SCOTS Project - www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk Document : 1432 Title : BBC Voices Recording: Leith Author(s): N/A Copyright holder(s): BBC SCOTS Project Audio transcription F1054: Okay, so do you want to start, Millie? F1018: Eh, my name's Millie [CENSORED: surname], and I was born in Leith and when they cleared the slums I moved over to the Portobello area where I still stay. M1022: Eh, my name's John [CENSORED: surname], and I was born in a street called Arthur Street in the St Leonard district of Edinburgh. Er, I now live near Tollcross in Edinburgh. M1020: My name's Jimmy [CENSORED: surname], I was born in Loanheid, that's Midlothian, just ootside Edinburgh, but I've been longer in Edinburgh than I've been in Loanheid, so I don't know what I am. M1019: My name's Noel [CENSORED: surname], I was also born in Leith and in the er fifties when er people were moving out we moved out to Saughton Mains. I now live in the centre of the town. M1021: And I'm John [CENSORED: surname], er er born in the Grassmarket, that's right, in the Old Town, [tut], and lived there until I got married, then I moved into nicer places. Right? Like Tollcross and now er Morningside. Morningside, right. Aye, anything more about me? I'm a storyteller like Millie there. And that's about it. F1054: Are you are you all writers as well as being erm storytellers and stuff as well? No? M1022: Well I write, I'm writing short plays, learning with with Millie, cause Millie's my tu- tutor, my my mentor, my mentor, yes. F1054: Uh-huh, grand, so that's how you all know one another is frae writing circles and stuff? F1018: Well I know the- the- erm John and Noel from the storytelling. And I've just met Uncle Jimmy the day, but I quite like him. And [laugh], John here, I've actually, I've known him for a few years, because erm we started up a playwriting group an erm for older people cannot get their work done. And so we started up this group on our own and that's what we do. And John had a play on last year that was in Scots and it was an absolute tremendous success, one of the finest things that Citadel Arts Group's ever done. F1054: Nice one, brilliant. //Eh gents, is there any chance I could// M1020: //Brilliant it was.// F1054: just get you to come in a tiny wee bit, it'll really save my arm, I know it's a pest, but erm it just makes the whole thing //flow a wee bit more.// F1018: //We'll all get in// M1022: //Me too?// F1054: If you can, John, it'll be very cosy. Now, erm we'll le- we'll start the conversation with whatever words you thought "Oh I've got a great one for that!". Has anyone got any suggestions to kick things off? Millie. F1018: Well "unwell", I mean unwell is so- no a word really that they would have used in Admirality Street where I came from, they'd have said that sh- they were peelie-wally. F1054: Is anybody, would anybody else use that word? M1022: I would use that word, yes. I've got peely-wally written down here actually, yeah. M1021: Well I don't have that, I've just got er seeck. F1054: That's another good one, I think. M1019: Is it all dialect words you want, because it's other expressions would be "under the weather", "below par", "not up to the mark", "not up to scratch", you know? //Phrases, like that.// F1054: //Oh yes.// Wha- what do you think folk in Leith or folk in Edinburgh would generally say? M1020: Me, I'd say "no weel". F1018: Nae weel. //Or seeck.// M1020: //No keepin very weel, aye.// F1018: As John said, they would just say "Oh, I'm seeck". //Aye, seeck.// F1054: //Is it kind of more// common these days to say erm seeck and then maybe years ago, folk might have said pe- peely-wally or whatever? F1018: //Yeah, yeah.// M1022: //Yeah, peely-wally's died oot a bit, I think, yeah.// M1019: //Referrin more specifically to how your com-, your your your complexion is, other than a condition,// M1020: //Aye, aye seeck [inaudible].// M1019: I think. //Yeah.// F1054: //That's interesting, yeah.// F1018: Or they would s-, nowadays they would say, "I'm oot o sorts". Ehm, definitely. But I was lookin at it, you know, back to ma grannie's day and I thought well she'd have said "Oh you're lookin awfy peelie-wally the day", "I'm no weel, granny." M1020: Aye well, when we said er "seeck", that meant you was vomitin. F1054: Mm, that's interestin. M1020: You see that that was the difference, F1054: Aye. M1020: I think anyway. F1054: Yeah. Aye, you would say "nae weel" if you were [inaudible]. M1020: Mm, aye, no weel, aye. F1054: I'm kind of like that, I I would only say seeck, I think, if I was literally being seeck. Erm, and yeah, if I wasnae well I would just I wasnae weel. M1020: Mm. F1054: Right, what about "tired"? We're starting on a light note, aren't we? [laugh] M1022: Wabbit. F1018: Wabbit. M1020: Aye. F1018: Aye, I'd still say wabbit, oh God, I'm wabbit. M1022: //Yeah.// F1054: //That's a great one.// M1022: I don't mean the wascally wabbit either. [laugh] Just wabbit. M1021: Well we would have said, "I'm knackered". M1020: Or tired [?]this[/?]. M1021: Knackered. M1020: //I like that, I like that.// F1054: //That's an interest-// M1020: Wabbit and knackered, oh aye, aye. M1021: A Norwegian word has seeped into our language. F1054: It is Nor-, is knackered Norwegian? M1021: It's aa their languages; it's a Norse word. F1054: Is it? M1021: Mmhm. F1054: Do you ken what it means in Norse? M1021: Disnae matter. That's what it means in Norse. But it became, that, you know, that you were you were exhausted. Really tired. F1054: Now a fe- a few folk I've spoken to have said that knackered has, you know, they were discouraged fae using that word when they were young. Have any of you have that experience? F1018: //It-, no, no.// M1020: //Not good? Oh, it was quite common in Loanheid.// M1022: //It's not a polite word to use. No.// M1020: Course they're [laugh] no the politest there! [laugh] //Oh, [inaudible].// M1019: //But again, the confusion maybe was there at the knacker's yard where the where where the hor- the horses went, you know?// Aye, th-, I've just found what I had for tired. The other one is done in. //And washed oot.// F1018: //Aye, or washed oot, and washed oot.// And there was still washed oot today, erm, you know, most people would say, "Oh, I'm washed oot". F1054: Er, some folk said that knackered kind of had sexual connotations, that that meant //that you werenae allowed to use it.// M1020: //Oh oh.// M1021: //Yes, I// I would go along with that. F1054: What do you, what does that mean, what what kind of M1021: Well, [laugh] F1054: You've no tae be feart to say things in front of me, you you no to be feart to either swear or say anything kind of controversial because that's part of the, where the language comes frae. M1021: Well I think it meant, it was, it referred to [inaudible] even with horses or animals, knackers, meaning the size or shape o them, and so on. And that's why I think that er kids wouldnae be encouraged to use it because going to school er you were then told just exactly how wrong you were speaking. And you weren't speaking proper English at that time. I think we all went through that experience, and that was one of the words that was taboo at school. F1054: Now that's interestin, cause I was speakin to folk yesterday in Aberdeen, who said they'd never really been discouraged frae using their tongue of their generation, probably seventy, eighty year olds, and they'd never had any problems. Did- were you told to talk proper at school? M1021: Oh yes, is-i-, in fact er from the very, I think it's our first experience really, that there was such a language as Scots, er the school I went to, because er, you were being corrected all the time. And if you were bold enough, when you went home, then you began to correct your parents, you see, if you were bold enough. Er, and so I think that's how we, I learned anyway to be bilingual. Er in other words, although I went to University, I did, er it was wise to speak a certain way at University, a formal English way; it got you on a bit quicker. But when you went home to your pals, or your relatives, you just lapsed into the old mither tongue, and you spoke the way that you always did, just like Burns did, wi his, he was bilingual, er spoke perfect English but also he spoke the Ayrshire dialect. And I think that er that happened at school with us, er until gradually, er some of us made a better job than others, there were some kids in the classroom whose mothers and fathers al- always talk, er spoke the same way as the teacher, er or the doctor, or the insurance man, or whoever came to the door, who seemed to be quite articulate and speak differently from us, but we were always aware, aye, that, er when we speaking er and properly. F1054: Ehm, do you all think of yourselves as bilingual? F1018: Definitely. I mean it wh- it depends on who I'm talking to and wh- how I would speak. And when I first started to write, actually, I had problems, and somebody said to me, "You're not a novelist", it wasn't that I wasnae a novelist, it was that actually I had written it in English and it was a working-class Scots novel, and you'd lost the warmth and the humour of it. And once you went back to the mother tongue you were fine. You see in school, the only time you were allowed to speak Scots was the week coming up to er Burns' birthday. And that was the only time you were allowed Scots in this erm classroom, and you were corrected all the time. So what I ended up with was a good report for the social work department but it certainly wasnae a working-class novel, and I've learned from that, because you have to go back to your er mother tongue and you write it and you get the warmth and you get the humour, because no matter where you go, even like Leith to Morningside, it's a different rhythm and a different song. F1054: Tell me about that, tell me about the passage, the journey frae Leith to Morningside. F1018: Oh the passage, well he stayed in Morningside. [laugh] //[laugh]// M1021: //[inaudible]// It was always known, that they spoke a bit different from us. //Er.// F1054: //Gie me// a blast o Morningside, John. M1021: A-a- a phrase? //Well// F1054: //Yeah.// M1021: er I will say, my husband, I I I will say to him that they are aw wrang, sometimes they got the words wrong, you see, or I would tell my husband that I have a a sore heid. Sometimes they got mixed up there. But er otherwise, that's how the Morningsiders spoke, and they still do it. Aye, oh yes, they flatten the vowel, you know, instead of saying "to" they say er er "ae" or or "o", "tae". You know, my sore, my sore, sore tae, that would be another clanger. But, and they made clangers, they still dae some o them. But that's the way they spoke. And so therefore like school, you know, they wo- they wouldnae have been corrected at school of course, cause there were one or two Morningsiders there, it seemed to suit the teachers' accent, you know? Aye, and so it was a case o well "dinnae say dinnae, say don't", and "not winnae, but won't," you know, er and that sort o thing. But it was the Morningsiders, and it goes on and on of course, aye, [laugh] the the expressions, that that was one of them, the lowering o the vowels, they flattened them, you know, "a", oh yes. M1019: An they all said "secks" was what er coal came in. //That's right, taught secks, secks, bags, sacks.// M1020: //[laugh]// M1019: But I had a different experience because erm I wasn't particularly encouraged to to speak street vernacular in the house because my mother was born in Ireland. So there was her grand- my grandmother would have wanted us to speak er not in Scots, because they thought that was s- slang so words like "grun" and "groond" and that were just kind of purged from our vocabulary, but at home, so that er we we had the the school language, what you were talkin in the street, and probably something in the middle i- in in the house. But there was a kind of an awareness that er you try to avoid obvious Scottishisms, //you know?// M1022: //As far as the written Scots is concerned// apart from Burns there was only one other source of seeing Scots words written down, and that was in D.C. Thomson, er, Oor Wullie and the Broons. F1018: That's right. M1022: and that where you picked up on "crivvens" and "jings" and "help ma boab". F1018: Aye. M1022: That's right. F1054: That's my understanding of Scots, very much, but interestingly in my head, Peerie Wullie and the Broons always had a Shetland accent. //[inaudible]// F1018: //Well,// well the other th-, the other thing about when you were growing up, you see, my mother actually saw education and speaking proper as our way of getting out of poverty and the slums. And if I would come in the door, dashin in the door, my mother would say "Where are you goin?", "I'm just going to the lavvy". She'd say, "Oh, look, the only job you'll get speaking like that is guttin fish". "If you want to get a good job, you've got to speak proper." And you wouldn't have got into the banks, the City Chambers or the Civil Service if you weren't able to speak proper English. M1022: And the other point about Oor Wullie and the Broons bein written in Scots is that it was written by Dudley D Watkins, who was an Englishman. //Yes.