As my granny used to say.....

yes. my old granny kept a special cloth for this very purpose.

a good clootie dumpling is a thing of joy.

mrs fiendish, who hails from arran, calls spring onions sibies. or maybe sybies. or some other spelling that i'm just not getting.

puggled - knackered, bushed, tired

... not sure of the spelling of that one

lots of these are universal, i think, like lobby, jiffy etc. isn't a hall something you only get on the ground floor, then the landing is what you get on the other floors?

I'm not quite sure how to spell this phonetically, but my grandmother used to call the cupboard under the stairs the "kutch" (
to rhyme with 'butch')

-- C J (CJ_The_Unrul...), November 28th, 2005 1:24 PM. (later)

i wonder if that's a variation on "hutch." (xxpost)

-- athol fugard (theundergroundhom...), November 28th, 2005 1:28 PM. (later)

iirc this is a welsh thing... i can't figure out how to spell it (cwtsi? doesn't look right!) ("si" makes a "sh" or "zh" sound) but as well as cupboard-under-stairs - or any little hidey-hole really - it means a quick cuddle, a little hug. i only remember because someone told me about people being beaten at school for using the word when the english were trying to suppress the welsh (haha, "were").

A piece of jam - a jam sandwich.

-- Anna (Fieldingann...), November 28th, 2005 2:32 PM. (later)

haha anna this is BRILLIANT! i am going to use it all the time.

My grandmother always said, "Be oblong and have your knees removed."

-- Paunchy Stratego (fluxion2...), November 29th, 2005 4:09 AM. (later)

wtf does this mean? it sounds great.

Once, when my brother forgot his Maths book, the Christian Brother who taught him said "oh, it's at home is it? You might as well put it in a glass case and throw sugar at it".

-- accentmonkey (tris...), November 29th, 2005 8:16 AM. (later)

this one is awesome too.

Moroculous (sp?) - steaming drunk

Ginger - fizzy juice (pop?)

I always imagined this is just "miraculous" as in "It's miraculous that he's still standing"

We say this too. You don't run errands here, you go out for a message. And groceries are messages.

Is 'beastie' universal for insect?

Peely Wally = probably my favourite Scots phrase ever

"Ya dirty bissum ye've skittered yer breeks"

Oos - fluff

it's never occurred to me that this is anything other than the queen's proper english.

I always imagined this is just "miraculous" as in "It's miraculous that he's still standing"

er, yes. me too. and my pocket scots dictionary agrees.

getting "messages" and also a "carry-oot" caused me no end of grief when i came to scotland; the former i just didn't understand, and the latter i assumed involved food, not liquid.

mädchen: my scots dictionary doesn't have stobies or stogies. you don't make stovies from slaters, do you? :)

Baffies anyone?

Oh, I love that one too

baldie a haircut "thats some baldie you've got by the way"
juke the inside of your coat/jacket etc. "quick stick it up yer juke!"
shatter someone who has no guts i.e. they shit themselves at the smallest sign of danger
burr dingy i don't believe you

chib - a weapon of indefinable nature (plus can be used as a verb too)

they also use kets for sweets. eg: "howay man, gonna giz yer kets before ah hoof ye in the knackaz?"

(apologies to viz)

RUNNY

is a great word.

When translated to, say, Harald Brattbakk or some other diddy footballer in Scotland, this becomes "he couldnae hit a coo's erse wi' a banjo" which is much more evocative.

Re: Peely-wally, when they announced a concert in memory of John Peel, the Daily Record ran with the headline "Peely Rally", which had me roffling. Or pishing ma keks, if you prefer.

Ooh, just remembered another cracker - ganting which is like desperate/gasping for something "Ah wis pure ganting for a pint/shag/deep fried Mars Bar" etc.

My dad also used to refer to the nastier variety of lucky gits as "snottery orphan"s - generally directed at sporting people who were undeniably good but very dull, therefore worthy of ridicule anyway (top recipient of this insult would have been Steve Davis). I think it showed a grudging respect rather than being an insult. I haven't heard him say it for years, so I think he may have invented it to stop himself swearing in front of his impressionable young childrem.