-la-la"); 2. Hey ding a ding ding (Yes, for even devoted dingsters); 3. With a merry-down derry-down day (Donnerwetter!); 4. With a hey and a ho and a hey nonny-no (this would go even if it were three heys and they dropped the ho);
More will occur to me. I will make an exception for the Jordanaires back-up for Elvis ("Wup-wup wup-wup").
, and a "blin-lump" so succinct as a boil that doesn't come to a head!