// F1054: //Is that really?// M1019: And I u- I used to do this, the the Broons in school with with with the kids and it was always er it was trying to trying to get the children to locate where Oor Wullie was set, or the or the Broons particularly, because of of the words, if there was any key words. So the kids in Edinburgh, in Leith, always assumed that it was Glasgow. They always, that's that's the, what they jumped to because er Paw worked in a, in the dockyards, etcetera. But it was eventually, you got them round to looking at the words like "bairn", the bairn, wh- is not a Glasgow word, that would have been "wean". So that helped to identify the East Coast for them. So that was a linguistic exercise whit we used the Broons for. F1054: Do you think there was some kind of identity confusion then, the fact that an Englishman was writin it, he used words like "crivvens" and "jings" that wouldnae, are those D- are those Dundee words? M1019: They must have been Dundee words for him, because he was based in Dundee, yes. F1054: Mmhm. M1019: But eh another thing about that particular sub-culture if you want to call it that was that there were no kilts. Oor Wullie wears dungarees, black dungarees all the time. F1054: And is there no kilts in Dundee, is it not a big thing? M1019: Well I don't know about in Dundee but in the actual comics there were no kilts. M1021: I would have thought working-class Scots, you know, I mean the kilt was, it was considered a garment for somebody a wee bit better off, you know? M1022: Somebody that was in the Scouts. //[laugh]// M1021: //Aye, or the Scouts. [laugh] You got away with it if you were in the Army, that was the first time I got a chance to wear a kilt.// Aye, no that I was dying for it. But, what he's saying is quite right, you know, you see, I'm tending to bring the the common folk into this more, because that's where you'll you'll find the remnants o o the old Scots. Even to this day, wi all the changes. I mean, coming from, getting bea- I was lucky enough to get an ed-, a university education, for what it was worth, but imagine ma surprise, and it was genuine surprise, when I graduated and got teacher training, I went to teach in a a com- comprehensive, secondary, down in er a housing scheme, but here were the pupils on their own, among themselves, talkin the same way I did, when I was their age. And that was a long time before it, they were still using it. And when they addressed you of course they were a wee bit er ca- more careful, you see, because after all they were going to have to write what they were saying down at one point and you didn't, you had to remind them, you know, that the employer that they went to for an interview, no matter what their qualifications was, er you speaking the way you're speaking is no gonna get him excited, at all. M1019: Pa- part of the change of of you, myself, going in to education was that you had mature people going, and in the seventies the- it was much more acceptable to speak in your regional accent. And that wa- that was advocated in the teacher-training college, so that you had, well you'd have teachers who were particular teachers who who, you know, went out of their way, you know, to to to sp- speak often, you know, kind of in collo- colloquial language and and actually encourage the kids to speak in that way. So, and ki- and kids were introduced then for the first time to register. So they were told it was okay to use this wi-, you know, one way for the headteacher, it's okay for the playground, so they were they were kind of invited to see language in a broader, in a broader sense. M1020: //[cough]// F1054: //Ehm, we had a super blast o// o o of John's Morningside accent there, Jimmy, Jimmy, can you give me a blast o your accent? //Aye,// M1020: //Ma accent?// F1054: yeah, say something you'd typically say to your faimly, or M1020: I've no really got an accent, hiv I? F1018: //[laugh] Aye, ye huv.// M1022: //[laugh]// //[laugh] Oh aye!// F1018: //[laugh] Aye ye huv!// M1020: //Eh, oh you're just makin that up.// //You're saying it because it's true then.// F1018: //No, I'm no! [laugh]// M1022: //[laugh]// F1054: How would you define your accent, Jimmy? M1020: Well, actually it has changed a bit, well see that changed, well, when I was young, I, Loanheid, you see, changed, changed. But eh, later on there was a big influx frae the west, and I palled aboot wi some boys frae Airdrie, and I sort o went tae a west country accent, but I've got rid o that! //[laugh]// F1018: //[laugh]// M1019: //[laugh]// M1021: //[laugh]// M1022: //[laugh]// M1020: So, F1054: Whaur is Loanheid in relation in relation to Leith? Whaur is Loanhead, where is //Loanhead?// M1020: //Five mile frae Edinburgh.// Centre to centre. It's er, have you heard o Straiton Park? Terrible. //Well, [laugh] it's just a mile frae// F1054: //[inaudible] educatit [inaudible]// M1020: a mile frae Straiton. Er, that's where Paraffin Young had, made petrol, that was years ago. Aa these places wi red bins, that was Shell Oil, F1054: Shell Oil, yeah. //I tried to// M1020: //aye, well.// //Aye.// F1054: //pitch a programme for Radio Scotland, really interestin programme about the Shell Oil industry, you know?// //They didnae go// M1020: //Aye.// F1054: for it. I'll try again. M1020: So er F1054: What, can you maybe gie me a, gie a good blast o Leith accent, how folk would normally spik. F1018: We- well, could I just say, I was actually doing a creative writing class recently in Musselburgh, a woman comes from the slums of Leith like me, but she's gone up, she stays in Inveresk now, And er, she was trying to write and I said to her, sh- there was one sentence and it had erm "You're labouring under a misapprehension if you think I'm going to bend to your will". And I said, "Well if that was in Leith, all they'd have said was 'Away and bile yer heid.' " And that's exactly it. And when I actually do a creative writing class and they want to write about their working class background, if they've actually forgotten it, I tell them to get on a bus or stand at a bus-stop and that's where you hear it again. And you get the rhythm there, and you get all the words. My granny was probably one of the last pure Lallans speakers, so I was actually quite fortunate that I was influenced a lot by her. F1054: How did she speak? F1018: Erm, well she would go in, she'd s- er would probably say, I'm trying to think, and she'd say "Och, what are you daein oot on a day like this fur, hen? Och, it's no fur man nor beast." And that would be when it was snawing ootside and it was cold and and then she would look at your coat, and it would be aw threadbare and she would take her only shawl off the nail o the door and wrap it round you and pin it with her er hairpin. And that, you know, I would need to really think about all of the things that she would have said. And there's she was always makin erm kale in a pot, erm and guttin the herrin. F1054: What's kale in a pot? F1018: It was soup in a pot. Erm, and er she would be guttin herrin. and daein aw things like that, and makin sure that the lavvy was clean and we didnae get any germs an erm she was just a wonderful woman, really. F1054: And you mentioned there that you encourage folk you're teachin to get on a bus. Do you think folk are in, I mean is is, is the local accent here in danger to the extent that folk would need to get on a bus to remind themselves of hoo it soonds? F1018: Aye, because it's the television. The soaps have actually, if any- the people that watch, well, and I have to say I don't watch the soaps, Eastenders and er, what's the other one, Coronation Street, and Ri- well no so much River City, erm and that actually, I think the children from an early age are influenced by television, //that there's not, yeah, the Australians and the American accent and that that you know,// M1019: //[inaudible] cause it's Friends, and I mean the the Americism, the Americanisms, yeah.// F1018: it's again coming back to storytelling and, you know, st- er speaking to your children, having a conversation with them. I mean, my granny, every time I went down, she was telling me stories. And so y- that was how, where you learned your accent, and your words and everything, was from your granny. F1054: Mmhm. M1019: I tried to get er, you know, check out some of the words from my youth with my grandchildren, and words that we would have used in the house would have been press, for a cupboard, er bunker, and it's it's worktop now, lobby, tallboy, you know, that's that's just a just a cu-, er just just a chest of drawers now. Lavvy, er scaffy, that was the scaffenger on the streets, and street street cleaners, er rubbers for plimsolls, I think that that that's one o your words. Semmit, //in, semmit is yer, a vest.// F1054: //What's a semmit?// M1019: Vest. And if, for instance, when you're in er Glasgow you would talk about a close. But down in Leith we always called it the entry, when you we- you went you went up a st- a tenement stair. Thing- things like eating were, erm I was talking to someone recently and I was talking about lair. and they they they didnae have a a clue what lair was, and we we would buy lair in the same way that you buy corned beef and that, and lair was cow's udder, which was actually, you know, so- sort of cut and just sold as a as a cold cold meat. F1054: I've never heard of //that.// M1019: //Yeah.// That's udders, so that's lair, lair was par- part of it. And so M1021: What er, what Noel was saying there, and Jimmy, er they were one aboot the same thing really, the aspect o o region, regional accents, you know? And er, it's important, er er when I spoke about at school, being corrected, er it wasn't an Oxford or a public school voice that was correcting me, I mean all our teachers weren't English, they were Scots. And they had accents too. But the accent, the language seemed to survive the accent. I mean you don't have to know about Sean Connery to understand that. Aye, they were speaking Scots alright, er er English but with a Scots accent. And it didn't seem to interfere with the meaning or the pronunciation o the words. And talking about accents, what Jimmy's saying there about, it's Loanheid, Jimmy, isn't it? Loanheid? M1020: //Aye.// F1054: //Loanheid?// M1021: Well we, e- even as kids we became aware of what accent meant. We never used the word, but er when we went to secondary where other voices were heard, voices from the kids out- outwith Edinburgh. [inaudible] Loanheid, and then later on when I got involved in sports, er boxing in particular, they er they would come in from Loanheid, an [?]Turnent[/?] [?]Turnent[/?] [?]Turnent[/?] oh er aye, where you come frae? Oh ah, oh, aye. And it was wi- it was a sing-song accent even when you were hearin them shouting, if they were shouting against you, or whatever it wis, you know, or [?]fur their[/?] man, you could hear it very strongly, oh aye, and I I still here it now and again, er that er regional, er which is a wonderful thing, cause I think Edinburgh is unique, well in a way it is because although you've got all this this er upper and lower language in Edinburgh which in a way you certainly do, I mean you could just nae open your mouth in Edinburgh, worse in London, of course. You've either got people lookin up at you or down at you. M1022: //Mm.// F1054: //Mmhm.// M1021: Er whatever, but er we er in Jimmy's case, I mean we warmed towards thae youngsters of course, cause they were different, you know? F1054: I love it, I mean, when I think of Edinburgh accent, I think of very like "this and that", you know, is it, I suppose it's more Fife that, is it I'm thinking of, I'm really confused. Is it quite sing-songy, Jimmy? M1020: Eh? F1054: Quite sing-songy, the wey you speak, sing-song la-la-la? M1020: //No, I dinnae think sae.// M1022: //[inaudible] accent?// F1018: //No.// F1054: //No.// M1020: No. M1022: //Jist// F1054: //No, no no no no.// //[inaudible]// M1020: //No.// M1019: //Pitch.// F1054: //up and doon, up and doon.// M1020: Well it maybe goes up and doon, but it's no singy-songy, //I dinnae think.// F1054: //No, okay, uh-huh.// M1020: I've never been mistaken for a Chinaman. //[laugh]// F1054: //No. [laugh]// Tell me, have any of the rest of you done like ehm Noel's done and thought about words that you use that maybe dinna feature in the diagram? We'll cover them first and then we'll go on to the diagram after that. M1022: Well I did notice something about twenty years ago, I did a bi- a wee bit teachin as well. And words tended to come in from er gipsy children, who might be in a school for a year. And the the kids from the town would pick up on some of these words. er one word, under what you do, to hit hard, "pagger". To punch hard, that's pagger. And I think that's a a Romany word; I could be wrong with that. And there was another one, erm, if you give me a second I'll just find it. M1019: Gadgie. Gadgie. Gadgie was another one, re- referring to just a person, usually someone who was dark, dark. Barry, barry was the other one, the other word, that meant er good, you know, it was barry. M1022: Barry was, meant good or great from twenty years ago, and the opposite was shan. You know, that's bad, so if you said something was barry, it was good or great, but if that's shan, that's bad, we don't want it. M1020: //But.// F1054: //But that's twenty years ago.// //Folk widnae do that noo?// M1022: //That was from twenty years ago, yes.// I don't think so. //They just// M1019: //There's an// alternative street vernacular now, because I I was talking to my daughter and she she actually works, she worked in er the drug place in Leith, as as a helper. And she says there was a complete language that they had which helped to, you know, ke-ke-, keep what they were talking er of obscure from people who were listening. So she's got a complete list of words which she just came out the top of her head, which I've never ha- heard before and which there's no derivation as far as I can see. F1054: So these are words that, what the drug //community.// M1019: //Words which which she was usin.// //A com- a c- yeah, a complete vocabulary almost.// F1054: //In the drug community?// //Can you give us any examples?// M1019: //do yo-.// Twirls equals keys. Mort was women. Skreeve was a car, [?]keer[/?] was a house, highers was money, flattie meant a straight peg. Er, naggins was self, [?]Porace[/?] was [?]pocket[/?], [?]yak[/?] was eyes, lantle meant you were clueless, juggle was a dog, chan was a guy, barry was was was great. And so she had a list and that's that was just the top of her head, so there was an alternative vocabulary. When we were at school as well, teachin, the children used eggy-language. And I could never, it was too, it was always too complicated for me. I think the children substituted "egg" for vowels and they would make up sentences which they became very proficient at, but excluded people who didn't know it, and as a teacher [laugh] I was one of those, and I can always remember that. F1054: And, could you, were these kind of erm sub-languages associated //with deviants?// M1019: //Sub, yeah.// Erm it was just an exclusive language, it was a it was a peer-group language, so so that it excluded, you know, excluded -cluded adults, er just in the same way that would exclude, you know, whoever you don't want to listen. Presumably that would come from prison, I sh- should imagine, you know? F1054: Actually, the word "mort" I know is a travellers' word. M1019: Is it a travellers' word? Right, so well, w- whether, you know, that that could could be, you know, traced back. I I couldn't er, you know, er decipher them. F1054: Good. Anybody else got a new one? //[inaudible] That's it.// M1020: //Well I got yin, is "stupid".// It's stupid, glaikit. M1022: [inaudible] M1020: Uh-huh, and then er "dull wet weather", dreich. F1018: //Right, if you still// M1019: //[inaudible] doon.// F1018: //[inaudible]// M1020: //If you're pleased aboot somethin, you're fair away wi yersel.// //[laugh]// F1018: //Aye.// F1054: That's a good one. M1020: Aye, er, someone who thinks they're great, they think they're nae sma drink. [laugh] Er, the appreciation of someone doin well, you're gaun yer dinger. //[laugh]// F1054: //That's a good one!// M1020: Aye. An expression of exasperation, och! [?]Jeez[/?]. //Aye.// F1054: //That's an important one, little words we use more than we think, I think.// M1020: Someone expecting too much, you want jam on it. [laugh] An a frown is tae glower. F1054: That's a good-, and a lot of those arenae on the list, that's a really good list. A- anybody else got ones that arena on the diagram? //O- mm.// M1022: //To come back to what Millie was saying, ehm another phrase was "away and champ yer tatties".// F1018: Aye. M1022: Now that's advice you would give t- in anger to somebody who's annoying you, suggesting that the mashing of potatoes is more important than what they're doing. F1018: I was talking to an old, a a lady in one of the nursing homes that I go to, who has ear- early Alzheimer's but her long-term memory's good, and they'd gone out for their tea, and I says to her "How did you get on then, Aggie?" "Oh," she says, "it was great, hen. The fish was hingin off the plate, and the chips were made wi tatties just oot the grund." And I thought that summed it aw up, it wasnae oven chips. Erm, the thing that I thought in this one, th- you see the insane, you'd have said that they were either a heidbanger or they werenae the full shilling. I mean you wouldnae have said insane, no. //No. No.// F1054: //[inaudible]// Is there anything else anybody else came up wi that's no on the diagram? M1019: Well dub, dub was the, always meant a puddle. Er a dyke for a wall. F1054: Mm. M1019: Er ben, ben the hoose. //Ben the kitchen, that, you know, that meant through through through in the kitchen.// F1018: //Ben the hoose.// M1019: Erm, messages for shopping, I think that's probably universally Scots. An a guider, well we we children, laddies played on the street with a, you know, a kart, a go-kart, er, expressions, er someone says it was sot. F1054: [inaudible] you're sittin on my leads, [inaudible]. M1019: It was, I was sot, it was so. My father, when he was at the table, and he wanted something, he would say "see the salt". He would not say "would you pass the salt, please?" he would just "see the salt". Or "see a tool", and and that. There's other swear words. The swear- the swear words that er were partly acceptable in our house were "sod" and "get", these the-the- these were the words, they never used er Lord's name in vain, or they didn't F and C, "bastard", "bugger", er wa- you know, these were acceptable sw-swe- swear words. But "get" and "sod", my, [laugh] was what my father father used. And again when you're tired, another expression would be "I'm buggered", would, you know, come out, and and that wasn't a sexual connotation, that just meant you were tired. M1021: Aye, yes, I I recognise some o them an all. Th- wh- wh- you've never mentioned, I don't think so anyway, is, you know, apart from syntax and grammar used, which does make a big difference to individual languages, I found anyway, I wonder if anybody else did, was the tendency, more than a tendency when I was a kid, of older people to come away with sayings that seemed to sum up a situation. It seemed to save them an awful lot of unnecessary words and talk. Er sayings like, they needn't be particularly Scots, but they were inclined to be, things like er, you know, like, well, as it was happening, not that er often, a a young girl being in a family way, you see, or pregnant. You would get often coming from some o the-, well some o them anyway, "she's got a bun in the oven". F1054: Mm. M1021: When you were a kid you didnae know what that mean, a bun in the oven. Er, or if you were, for example, er dealing with a situation er that was maybe sad, you know, out would come this saying again, you know, my mother's example, I often used to cry, sometimes anyway, when I got into bother, you see, I'd be brought to the house, usually, and then I'd get in and then she'd make an attempt to chase me round the table, and then, never caught me of course, and then she would sit down, and she would just say "look at me", you know, and I'd be lookin, and she would start to cry, and of course that was the worst thing she could do, you see, and I'd go across to her, and then she'd look up at me and laugh, and she would say "if I di-", [laugh] "if I didnae laugh, I would cry". Sayings like that. F1054: Mm. M1021: And another one was er, she would say, for somebody going through a calamity, "Oh well, it's an ill-wind that blows nae good". Sayings like that, or a couple who were, it wisnae uncommon, who were, married couple who were falling out wi each other, you know, hell going on, er in their house, and er, that would be the [inaudible], and sometimes they didnae need to finish the saying, it was, "well, they've made their bed," [cough], and she didn't need to say the next part, "and I'll just have to lie in it." But the saying did it, and to me I often think it did save them an awful lot of er formal er language and articulation just by saying it, cause we all knew [inaudible] all knew what this message, all knew what it meant. That kind of thing, sayings, not always Scots. But just er where, somebody else would more fluently go to town on the language, you see? B-, er somebody, [laugh] like F1018: If you fell and hurt yourself, and I would be cry-, greet-, crying and my mother would say "Aye well, the mair you greet, the less you'll pee". //And th- [laugh] that that was the sympathy you got.// M1022: //[laugh]// F1018: And the other one was "One skittery coo likes another". M1022: [inaudible] F1018: And ma granny's great one was, which really today I think "Aye you were right, granny", was she would say, "When dirt rises, it blinds you". F1054: I don't know what either of those things would mean, "skittery coo likes another"? F1018: Er, well, you know, well skittery coo, well, er, you know somebody that's a sort of er drunk and loose and bad, they like to go around with a pal that's just the same. And "the mair you greet, the less you'll pee", you know, that, well the tears are comin down your face so you'll certainly no be peein, will you, because it co- it has to come from somewhere. And in "dirt rises, it blinds you", it's somebody that gets up and they forget where they came from. And the, like Hyacinth Bucket, Mrs Bucket, and that's it. The other words that we used to use was they never said "headlice", they always said "pogies". You know, pogies? M1022: [inaudible] F1018: And they, erm somebody that was scabby had impetigo. Scabby. //Erm, yeah, mmhm.// M1021: //Aye, yeah, scabby, I remember that.// F1018: I I agree wi John, there was lots, I mean, the sayings, and in fact the last time at the erm forum I was gonnae suggest that we started writing down all the sayings because you hear them less and less now. M1021: [inaudible] you know, and I think, now and again when I've got time, I I scribble something down, I said I'm gonnae [inaudible]. //And// F1018: //Mm.// M1021: then I'll visit a sister or another old brother and they'll say something, and I'll say "Jesus, aye". And it's always things that your mother said. //Seldom the father, seldom the father.// F1018: //Well at least, at least they get it down.// M1021: Father seemed to do most of his talkin in the pubs, about human affairs, you know, human relationships. F1018: Mmhm. M1021: It seemed to be always the women that er had to deal wi them, and they used these sayings, as I say, to sum them up. Not that they were great readers. Nor were they ignorant either, oh they could read enough okay, er some o them were quite smart at it. But they er the-th- more talking than reading. Er and er as I say, the- where they got the sayings, which often interests me, I couldn't say whether they got it at school themselves perhaps, you know, //they did go to school,// F1018: //Yeah.// M1021: my mother wo- they went to school, we're no that ancient. But er, they must have picked them up there, or, and yet, when I thought about the sayings, I would think "where would they get that?" you know? "[tut] What book would that be in?" It's not a Shakespeare quote or anything like that. M1019: I've still got a word that I- my mother used, which I I've never heard, I don't know if it's Scots or what. It was "dowk" for your backside. //She used "dowk".// F1018: //Mm.// M1019: And er er she was the only one I ever heard using that. But there was always, there was also expressions which were lo- just in your house, that came about as part of, you know, your particular life experience, one that we that we have and my children use now is if you were going for butter or margarine and you miss, you missed and it fell onto the onto the table, in our house, you always says it's oh, Dodie White, and that's because my mother had a visitor once, and this guy, he must have been half drunk, and he was trying to get the butter, and after a while he just gave up and lifted the thing and threw it onto his bread and started spreadin, but that has just gone in in our family as a Dodie White, so //that's.// F1054: //Was that the name o the guy?// M1019: That's the name o, the guy's name, so it just becomes er your own language that's created, you know? M1022: Knives and forks again, if you dropped a knife, it was, that'll be a woman comin, or if you dropped a fork, that'll be a man comin. //Or was it the other way round? I can't remember now.// F1018: //I seem to think the knife's a man coming.// M1021: //[laugh]// M1022: A knife's a man comin? Aye, mm. F1054: That's brilliant. If we return to the diagram, I'm just conscious o time, we'll never get //roond it itherwise!// F1018: //Oh right.// F1054: Erm so we, we only kind of did a few, I mean, "unwell" and "tired". What about "pleased"? M1022: Chuffed. M1020: Mm? M1022: Chuffed is pleased. M1019: I had chuffed. M1021: Oh chuffed, I've got chuffed. M1019: Chuffed. F1054: Dinna worry if if you canna think o any words, that's fine as well cause that tells us something aboot //the language as well.// M1022: //Well, for hot, I've got ploatin,// //which, ploatin, I suppose if you put it into English it would be ploating.// M1020: //Naw,// F1018: Mm, an M1020: //I don't know.// M1022: //I don't know whe- where it comes from but ploatin is where you're very hot and bothered.// F1018: //And for pleased it would have been gled.// M1020: //[inaudible]// F1018: Gled or glad. F1054: Good. M1022: Cold? F1054: Cold? //Cold.// M1022: //Nithered.// Nithered. F1054: Never heard o that. M1022: Ah, nithered. F1018: //I still use freezing cold.// M1019: //Freezin.// F1018: Aye. M1019: //[inaudible]// M1021: //Yeah, that would be// //very very very mu- always cauld. Cauld.// F1018: //Whenever my husband smoked// and you opened the windae //[inaudible] I'm freezin cauld!// M1019: //Freezin, or I'm perishin, perishin, perishin's another one.// M1021: //No cold.// M1022: I've got two of them for annoyed, bleezin and crabbit. F1018: //I've got bilin,// M1020: //Mm.// F1018: //for annoyed, bilin, aye.// M1019: //[inaudible] Mm.// F1018: //Bilin, boiling.// F1054: //Did you// use these words or are you just kinda thinkin about ones that M1022: I'd use ploatin, aye. //I'd use nithered.// M1020: //Pregnant, in the puddin club.// Pregnant, in the puddin club. F1054: Good, good, Jimmy. M1020: //And er// M1022: //And there's a rude one as well but I don't want to say it.// //That's the one! Aye. [laugh]// F1018: //Up the d-, aye.// F1054: //Up the duff?// //It's not tha-, I've heard much worse.// M1020: //Somebody that's no,// somebody that's no too bright; they're no the full shillin. F1054: Aye, that's a good one Jimmy, yeah. Erm, what about er annoyed? M1019: Bilin, erm angry, ballistic, that's a contemporary one. F1018: [inaudible] spans the generations. M1020: //Annoyed?// F1054: //Yes. Mm.// M1020: I've got bilin, fair bilin. F1054: Mm. M1020: [inaudible] Minute while I think what we used to dae. Well we-, playing truant, skivin or dodgin. F1054: Good. M1020: //Aye.// M1021: //Aye, actually,// M1022: //We would say skip the school.// M1021: just kipping. And for annoying I've got peeved. M1019: Gone off at the deep-end as well is is another one, gone off at the deep-end for being angry or annoyed. M1022: Another thing about language that the Scots today, as in the past, when they went around the the world to the auld British Empire, they brought back more than souvenirs, they brought back language as well. F1018: Mm. M1022: And a word that I still use for sleep is charping. Charping in me pit, and that's an Indian word. Er charpoi is a bed. F1054: Mm, that's really interesting. You'd use that? M1022: Yeah, I still use it today, yeah. But that's only because I was out in the East, for National Service. M1019: But there must there must have been associations with the bed, because pyjama was was was the other one, isn't it? //That's that's another Ind- Indian one, you know?// F1018: //That's right. Yeah.// M1022: //Bungalow.// //Or dungarees, they're all Indian words.// M1021: //Jildi.// //Jildi, jildi, move!// M1019: //[inaudible]// M1021: And they still, I I I still incl- they use that one, jildi! F1018: Yeah. M1021: An ma fa- father brought it back from India, like bungalow. M1019: Mmhm. M1021: These words, like, they brought their war language back, French as well, and and even I I was at the Far East, when I came home I was using er words, you know, Indonesian words, Korean words, er, you know, which meant not all nice things, you know? But you you [laugh], even wee songs and so on, so you [inaudible] influx of all these out- //outwith// F1018: //Mm.// M1021: you know the the exper- other countries, well we're a mongrel nation anyway aren't we, we've got so many different er er names from different countries and languages. I would agree wi that. M1020: //When a man's drunk// F1054: //What about?// M1020: he's fair stoatin. //[laugh]// F1018: //Aye.// F1054: Do you mind there was an advert on a while ago that said "Aye, it's stoatin stuff"? //Do you ever mind that? [inaudible]// M1020: //Aw well that was also// if the rain's comin heavy it's stoatin. F1054: Mmhm. M1020: Stoats off the grund. //[laugh]// F1018: //An a stoater used to be// a a lassie that was really, you know, a sort of erm aw, very attractive, very beautiful, aye, erm like Zeta Jones, I mean the auld man would say she's a stoater. M1019: But stoatin would mean "is good" as well, that's why, you know, "It's stoatin stuff", it's very good, yeah. M1022: It's going back to the Empire. I don't mean the Empire Theatre, I mean [laugh] //the British Empire.// F1018: //Mmhm.// F1054: //If only// [inaudible] M1022: In the "Getting Personal", the word "insane", doolally-tappit. //And doolally was from India.// M1020: //And// //doolally. Aye.// F1018: //Doolally, aye.// M1019: //Aye.// M1022: //Mmhm.// M1020: //Mm.// M1021: //That was an army camp in India, Bangalore, I think.// F1054: There's a lot of the French M1021: Doolally, during the Second World War. M1020: [inaudible] //Doolally, doolally.// M1021: //And er we we use it like "He's doolally, she's doolally", you know, brother or sister, you know?// And that's the way they they at- not that long ago since I found out, you know, an old soldier. Naw we were, h-h- he wisnae talking about what I was talking about, aye he's away now, "Aye," he says, "we went er we went out there and we didnae ken where we were". Aye, they were goin to Burma, you see? And India, it was near er Madras I think, and er there was this camp here, and aw their their mattresses and they're aw filled wi lice and everything. And you had [inaudible] in fact they were [inaudible] doolally. //Doolally, what?// F1054: //It must have been a kind of sanatorium type camp, mustn't it?// M1021: Aye, [inaudible] aye, and so they used that word, you know? Doolally, er oh f-f- //Tragically.// F1054: //Yeah, after [inaudible]. What a-// er erm let's move on to "What you do", "to throw something"? M1020: I would chuck it. F1018: Fling. M1019: I got fling, fling was the one I F1054: Er, to play truant, we've kind of touched on that, we've got skiving, kipping, anything else? M1019: Skip, to skip school, we never said skive. F1018: Skip school. M1019: //We said skip.// M1022: //Female partner.// F1054: Okay, erm, "sleep". M1019: //It's all, [inaudible], you know?// M1022: //Charping, charping would be sleep.// And incidentally, that's Sanskrit, that word, charping, it's [?]quahar pwud[/?], er which means four legs, the four legs on the bed. //I just thought I'd throw that in there because I got it from the dictionary.// F1018: //[laugh]// //[laugh]// F1054: //[laugh] Oh you really have been doing your homework, John, I wish everybody was as conscientious.// //[laugh] Well,// F1018: //I know, I di-, I didnae do the homework, John, I'm sorry.// Naw, I would j- I would still even say the day, "Oh, I'm away for a wee kip". //To sleep, mm.// M1022: //[inaudible]// F1018: //[inaudible]// M1021: //Kip, Millie, aye, K.I.P. aye, here it is.// F1018: Oh I like a wee kip after ma lunch, M1020: Aye. F1018: or ma dinner, as it used to be in ma day. M1019: //Havin a, havin, havin a kip, out for the count,// M1020: //Somebody, somebody,// M1019: in the land o nod, er, catchin a few zzzs, or havin a nap. //No, no, that's, that was// F1054: //Well you're very in with the in-crowd, you can tell you're a teacher, no? [laugh]// M1019: th- it was. The other one wi- for to play truant was doggin, but that's not an Edinburgh one. F1054: That's got another meaning nowadays. M1020: And somebody that's left-handed is carrie-pawed. F1018: //Aye.// M1019: //Or corrie-joukit.// F1018: //Corrie-fisted. Yeah.// M1020: //Corrie-joukit or carrie-// M1022: //Corrie-joukit.// F1018: //Yeah. Aye.// M1020: //Baith baith o them.// F1054: //Corrie-joukit, corrie-fisted.// M1020: So er, you take your pick. [laugh] //[laugh] Mmhm.// F1054: //Pick and mix there.// Ehm, to play a game. M1019: //That one I was lost, I didn't get one.// M1022: //I couldnae get that one at all. I was totally lost on that one.// //Couldn't figure that one out at all.// M1020: //No.// M1021: [?]anything[/?] for that F1018: //Ehm, couldn't do that one.// M1019: //You give us one. [laugh]// M1022: //Nope.// F1054: //I can't think of anything either!// F1018: Well I as- I asked my husband last night and he said "oh," he says, "you mean jine in?" So I suppose if you went down the stairs and they were playin a game o football and they would say "you want to joi-, jine in?" and you would jine in and erm just go into the game. //But I actually couldnae find anything "to play".// M1022: //Talking aboot// I couldnae, no. But talking about games there were two names that I remem- two words that I remember from the forties and the fifties, and that's leevoy and chainy. And the old game of tig when you touched somebody and they were "het". And then they had to run around touching somebody else. It was expanded into chainy, where a whole chain of people, boys, F1018: Mm. M1022: run around, well the slums, trying to touch everybody else, and if you got touched you had to join the chain, until everybody was in the chain and that was game over. F1018: Aye. M1022: Leevo was the same but you didn't make a chain. M1019: Mm. M1022: You only had to have two people there, //the two// M1019: //I remember// as a child being confused when you heard like, or you read English books and it says "You're going to be 'he'", for "het", and that wa- that was a real kinda confusion as, for me as a child, you know, and you recognised that was a very different language, "he" and "het". F1054: What's that? M1019: "He" is you're gonna be it or he in a game, you know, you're the you're the person at the centre. M1021: The the game I remember well is er th-th-th- the kids, they were mixed, you know, the boys played games with the girls but usually they played different sexes as well, F1018: Aye. M1021: but the hessy was, er, they all played the hessy, that was the one where we got a chance to play with the girls, you see, hessy. Do you remember hessy? M1019: Hide and seek. M1021: Hide and seek, aye. Why they called it hessy, I haven't the foggiest. But that's what we knew it as. //And aleevoy,// M1019: //[inaudible]// M1021: oh yeah, aleevoy, that was the shout and that meant you could, er, you know, in other words you stood like that in the street with a hand over the eyes, and you don't look and all your pals scattered everywhere. And then, er you shouted "aleevoy!", and then you were, put the hand down and looked away and went away lookin for them. F1018: Hide and seek, basically. M1021: Er it was er more or less hide and seek except that er you could run great lengths, you know, at at //hidin, all sorts o// M1022: //It's a bit rougher,// M1021: ah, much rougher, boys ga- that's what I'm sayin, some of the games er were a bit rough. aye for boys. Peevers of course, you could never play peevers, if you were a boy, they get, hae doots aboot ye, the peevers, you know the peevers? Well er, chalked out a frame on the pavement with white chalk, M1022: Beds. M1021: Squares, aye, peevers, [inaudible] what is it, a blacknin tin, an empty tin, //and you hopped it, and the girls hopped it on one knee and one leg.// F1018: //A black- a black- black boot polish, it was a boot// //polish tin.// M1021: //Aye, that's right.// F1018: Aye, an then you used to kick it up and see how far you could get it up and then the squares were one, two, three, and then there was a double one, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and then it went that way. //Erm.// F1054: //And that's hopscotch?// F1018: and aye, well hopscotch what you would call it now, but we played peevers. M1021: Peevers F1018: And er, and the boys played football, and they were all good footballers, that's what's wrong wi the Scottish team the day, that, no, they're not actually getting it in there from when they're seven years old. M1022: The back green. F1018: //And the back green stuff, ye cannae play in the streets now because of the cars.// M1020: //Naw, no enough Loanheid// men, //no, no, no enough Loanheid men.// F1018: //And there's no enough Loanheid men in it, naw!// But they're no, they're no actually teachin it in the, you know, and the teachers are aw scared to take football at the weekend, because if the bairn breaks its leg, the mother sues them. M1020: Mm. F1018: And we're losin, we're losin the place here and our bairns are no gettin to play. And that's where we need to go back, to getting the seven years old playing, //and the lassies they all sang// M1020: //I think it would be better,// //they're the seven year olds now.// F1018: //on the [laugh]// //Yeah, [laugh] now the seven years olds would make a better job now.// M1020: //[laugh] Mmhm.// F1018: And that's I mean it's gonnae be years and it would take years, cause they'll need to go back and start wi them at seven year old, and start trainin them all the way up. M1020: No much chance of s- me seeing this guid team, you know. //[laugh]// M1021: //[laugh]// F1054: //No, [inaudible].// //What aboot// M1020: //No, you never know.// F1054: "to hit hard"? You mentioned one earlier on. F1018: //Clout.// M1022: //Oh yeah that that was pagger.// F1018: Mm, clout. M1020: A clout an aw, aye. //And thump.// M1019: //Smack it a shot, thump it, thump it.// M1021: Yeah, blooter. F1054: Ah, //not just for drunk, yeah.// M1021: //Blooter.// F1054: Okay, erm, "rich"? F1018: Well aff. M1022: I couldnae get that one at all, no, just rich was rich. M1020: Weel off. M1019: Stinki- stink- stinking rich, loaded, bags o money. M1020: Mmhm. M1021: Rich, aye I'm just lookin for that word. F1054: It's //just.// M1021: //Oh yes, loaded, I've got loaded, aye.// M1019: //Loaded as well.// F1054: //Brilliant.// M1022: How about "unattractive", up the top o that list? Plug-ug. M1020: Eh? F1054: Unattractive. M1022: For unattractive, plug-ug, and it was also suggested minging. //Minging.// F1018: //Or pig-face.// //Or ugly, pig-face or// M1020: //That's nice, I like that.// //Nae ile// F1018: //ugly.// M1020: paintin. //[laugh], Mmhm, aye, nae ile-painting.// F1018: //Nae ile-, oh I like that! I'd forgotten about that.// M1019: That's what I've got, no oil-painting. M1021: I've got plain-Jane. F1054: Good. What about the opposite, wh-wh- a a looker, an attractive person? F1018: //Mm, bonny, a stoater.// M1022: //Oh a stoater.// //Definitely a stoater, yeah.// F1018: //A stoater, bonny.// Mm. //Yeah.// M1019: //Stoater.// M1020: //Mm, and we've had that stoater, haven't we already? Aye.// M1022: //Aye.// M1020: Oh, we'll have another stoater. //[laugh]// M1019: //[laugh]// M1022: //[laugh]// F1054: //You never have too many stoaters, can you?// M1019: //[laugh]// M1020: //[laugh]// M1019: Er, a stunner, cracker, a peach, a doll, F1054: Mm. M1019: they were all, you know? F1054: Okay. M1021: I just got pretty there, "she's pretty". F1054: Good. Erm, what about lacking money, the opposite o rich? M1022: Skint. F1018: Hard-up. M1020: I think it's er skint I've got tae. Aye, aye, eh? M1022: You're right, you're right, skint. M1020: Skint, aye, I've got skint. M1021: Skint, hard-up. M1019: I had skint or brassic-lint for the rhyming slang. F1018: //Brassic-lint, aye.// M1021: //I got broke here, broke, stony broke.// F1054: Good. Erm what about, oh gosh, we- we've had a couple o good ones already for pregnant. We had "bun in the oven" fae John and we had erm we had puddin, in the pudding club //fae fae Jimmy.// M1020: //In the puddin club, aye.// //It's no pudding, it's puddin.// F1054: //E-// //Puddin, puddin club.// M1020: //[laugh]// F1054: Any- anything else from anybody else? M1020: [laugh] F1018: In the pudding club! [laugh] //[laugh], I thought of rude ones like up, up the stick, up the stick.// M1019: //There was a-// M1020: //[laugh]// F1054: //[inaudible] pregnant [inaudible].// M1019: //In the club, just expecting, yeah.// M1020: //In the club, aye.// F1054: John, have you any? M1022: Just what I said before. F1054: Okay, good. Erm, what about "insane"? F1018: //Heidbanger.// M1022: //Well what,// F1018: No the full shilling. M1020: Mm. M1022: er, well what I mentioned earlier, doolally-tappit. M1020: Mm. F1018: //Doolally [inaudible].// F1054: //Jimmy, anything else for insane?// M1020: Insane, er, no I think I've just got er, oh what was it? That's this wonderful memory, [laugh]. //Oh.// F1018: //You've got "daft".// M1020: Daft or mad. F1018: Aye. M1020: Mad, I think. //Erm// M1019: //Nutter.// M1022: //Nutter.// M1021: Barmy. M1020: //[inaudible] [inaudible]// F1054: //Barm, that's an interesting one, that's very Scottish, isn't it?// M1019: //Off your heid.// M1022: //Barmpot.// M1019: //Off your heid would be// M1020: //Now they're rollin oot!// F1018: //[laugh]// M1022: //Now they're rolling oot!// //[laugh]// M1019: //[laugh]// M1020: //[laugh]// M1021: //[laugh]// F1054: //[inaudible] We're on a roll noo, Jimmy!// Erm, what else, lacking money, drunk, pregnant, have we done enough on drunk, do you think? //I don't think we have.// M1020: //Eh?// F1018: //Er,// F1054: //Drunk.// //Somebody had [inaudible].// M1020: //Aye, we had stoatin.// M1022: //Drunk.// F1018: //Sozzled.// M1020: //We had stoatin for that.// M1022: Plastered. F1018: Mmhm. Sozzled. //[?]More to be funny though I think[/?].// M1019: //Pissed.// Pissed. [inaudible] //Steaming, or stoned.// F1018: //Steamin, aye.// M1021: //Steaming. Just steaming. Steaming.// M1022: Four sheets to the wind. Er, bevvied. //Er, pissed as a newt.// M1019: //That's a good one.// M1021: //Bevvied, aye.// F1054: It's very rich one, //isn't it, there's load for that. Erm,// M1019: //Yeah yeah yeah.// Blootered is what you said there as well. F1054: Yeah. Moody, moody? M1020: Moody. //Er, s-// F1018: //Crabbit.// M1022: //Crabbit, mmhm.// F1018: Crabbit. M1022: Soor-faced. F1018: //Mm.// F1054: //John, if you just, you just come in a tiny bit, I'm just no quite// //pickin you up.// M1022: //Right.// F1054: Just if you move your chair in a tiny bit, that's [inaudible]. M1022: Erm, moody, soor-faced. M1021: //Mmhm.// F1054: //Right.// M1019: Temperamental. F1018: Mm. M1021: Aye, if if if it's getting nearer the Scots words, er, moody, you're getting near it there I would have thought, d-d-d- moody, always meaning sort of crabbit and so on, didnae always mean that, sometimes it meant, you know, you know, high, aye, so we used to just say "up and doon", my mother would say "Oh him and he's he's either up or doon", you know? That's what we meant by moody. //Up and doon.// F1054: //Unpredictable really. Yeah.// //Erm, what about// F1018: //Swinging.// M1020: //Oh that a-, aye.// F1018: Swinging, you know they're swinging one way and the other, [inaudible]. F1054: Mmhm. F1018: Yeah, swingin. M1020: That insane yin, I don't think I said it, "no the full shillin". Or "away wi the fairies". //[laugh]// F1018: //[laugh]// F1054: //Two good ones Jimmy, yeah, yeah, that's great.// What about er, going inside and outside, to rain lightly? M1019: Drizzle, drizzle. F1018: //Smirl.// M1022: //Spittin.// M1020: //Er// F1054: //What did you say?// F1018: Smirl. F1054: You're the first person I've heard say that, actually. F1018: Mm, is that, would you say that in erm //Shetland?// F1054: //No, but I've// //heard, or I really like it, a smirr, or smirl.// M1020: //Mm, I I think I say// drizzle. Drizzle. For rainin lightly, drizzle, aye. It's drizzlin. //That's all [inaudible], isn't it?// F1054: //What about "to rain heavily"?// M1022: Well a sudden downpour would be a plump. M1020: Er. F1054: That's one my mum uses, aye. M1022: And that's Dutch from "plompen", to burst. //Yes.// F1018: //Really?// F1054: Oh aye, that's brilliant. M1019: //[?]Wickin[/?], raining cats and dogs.// M1020: //Yeah.// M1021: //And, no, simply buckettin, aye, buckettin, I still use it, bucket, bucket.// F1054: //[inaudible].// F1018: //Teeming.// M1020: //Oh aye.// F1018: And you'd s- you'd hear it the day, it's teemin, aye, teemin down. F1054: Oh, I haven't heard that one before. F1018: //Och aye.// M1020: //[inaudible]// F1054: Another one there. Erm, toilet? M1020: //Poorin, aye.// M1022: //Cludgie.// F1018: Lavvy. M1019: //Lavvy.// M1022: //The bog.// //[growl]// M1020: //What is this, er?// M1019: //[laugh]// F1054: //Toilet, Jimmy, toilet.// [laugh] M1020: The loo. //[laugh]// F1018: //[laugh]// M1022: //Oh that's a polite word, Jimmy, [inaudible] not polite.// F1054: //[laugh] That's too po-, that's too polite now!// //[laugh] It comes naturally.// F1018: //[laugh]// M1020: //I ju-, well I cannae help it, just, I mean.// Ma, ma wife, er she was, she belonged to Dalkeith, and her her mother tried to get her to talk polite, you see? M1022: [laugh] M1020: And erm, er when she was oot and she was talking ordinary Dalkeith, sis-, ken Betty, she used to go back and tell her mother, that's her sister, er "Chris wasnae talking gentry." [laugh] Wisnae polite, she wisnae talking gentry. So, she clyped on her an that was her in trouble. //[laugh]// M1022: //[laugh]// F1054: What does clype mean, Jimmy? M1020: Tell tale. F1054: Good one, that's a good one. M1019: Mmhm, aye we- we'd bog, cludgie or lavvy. //Mmhm, mmhm.// M1021: //Aye, lavvy, I put lavvy, aye.// F1054: Good, erm what about F1018: //Yes.// M1019: //Closet, closet was another one, closet.// M1022: //Oh aye, water-closet.// F1054: "The narrow walkway between or alongside buildings"? M1022: A vennel. F1054: Is that got a, some foreign origin? M1022: Er, I don't know about that, but there's a vennel up in, well John'll know the vennel. M1021: Aye, the vennel, yes. //[inaudible]// F1018: //Close, well clo-,// they have closes in Edinburgh. //You know, they've got Fishmarket Close, Fleshmarket Close and all o them.// M1021: //[inaudible]// F1018: //The pend.// M1022: //Pend,// //and wynd, and Weir's Close.// F1018: //Wynd and, well in// in erm Leith it was the Tolbooth Wynd, you know the wynd, wynd through the walkway, through M1022: So that's what you mean, as opposed to a path, just a pathway? Right, mm. M1020: There's one here that I couldnae get, kit of tools. I've only got "toolkit" doon. //Is there anything else?// M1022: //Th- that's all I've got, I can't think// //of anything.// F1018: //A work-bag.// M1020: Eh? F1018: A work-bag. No. M1021: //Aye,// M1022: //Just gear, that was it.// M1021: well as a tradesman, we used the word "gear", you know? Aye, plumbers and those with big tools and instruments did use a toolbox, aye, it was always a toolb- you got your bo- toolbox, but we as painters, you know, we were sort o the bottom o the barrel, //except culturally of course.// M1020: //Aye.// M1021: And we er had brushes and things and so on, that could be easily carried and that was you- "you got the gear wi you?" Er and that was what we used, just gear, you know? But you're right about the toolbox, aye, it was always mentioned. M1019: //But you sus- suspect there must be a good word for that in other, in trades.// M1020: //Well, I never heard o any other, no, a tool-// F1054: I I didn't ken any words for it either, nobody [inaudible]. //[?]So it's not ordinary[/?].// M1020: //Mmhm.// F1054: [inaudible] itself. M1021: [inaudible] because there were those trades that er, you you were very lucky if they were selling a trade, incidentally, you were, you know, [?]labelled[/?] an aristocrat. There were others that didnae get a chance, werenae too happy about that. But there was a difference in er eh employment, you know, you- er dangerous in the winter, because you lost days through rent. The other one was that you didn't have to buy tools. You know, the mother of this one boy [inaudible] in the trade "got to buy his tools, I've got to buy a box o tools for him". And you would have to buy the box o tools. M1022: Mm. M1021: Er, whereas a painter you could just, you know, slip in there and er a brush here a brush there, whatever, the employer supplied it all. That was the point. F1054: Were you a painter as well as bein a M1021: Yes, I was a painter, and a signwriter, and I moved to decoration. But, so you had your special brushes and so on, for certain jobs you did. But you called that your gear. Aye, and it was smaller, you didnae have to lug a big tool kit across, "It's got to go in, [?]Char-[/?]. It'll have to go in the van!" F1054: Mmhm. M1021: You just c- carried that and you got on the bus and you went where you were to go. F1054: Did you do kind of house-painting or only so- er sign-writing and fine art? M1021: Oh well I did er we went to art school, when I was serving my time it was six years and you had to go to night-school, ar- art college, and you went to that College up in Lady Lawson Street there. And you went there and you did drawing, you did still-life, you did aw the alphabets, [inaudible] and Roman, and you had aw the models aw around you up there. And there were some very clever er er teachers there, actual artists and er decorators, you know, long experience. And they taught you that and then eventually you got a day-school, you see, where you went up for day, for drawing, great. And so it was er one or two painters didnae make it but they were sort of frowned on, at, in the shop, and they werenae too happy, an employer er if you d-, if you e- if you didn't take advantage of it. And so that's what happened to us, and so we had a good grounding in the arts, you see? And it left us with the opportunity to move to a better firm wi bigger work and more decorative work, like the New Town, all that cornicing, all that decoration, lettering in the theatres, lettering in the hotels, all that. So it was er, but nevertheless, the tools were small and fine and so easy carried about. //You asked me that, incidentally.// F1054: //Good. Erm, oh, it's// //Yeah, no, it was very interesting, that.// M1021: //[laugh]// M1022: //Yeah.// F1054: //I was interested in that.// Cause, I I don't think, any of the rest of you got experience of the trade or working wi //tools?// M1022: //There is a// a phenomenon amongst trades that you can usually have a tool that you can't buy in a shop. And in the the electrician's trade, you've got something called a hickey. And you make this up from a heating engineer's pipes. It's a a sh- a a length o pipe, with a thread on the end, and you've got a T-piece and you put that on the other end o the thread. And you use it to bend pipes, you just stick it in the end and bend the pipe, put an offset on a pipe. But you can't buy them in a shop, you make them up for yourself on the sites, and it's called a hickey, H-I-C-K-E-Y. F1054: Is that a Scots word, do you think? M1022: It could be. M1019: //It's an I-// M1021: //Will they use that now, I wonder?// M1022: I don't know, but they used them till the forties and fifties and certainly the sixties. M1019: It's an Irish name, cause I've got a pal called John Hickey, who lives in Leith. F1054: Mm okay, erm what about the long, what about the long soft seat in the main room? M1022: That has to be the settee. F1018: I well I I thought the settee, and I phoned my sister and I asked her and she says to me "a sattlebed". M1020: Whit? F1018: A sattlebed. //I,// M1020: //Oh, that's awfy nice.// //[laugh]// F1018: //I know, hey! I'd never heard it before but she said "Oh no, that's a sattlebed".// M1022: //[laugh]// F1054: //[laugh]// //It's not a chaise longue, is it?// F1018: //And that's a// er it's, no, it's a bed, a soft seat on the top but it gets made down like a bed-settee. And she said a sattlebed. M1020: //A-// F1054: //Wh- in in Shetland they talk about the settle.// M1020: //Bed-settee to me. That's the only thing I think of.// M1022: //Settle.// F1054: Would you say a cooch? M1020: Couch? F1018: Or a sofa? //A sofae, sofa.// M1019: //Couch or settee.// M1020: A sofae. M1021: I've got down sofae. F1054: Good. //Erm what about the main room of the house that might have that seat in it, with a TV in it?// F1018: //[?]That's good[/?].// Living room. M1022: Sitting room. M1020: Sittin room. M1019: Lounge. M1021: Aye, the living room, aye. F1054: So those are the words you'd kno- use in your own house? F1018: Well they've gone posh if they've got the sittin and sittin rooms. M1020: [inaudible] you gone posh. //There are only two rooms in the place!// F1018: //You've gone posh. [laugh] Well,// it's ho-, //it's all, it's a lo-. A sittin// M1020: //You had the livin room and you had the sittin room.// F1018: room was something, you know, up in Morningside. M1020: //A sittin room.// M1021: //It does// M1022: //Ma dad [inaudible]// F1018: //Uh-huh, it was a class thing aye.// M1021: //er there's a class con- connotation here, because// if you're talking aboot the main room, I think you'll agree with me that er if there was one room that was the room in the house it was the kitchen. //The kitchen.// F1018: //Some of the-.// M1021: Oh but that's just for cooking. Oh no it wisnae. F1018: Oh no it wasnae. M1021: All the talkin was done in the kitchen. F1018: Round the table. M1021: Ah the table, right round, the same table you eat off, they were cleared back, visitors came in, into the kitchen, er summer and winter. It was only later, that er or somehow, you know, maybe a boyfriend or girlfriend coming up said er living room, and the living room was, well we called it the big room, or sort o the the big room, //and there it.// M1022: //Ben the hoose.// M1021: It's ben the [inaudible]. But the kitchen was the place. M1020: //Well er,// F1054: //It's interesting it might, might be a generational thing, my my granny would have said "ben" but maybe, then my mam, we live in a really ordinary hoose,// but erm mum still called it the sitting room and the linen cupboard and the cloakroom and aw this sort of stuff. [inaudible] M1020: //Well,// M1022: //Well,// M1020: we got a man up, you know them that er thingwy the hoose and taxes and aw the rest o it, "What size is yer hoose?" We said, "Well it's er kitchen, livin room and two bedrooms." "But you've got a sittin room?", "No, it's two bedrooms", he says "You must have a sittin room, you must have somewhere to sit." And we could not have two bedrooms; had to be a bedroom and a sittin room. F1054: Oh, God. M1020: Aye. M1022: My grandmother's family never had that problem. She and her husband and her six sons and her two daughters lived in a single end with two bed recesses. F1054: But what is //si-// M1022: //Till the nineteen-fifties.// M1019: One room. F1018: //One room.// M1022: //Just one room.// F1018: They'd call it a studio now. //But it was// M1022: //[inaudible]// F1018: and what what it was you had er six houses aw, that's in the tenements that were the slums that they've actually demolished back in the nineteen-fifties when we were all re-housed, and erm it was, I was born into luxury, there was six houses in Admirality Street as they say in Leith, and there was four single ends and two room and kitchens, and on the half-landing that they'd call the mezzanine floor now, that was where the one lavvy, lavatory was. And that was just one room, and there was a erm sink wi a cold water tap and that's all there was, and the range, the fire range. And everything went on in that one room. And people, they like chil-, an people had what, six, seven bairns. //And,// M1020: //Youse have had a// //hard time, haven't they, they've had a hard time! [laugh]// M1022: //[laugh]// F1054: //Oh I know, I've got a hanky, you want to greet? [laugh]// //[laugh]// F1018: //I know.// M1022: //Single ends, you were lucky! [laugh]// M1019: //We shared a single end with four families.// F1054: //[laugh]// F1018: //He was// M1022: //That's right. [laugh]// //[laugh]// F1018: //he wa- he was livin in the Anderson shelter! [laugh]// M1022: No, but that particular house I'm talkin about, well that single end, it was in Advocates' Close, across the road from St Giles Cathedral. F1054: Mm. M1022: And they had no water in the flat at all, that was out out in the the lobby, there was one toilet, a W.C. for, I think it was three families, //and// M1019: //At that time.// M1020: //You were lucky with a W.C. at that time, eh?// M1022: aye, and er there was gas, there was gas for the gas cooker. //but there was no electricity,// F1018: //[?]What a long deprived life[/?]// M1022: so there was no, no carpets, cause you couldnae have carpets without //vacuum cleaners.// M1020: //No, it was// pavin stane, eh? //On the flair.// M1019: //It was just// just just [inaudible] M1021: What about the candles, and so on, what about the candles and the candlesticks, when you hadnae the penny for the gas? M1022: That's right, yeah. //Gas mantle.// F1018: //[inaudible]// M1021: //And for the wee, what did they call it again, I was always breakin them, the mantle, the wee mantle.// F1054: //[inaudible]// F1018: //Ma mantle was forever// M1021: //What about the what about the mantles in the stair, John?// //What about the mantles in// F1018: //gettin broken.// //And when you when you you your mother would light it ehm and it was broken, it was a- an eerie yellowy-blue flame.// M1019: //[inaudible]// F1018: And if it was in the erm the scullery and she had a sheep heid sittin on the bunker, oh it used to look absolutely horrendous. [laugh] It was horrible. M1021: But then again the mantles in the stair. F1018: Mmhm. M1021: What about the [?]methies[/?] comin up, M1022: That's right, yeah. M1021: breakin them, [?]waterin[/?] them? get the gas, take it out, in wi the meths, a good shake - Grassmarket cocktail. //[laugh] We're away!// F1054: //Oh wi- what, we tak that as drugs?// M1021: Aye, they were away. And they would lie doon on the stone, happy and so, and kid used to step over them you see, until you saw the gas mantle, see, cause you knew you'd get the blame o it. Slidin doon the banister and shovin your finger in it, which we never did, I never anyway. But this was it, the methies, and then the next day you'd see them, red red face, walkin on air again, till they got some water and then they were away again till the next night when the mantles would be put on. It was dangerous because th- th- some of them forgot to put the the er gas off, you see you turned it and they would turn it off and try to take the mantle off, poor souls, you know, and and they [?]brook[/?] it, like they stuffed the bottle up there all the same, I mind I painted it when I was a kid. M1022: To give you an example of er generation gaps, my daughter's boyfriend's a computer expert and I wanted my hard drive updated, cause I wanted to put some extra stuff on it, you know? I don't know how to do that, but he can open up the box and put in extra memory, and he did that for me, and it was all workin. And he was tryin to explain it to me and he was losin me, I says, "Listen, I'm quite happy that it's workin, but there's no point in tryin to explain it to me, because I came up in a hoose wi a gas mantle". And he said "What's a gas mantle?" M1019: [laugh] //[laugh]// F1018: //I know.// M1020: //Stupid man.// M1022: //Didnae ken, never heard o it.// F1018: //And if you didnae have the penny for the gas, remember the meters, and it had a padlock on it, and the gas man came every so often to empty it.// M1020: //[laugh]// F1018: And if you ma- you maybe had two or three days and then your mother would just actually break into the meter, //and eh get the pennies back oot! [laugh]// M1022: //[inaudible] somebody else, somebody up the stair.// F1018: Well it was always, it was always somebody else that broke into the meter; it was never my mother! M1022: //It was, it was a bonus wasn't it when you got// F1054: //[inaudible]// M1019: //Oh aye.// M1022: //got the pennies.// F1018: Oh, like that wi the store divvie, the store dividend. Oh that was a great day. M1020: We're in another world here. F1054: Oh dear, this thing is no pickin up anything, sometimes it's useless, aye that's it, that's it noo. Don't move a muscle. //Right. I know. It's all your fault, Jimmy. Not.// M1020: //I won't. [laugh]// F1054: Right, okay, erm we've done toilet, done rain heavily, done narrow walkway, done soft seat, running water, smaller than a river? M1022: A burn. F1018: A burn. M1020: Burn. M1019: //Burn. Burn.// M1021: //Burn, yes.// F1054: All agreed on that. Erm, oo-rr, let's move on now to the "what do you call them" section. What about your mother, to begin with? F1018: Mammy. M1022: Just ma. M1019: I would just say ma. M1020: Ma. M1019: //Ma.// M1022: //Ma.// M1021: Ma. F1054: All in unison there. //[laugh]// M1020: //Naebody says "me-e-e". [laugh]// F1054: Grandmother? F1018: Granny. M1022: Granny. M1021: Granny. M1019: //Granny, gran, [?]gee-gee[/?] and nana.// M1020: //Gran.// F1054: Mm. M1021: Granny just, //just granny.// F1054: //Do you think that's a generational// thing, I mean, folk have said that these days folk are posh and they have nannies and nana, and all that. M1020: Aye, no. //Dinnae say any o them. Just granny.// M1022: //Aye.// F1054: //You're just granny.// M1019: //[inaudible]// M1021: //More sophisticated.// M1019: My grandchildren call different grandmothers different names, like, gee-gee or, you know, they distinguish now, there's four different M1022: //Noel's family were// F1054: //Who's gee-gee?// M1019: //That was that was// M1022: //[inaudible]// M1019: the that was the er grand- grand- granny's mother, great-grandmother was gee-gee. F1054: Maternal? M1019: Mmhm. F1054: Mmhm. Er what about male partner? M1020: Eh? M1022: I couldnae answer that one, //sorry!// F1018: //Ma man!// M1020: Ma man, that's what I've got. F1018: Ma man. //Mmhm.// M1020: //My man, mmhm.// M1021: Male partner? F1054: Aye, have you got a man? //Aye, man.// M1021: //You mean have I got a fellae?// You mean have I got a fellae? F1054: Aye, aye, a man. M1021: A fellae. F1054: A man aye, [?]bairn[/?]. //Oppo?// M1022: //Oppo, I don't know, oppo is one, buddy.// Er I mean, a woman seeing a male partner, or a //a pal, like?// M1020: //But that the question disnae// //say that's what they meant.// F1054: //I think it means a woman saying an// M1022: Male partn-, a male partner, yeah, oppo or er better half, //or, which was,// F1054: //I've never heard oppo before.// M1022: oppo, yeah. Er, that's it. M1020: What are we on now? F1054: Erm, we're o- gonna go onto friend next. M1020: Oh, friend, did we do female partner, did we? F1054: I've got o-, well do you want to do that noo, Jimmy? Let's do female //partner.// M1020: //No, no, I thought th- were on that.// Eh, the wife. F1018: The missus. The missus. //Yeah.// M1022: //Wife, yeah.// M1019: Wife. M1021: You mean a female partner? I've got er bird. Aye? F1054: You and your birds, John! //[laugh]// M1021: //Och, I'm away wi all the birds, aye.// Incidentally, Noel came from a better class of folk than we did, isn't that right, Millie? F1018: That's right, aye. M1021: That explains some of the odd words he's using. M1019: Oh well. M1021: //It's alright Noel.// F1054: //What do, well how would you, what would you say about that Noel? Do you think that that's true or,// //how does it work?// M1019: //No.// It's it's it's what you says, it's pro- I I I'm probably trying to get a a range of words as opposed to specifically dialect, aye. F1054: Okay. //Right,// M1019: //Mm.// F1054: erm what about friend then? F1018: //Chum.// M1022: //Mate.// F1018: Chum. M1020: Mate or pal. M1022: Aye. That's where I was wrong, it's oppo is for mate and pal or buddy. Aye. M1021: Pal as well, aye, pal. F1054: Good, eh baby? M1022: Bairn. F1054: Baby, Jimmy? M1020: Mm? F1054: Baby? M1020: Bairn. M1022: Bairn. F1018: A bairn or a babby. M1020: //They dinnae// M1021: //A wean, aye, wean.// //W.E.A.N. wean.// M1020: //say babby down here.// F1018: No, but they do up //up they do they do,// M1019: //We also use child.// //We use child a lot in our family, so the child// F1018: //they do, they do.// M1019: as opposed to the bairn for us, mmhm. F1054: Good. Erm oh let's see, grandfather? Any of you //grandfathers?// M1020: //Grandfaither.// M1022: Just grandad. F1018: Grandad or grandfaither. M1022: Grandad, grandpa, grandfather. M1021: Aye, it was always grandpop wi us, in, us anyway, grandpop we called him. F1054: Okay, good. Erm what about the word for some- someone whose name you've forgotten, something. F1018: //A thingmyjig.// M1020: //Oh aye er thingmy.// Aye, thingmy. M1022: Thingmyjig, yeah. F1018: Thingmyjig. M1019: //Or a whatdyamecallit.// M1020: //[inaudible]// M1022: Aye. M1019: //A whatdyamecallit.// M1021: //[laugh] Thingmy, thingmy aye, that's right, this thingmy.// [throat] M1022: Er, there is another word though, isn't there, er? Can't remember what it is now though. F1054: We've already done kit of tools, haven't we? //Erm,// M1022: //Yeah.// F1054: young person in cheap trendy clothes wi //jewellery.// F1018: //Oh!// M1021: //Well now!// M1022: //[laugh]// A schemie! //[laugh]// F1018: //A schemie.// M1019: //[laugh]// M1020: //[laugh]// F1018: //Aye.// M1022: //A schemie.// M1020: I've never forgot the [inaudible] F1018: Aye, well actually I was trying to think about it and I guess again it was suggested birkie. F1054: Whit does that mean? F1018: It just means a young dandy man that thinks he's absolutely wonderful. F1054: Is that short for something? F1018: //Eh, no, I don't think so, I think it's "See yon birkie ca'd a lord", isn't it, from Burns.// M1022: //Aye, aye.// You can also have a casuay. F1018: //Mmhm.// M1021: //What's that?// F1018: //An upstart.// M1022: //But there's also a rude one.// F1018: Yeah. M1022: Slightly rude anyway. I think it's from the West. Am I allowed to say this? It's a er young person in cheap trendy clothes and jewellery, particularly a female, a wee hairy. //[laugh]// F1018: //Yeah. I know.// M1020: //Mmhm, no, I think I've got something like that, you know,// somewhere. F1018: And if the- if they were chocolate, they would eat theirsel. //[laugh]// M1020: //[inaudible] the wee hairy does.// F1018: //Mmhm aye, I've got// M1019: //Naw, the schemies er is the best one, mmhm.// M1022: //Yeah.// F1054: //Describe a schemie to me.// M1022: Person who comes from a housing scheme. It would be s- someone who was very poor taste in clothes and everything. F1054: So that's like local authority. M1022: Cheap, yeah, local authority housing, yeah, from a housing scheme. Yeah. M1021: Well this word, for a young person in cheap trendy clothes and jewellery, this word, we used a word, perfectly innocent er word, it became later on to to to er to sort of lower in its connotation, we just said er er "Some tart that". Tart. Aye, but then, and I noticed some authors wr- wrote it, Mo- er Somerset Maugham used it quite a bit in his er "Rain", you know, about Sadie, how she was regarded as a tart, and we used it, tart, "You got a tart yet?" It didnae mean that she was immoral or anything. Just that meant that er she was a young lassie, you know, doin herself up, you know an obviously she wouldnae have the money to do it very well. But that was what she would be, sort of cheap. //And later on this,// F1054: //Kind o crass, eh?// M1021: aye, that's right, later on as I say, it became er a bit [?]slidgy[/?], you know? A bit dodgy. Aye, nearing on a prostitute. And we stopped, well just didnae use it any more. M1019: My mother's expression would be, for a young woman like that, she'd be common. F1018: Mmhm. M1019: //Common would be, that that that meant, yeah.// M1021: //Oh aye, common aye.// F1018: And the thing is we were all common an, but my mother would say that, "Now don't be common". Erm because common was con- ehm considered that they were all, ehm dress up to go er and catch the eyes of the G.I.s. M1021: Aye, the unusual meaning is the common folk, it didn't mean that common. [inaudible] //Oh, a- and they used that word a lot, [inaudible].// F1018: //Trashy and trendy.// M1020: //Where are these cheap yins aboot?// //[laugh]// F1018: //[inaudible]// F1054: //[inaudible]// M1020: I'm askin her where the cheap yins are aboot. [laugh] //[laugh]// F1018: //Yo- oh the ones that used to go to [?]Fairlies[/?]?// M1022: //[laugh]// F1018: //[inaudible]// M1020: //Oh aye, they went, they used to go to Fairlies. It's closed doon now.// M1021: //Oh [inaudible].// F1054: But but folk like that, don't they, often the locals are sayin oh they like to kind of be around that kind of folk. M1020: Mm, no, not really. F1054: No preferences. M1022: Your mother would also say, Millie, when talkin about commonality, she would also say, about somebody, be talkin about and sayin "Of course, better class folk". F1018: I know, oh my mother was a g- my mother actually, er her mother had been middle-class. And she really objected that my grandad was an alcoholic and he'd taken her to the slums o Leith. And she would say, you know, if you said anything she'd say, er like I said, "Patsy's got erm patent leather shoes for Christmas", and I was sittin cuttin oot cardboard soles. And she'd says "Aye, but you're better class than Patsy, and that's really what matters". I mean you've got damn all else to eat, you've got cardboard soles in your shoes, [laugh] but your granny was middle-class! [laugh] It made all the difference. And they were great for class. The class was the thing. F1054: Is that a big thing in Edinburgh, do you think? F1018: Oh, it still is, still is, aye. Yeah. Especially where the schooling still, erm because you've got all these schools, er very good schools, Watson's, Heriot's, and what not, but they when, where I eh we eventually were rehoused, erm it was private houses on one side o the street, and this, our side of the street was corporation, and it was a bro- it was broader than the river Jordan, cause the children on the other side o the street were not allowed to play wi the children in the corporation housing, where they went to the corporation school, [?]cause though[/?] they all went to fee-paying schools. And it's still gr- a lot o snobbery in Edinburgh. //As ma granny says,// M1021: //All this, aye.// Education, you know? I mean, if in if here, if in Edinburgh you want to, in this day and age, at this time, you want to s- get as close, to, see, the remnants o the Scots language, the old Scots tongue, near to the remnants of it, then you can sit down and figure it out without askin anybody, F1018: Mm. M1021: find out where people are grouped, in large communities, whe- we could call economically and socially disadvantaged, doesn't matter, "you got a place?", "right". "What about?", well you go there and you'll find the old Scots. Why there? Why there? Because it just happens to be that they're associated wi the poor. And the elites long ago, as I say, they, you know what they did wi the auld Scots language? Out it went. We know when, and how. And each act that did it. Er and that was it, and our elite did the same, er si- you know from sixteen-oh-three, Union o the Crowns, right up to the Scottish independence, er lost its independence. And from there on when education spread among the masses, the language went, the common language, as near old Scots as possible, wi all the wee influences movin in, you know, and the dialects that formed from it. Because you get a lot of mixed up wi this language and di- dialect, you know, they're, dialects belong to a language, a language first then the di-. An of course then the better schools, of course were the proper English and public school voices, public school talking, a voice that exuded confidence and boldness er as I say, person opens their mouth, you can almost, in fact you can almost tell the, what housing scheme they come from, snearly. F1018: That's right. M1022: And which end o the housing scheme they come //from. [laugh]// F1018: //They'll, yeah, you can tell from it.// And the other thing that, forbye the fact that there was the schooling that had the snobbery, there was also in the Edinburgh corporation where I actually worked, if you went to a certain school, a member of the golf club and in the Masons, you could be the biggest idiot or heidbanger, whatever you want to call them, and you would get promoted as you went along, as a man, and there was a terrible thing, like, my nephew is erm a lawyer in Leith, [CENSORED: company name], and he actually had to come out of the fiscal's office, because he was Catholic, he knew that he could not be promoted as quick as a Protestant would be. M1022: No way. F1018: And that was fact. F1054: When was that? F1018: And we're only talking, [inhale] [CENSORED: forename]'s actually been in his own business twenty-five years. F1054: Mm. F1018: And he realised then that he would need to go out, so now he's one of the big criminal er criminal lawyers, aye he is a criminal lawyer! [laugh] He's a criminal! M1021: //You got, you got people from from where I live,// F1054: //Yeah.// M1021: when they went for a job, we're talkin about the thirties, F1054: Mm. M1021: aye, older ones, goin for a job, they would often, in exasperation, give their aunt's address, who maybe lived up in Nicolson Square, F1054: Mmhm. M1021: or or Tollcross, F1054: Mmhm. M1021: er give their aunt's address, rather than the Grassmarket, F1054: Mm. M1021: or the West Port because it was a fact, you know, they would, employer "yes, sit down, uh-huh mhmm", "Yes, oh yes, what about expe-, right, name?" Er, oh, McIlvanney. "Oh, [inaudible] ah." "Mmhm Address?" "Cowgate, Cowgate?" "Oh, yes. That's fine, Mr McIlvanney, we'll get in touch with you." M1022: //Mm.// F1054: //So is the Cowgate a bad place to come from?// M1021: The Grassmarket and Cowgate, an West Port, oh. M1022: You came from the Cowgate? //We used to go on our holidays to the Cowgate. [laugh]// F1018: //[laugh]// M1019: //I wa-// M1021: Ah, but you were from the country. //You came to the Cowgate,// M1019: //I was, [laugh]// I was gonna say J- John was talkin earlier about er you know, phrases that kind of encapsulate the whole idea, when you're talkin about, you know, sort of the poorer class lookin at, you know, the Morningside people, what they used to say was eh "fur coat and nae knickers", //and that// M1020: //That's right.// M1019: that summed up the, you know, the kind of impression of people that had aspirations but no real money, you know? F1018: Called pianas, pianies an kippers. M1019: Aye. F1018: Aye, pianies an kippers. M1022: Another thing about language, eh, the use of the word "ken", that's East coast Scots. F1018: Mm. M1022: You don't get that over in the West. F1018: //Yeah.// M1021: //Yeah.// That "like", Scots use that word "like" a lot to F1054: Yeah. M1021: you know, I you see, John, I was pulled up for it quite a bit. //Some.// F1054: //Like?// M1021: Aye like, eh ch-ch-cha, like ch-ch-cha. Like er I mean you use it //t-// F1054: //But that's// very common now, even like //amongst, yeah.// M1019: //It's London as well.// M1022: //Aye, London.// //Mmhm.// F1054: //"It's totally like this and that, like."// M1021: Oh right, I'm talkin about somebody trying to teach me how to speak good English, F1054: Mm. M1021: when I was a man, er ac- actually, and I'm talkin about an early cus- music teacher. Er, you know, "While you're at it you could just", he's telling me about enunciation of words and so on, and pitches, "and while you're at it er John, you used that word there, you know, you just keep saying it, you know, 'likes'". You know, "yeah, yes, you don't really need that, do you?". He's being very nice, you see. F1054: What a- can we just finish off this diagram? I'm kind of keen that we get through this and then we can talk about other stuff that's more interestin, maybe? Ehm, clothes. What, just a second, my lead's crackling. F1018: //Claes.// M1022: //[?]Where aboots?[/?]// M1020: //Time tae unwind. [laugh]// F1054: //I know, it'd be lovely.// It's really misbehavin. M1022: How do you no use that one? F1018: //Claes.// F1054: //Clothes.// M1022: Claes. M1020: Which word? F1054: Clothes. M1020: Clothes. Claes. M1019: Gear. M1021: I just use a word, the word clobber, you know? //Good clobber.// M1022: //[inaudible]// F1054: Good, ehm trousers? Trousers. M1020: Breeks. F1018: Breeks. M1022: Troosers. F1018: Breeks. M1020: Breeks are troosers. M1019: Pants. Strides. F1054: You two are a bit, wee bit [cough] [inaudible]. //Is that cause you're thinking about it?// M1022: //That's it, we're thinking// M1021: But strides, my father used that word a lot. "Bring these strides boy, here, bring the boots", and you had to get all his stuff for him. "Where's ma strides?" Takes them and picked them up "should have been ironed them, son." //Strides, S.T.R.I.D.E.S.// M1022: //Mm.// M1021: Have you got that one? F1018: //Aye.// M1019: //Yep.Yep.// M1022: //Yep.// M1020: //Mmhm.// F1054: //And a child's soft shoes worn for P.E.?// F1018: //Rubbers.// M1020: //Rubber.// M1022: //Rubbers.// Rubbers always, yeah. M1019: There were gutties and there was also plimsolls, er trainers is the contemporary one. Mm. F1054: It's er jimmies in Aberdeen. M1021: Just rubbers, aye, we just used rubbers. F1054: I think we've got everything there. Hot, cold, unwell, tired, pleased, annoyed, throw, play truant, sleep, play a game, hit hard. Right, did we do hit hard? We did. //Yeah.// F1018: //Aye.// M1022: //Yeah.// F1054: Erm, rich, left-handed, unattractive, lacking money, drunk, pregnant, attractive, insane, moody, rain, [reads through list of words] I think we've covered everything. Now, erm, just anything else that anyone would like to add, anything you'd like to say in a good local accent or any kind of words that we've neglected? Please share. M1021: No, I think not. F1054: Can I just get you to introduce yourselves one more time then, just so we can use this at the end of the interview, just tell me who you are, where you're from and how long you've lived there. F1018: [inhale] [cough] I'm Millie [CENSORED: surname]. I was born in Admirality Street in Leith. And we all know it's Admiralty Street, but in Leith they give you the extra "i". And I moved from there when I was an infant, over to the Portobello area, and when I married I stayed within the Portobello area. F1054: Is Portobello kind of posh? F1018: I- well the bit of Portobello that I stay in now in posh, because the Portobello Reporter did erm a an article on me recently and my neighbour rang the bell to say to me "You said you stayed in Portobello. Could I point out this is Duddingston." [laugh] M1021: //[?]That's lovely[/?]// M1022: //Er,// I'm John [CENSORED: surname]. And I was born in the St Leonard's district of Edinburgh, a place called Dumbiedykes Road, originally it was in Arthur Street. And the interesting thing about it for me to say this [cough] is that in the nineteen-thirties it was described as being the worst slum in the Western Europe, the definition of worst depending upon the number of people living in a square mile. And in later years, I discovered that it was full of refugees from Europe, Jews, Germans, poles, the lot were all crowding into this area. M1020: And me! //[laugh]// F1018: //Jimmy.// M1022: //And Jimmy, and Jimmy, and Jimmy.// And I I moved out of that when I was about eighteen, and I lived all over Edinburgh, and er I now live in //n- near Tollcross.// F1054: //[inaudible]// [interviewer is adjusting microphone] There's a loose connection in here. M1022: Have you lost the whole thing? Oh no! //[laugh]// M1019: //[inaudible]// F1054: //No, no no, I've not lost the whole thing, no you're okay, I've got an hour and twenty-four minutes already,// erm, oh, to download. M1022: So, yes, I stayed in that area until I was about eighteen or nineteen and then I start living in digs all over Edinburgh, and today I live in [CENSORED: streetname] Place, near Tollcross. M1020: Er, [cough], I'm er, my name Jimmy [CENSORED: surname]. I was born in Loanheid, that's Midlothian, just five mile outside Edinburgh. And er I lived there until er the War, and then I was in the army for six year, came out, in about a couple o year, I moved into Edinburgh. I was was in the St Leonard's hill for a while, er married of course, and then moved from there to where I am now, Grange Court. It soonds posh, eh? [laugh] M1022: [laugh] M1019: Er my name's Noel [CENSORED: surname], I was originally from Leith and I moved out to Saughton Main. I was interested in when Millie talked about Admirality Street because I was trying to get in my head the correct pronunciation for Admir- and I couldn't do it, [laugh] all that came out was Admirality Street, and where John was talking about, I I live in that area now, and there's also the local pronunciation for Montague Street, which everybody would call Montague Street. M1021: Mmhm, Montague Street. I I yes, I'm er John [CENSORED: surname], er, "I was born under a wand'rin star. I", oh no, that's [inaudible]. Grassma- yes, I was actually brought up in the Grassmarket, when it was not quite as sophisticated as it is today, er and we, nineteen-thirty, that's right, and then we moved to, got married and moved to the West Port. It was always a a step higher. And then up to, Pollworth, another step higher, and [?]gravity[/?], and finally we reached Morningside. It took me all that time to get to Morningside. F1054: Are you happier in Morningside than you were at the Grassmarket? M1021: Oh no, no, I miss the Grassmarket, very fondly actually, you wouldnae believe it. It's only now you realise that what you were reaching out for wasnae all that good, at all. And I miss quite a bit the Grassmarket, the companionship, the sense o community, Saturday F1054: Community. M1021: aye, Saturday nights were lively. M1022: Shared toilets. M1021: There was no muggin [?]of each[/?] other in the street there, that was it every Saturday night, there was no arguments, no no serious arguments, it was a it was a very er I don't know, er there were people there too of course, the navvies, who kept comin an goin, you know? Aye, but most were good families trying to bring up kids under very difficult circumstances. M1022: //I often say, I often say that er// F1054: //I'm gonna have to stop it there I think.// M1022: we may not have had much in those days, but we had something that money couldn't buy. F1018: That's right. M1022: Poverty. F1018: We di- [laugh] and I'll tell you something; you see, I was actually twenty-one before I realised that things didnae fall off the back o a lorry, because in Leith docks, it was all, when they were actually d- er unloading the ships, which was all done manually, they used to actually, if they, make sure that if it was apples, a box o apples fell when it was gettin put on the back o the lorry. And then it was divided out, and somebody would chap the door and say "That fell off the back o a lorry". And then I realised, you know, an I was about twenty-one when I realised, that was it, it was actually when it was a crate o whisky that had fallen off the back o the lorry, it was on its way to Venezuela and got lost in Leith docks. [laugh] //[laugh]// M1019: //[laugh]// M1020: //[laugh]// M1021: //[laugh]// M1022: //[laugh]// F1054: //[laugh]// This work is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. The SCOTS Project and the University of Glasgow do not necessarily endorse, support or recommend the views expressed in this document. Information about document and author: Audio Audio audience Adults (18+): General public: Informed lay people: Specialists: For gender: Mixed Audience size: 1000+ Audio awareness & spontaneity Speaker awareness: Aware Degree of spontaneity: Spontaneous Special circumstances surrounding speech: Spontaneous but discussing a list of words they had thought about previously. Audio footage information Year of recording: 2004 Recording person id: 1060 Size (min): 88 Size (mb): 340 Audio footage series/collection information Part of series: Contained in: BBC Voices Recordings - www.bbc.co.uk/voices Audio medium Radio/audio: Web (e.g. audio webcast): Audio setting Education: Journalism: Recording venue: Community Centre Geographic location of speech: Leith Audio relationship between recorder/interviewer and speakers Not previously acquainted: Speakers knew each other: Yes Audio speaker relationships Friend: Members of the same group e.g. schoolmates: Audio transcription information Transcriber id: 718 Year of transcription: 2006 Year material recorded: 2004 Word count: 16679 Audio type Conversation: General description: Conversation centred around a pre-prepared list of words for discussion Participant Participant details Participant id: 1018 Gender: Female Decade of birth: 1930 Age left school: 15 Upbringing/religious beliefs: Protestantism Occupation: Writer and storyteller Place of birth: Leith Region of birth: Edinburgh Birthplace CSD dialect area: Edb Country of birth: Scotland Place of residence: Edinburgh Region of residence: Edinburgh Residence CSD dialect area: Edb Country of residence: Scotland Father's occupation: Cold store worker Father's place of birth: Leith Father's region of birth: Edinburgh Father's birthplace CSD dialect area: Edb Father's country of birth: Scotland Mother's occupation: Barmaid Mother's place of birth: Leith Mother's region of birth: Edinburgh Mother's birthplace CSD dialect area: Edb Mother's country of birth: Scotland Languages: Language: English Speak: Yes Read: Yes Write: Yes Understand: Yes Circumstances: Work and home Language: Scots Speak: Yes Read: Yes Write: Yes Understand: Yes Circumstances: Work and home Participant Participant details Participant id: 1019 Gender: Male Decade of birth: 1930 Educational attainment: University Age left school: 15 Upbringing/religious beliefs: Catholicism Occupation: Retired teacher Place of birth: Leith Region of birth: Edinburgh Birthplace CSD dialect area: Edb Country of birth: Scotland Place of residence: Edinburgh Region of residence: Edinburgh Residence CSD dialect area: Edb Country of residence: Scotland Father's occupation: Boilermaker Father's place of birth: Leith Father's region of birth: Edinburgh Father's birthplace CSD dialect area: Edb Father's country of birth: Scotland Mother's occupation: Biscuit factory worker Mother's place of birth: Longford Mother's country of birth: Ireland Languages: Language: English Speak: Yes Read: Yes Write: Yes Understand: Yes Circumstances: Home and leisure Participant Participant details Participant id: 1020 Gender: Male Decade of birth: 1910 Educational attainment: School qualifying Age left school: 14 Upbringing/religious beliefs: Protestantism Occupation: Retired heating engineer Place of birth: Loanhead Region of birth: Midlothian Birthplace CSD dialect area: midLoth Country of birth: Scotland Place of residence: Edinburgh Region of residence: Edinburgh Residence CSD dialect area: Edb Country of residence: Scotland Father's occupation: Knacker Father's place of birth: Loanhead Father's region of birth: Midlothian Father's birthplace CSD dialect area: midLoth Father's country of birth: Scotland Mother's occupation: Mother / housewife Mother's place of birth: Edinburgh Mother's region of birth: Edinburgh Mother's birthplace CSD dialect area: Edb Mother's country of birth: Scotland Languages: Language: English Speak: Yes Read: Yes Write: Yes Understand: Yes Circumstances: Language: German Speak: Yes Read: No Write: No Understand: Yes Circumstances: Socially Language: Scots Speak: Yes Read: Yes Write: Yes Understand: Yes Circumstances: Home Participant Participant details Participant id: 1021 Gender: Male Decade of birth: 1930 Educational attainment: University Age left school: 14 Occupation: Retired teacher Place of birth: Edinburgh Region of birth: Edinburgh Birthplace CSD dialect area: Edb Country of birth: Scotland Place of residence: Edinburgh Region of residence: Edinburgh Residence CSD dialect area: Edb Country of residence: Scotland Father's occupation: Edinburgh Corporation lighting and cleansing department Mother's occupation: Housewife Participant Participant details Participant id: 1022 Gender: Male Decade of birth: 1930 Educational attainment: University Age left school: 15 Upbringing/religious beliefs: Protestantism Occupation: Electrician / teacher / college lecturer (retired) Place of birth: Edinburgh Region of birth: Edinburgh Birthplace CSD dialect area: Edb Country of birth: Scotland Place of residence: Edinburgh Region of residence: Edinburgh Residence CSD dialect area: Edb Country of residence: Scotland Father's occupation: Sheepskinner Father's place of birth: Edinburgh Father's region of birth: Edinburgh Father's birthplace CSD dialect area: Edb Father's country of birth: Scotland Mother's occupation: Shop worker Mother's place of birth: Edinburgh Mother's region of birth: Edinburgh Mother's birthplace CSD dialect area: Edb Mother's country of birth: Scotland Languages: Language: English Speak: Yes Read: Yes Write: Yes Understand: Yes Circumstances: Everywhere Language: Scots Speak: Yes Read: Yes Write: Yes Understand: Yes Circumstances: Everywhere Participant Participant details Participant id: 1054