Scottish Slang

Hi, reader

Yesterday I woke up in Aberfoyle and decided to drive to my next location before breakfast. I headed off south on another lovely drive through the Scottish countryside. After a while I arrived in a small village called Balfron. 

This town seems to be made entirely of hills and I had to drive around for a while looking for a parking space that wasn't on a steep slope. Eventually, I found this nice spot and made my breakfast. Lovely sunny sky and a nice view as I had my porridge and a cup of tea.

I didn't do any sightseeing the rest of the day, and I was mostly concerned with refilling and refueling. 

I spent time in the Balfron library, writing a blog post about Aberfoyle and playing Sudoku online. The rest of the day was spent driving south, stopping at a Morrison's on the outskirts of Glasgow for groceries, the John Wright Sports Centre in East Kilbride for a shower and shave (only one pound!) and a petrol station to fill up on diesel and put air in my tires. 

Finally, I got to a town called Lanark, which is where I am now. I found a place to park, called my Mum, made dinner and got warm for the night. I've started reading Complicity by Iain Banks and I also watched the season one finale of Kingdom (Korean zombie series) and an episode from season two of The Boys (I've already seen it, but it's so good it's worth another watch).

Slang

Since I don't have any scenic pictures or videos to share from yesterday, I thought you might like to test your knowledge of Scottish slang. 

I mentioned in my Oor Wullie post that those comics are written in full-on Scottish English; they're full of slang terms and lots of the English is spelled phonetically to reflect the Scottish accent. By the time I was ten, I was pretty well-versed in some of the more common Scottish slang words.

Perhaps the most well known is 'wee' meaning 'small' or 'little'. You hear it all the time here in Scotland, and we also used it in Ireland, where I grew up.

"I'll be back in a wee while."

"I'm going for a wee walk."

"She's a lovely wee woman."

"Ye wee scunner!"

Quiz Time

Along my travels, I've been noting down examples of authentic slang which Scottish people have used in conversation with me, or that I've seen written down somewhere. 

Here are ten from my notebook. How many do you already know and how many can you guess from context?

1. whisht

example: "Och, wisht, woman."

2. cluny

example: "I'm awae to the cluny."

3. crabbid

example: "I dinnae like the hot weather. It makes me awfy tired and crabbid."

4. bawheid

example: "Alan's a right bawheid."

5. scran

example: "That place does some great scran."

6. messages

example: "This bag's handy for my messages."

7. the stair

example: "Wait for me in the stair."

8. sook

example: "He's jist a big sook."

9. braw

example: "It's a braw day for a walk"

10. blether

example: "She always enjoys a good blether."

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Spoilers ahead

Here are the answers:

1. whisht

An exclamation requesting silence, similar to 'hush'. In Oor Wullie, characters would often say 'Haud yer whisht!' (hold your whisht) instead of 'shut up' or 'be quiet'.

2. cluny

I'm not definite about this one, but I think a cluny is a toilet. When I Googled, it came up with cludgie as the Scottish slang for toilet, but I'm sure I've heard it called the cluny. When I saw this house name in Drumnadrochit (near Loch Ness) I was quite surprised.

But as I got closer, I spotted this wee man sitting on a toilet in the garden.

I messaged my Scottish friend, Lori, to check and she confirmed that a cluny is a toilet (Lori's from Nairn).

3. crabbid

Also spelled 'crabbit'. It means ill-tempered, grumpy, curt, disagreeable or in a bad mood.

4. bawheid (ball head)

This is a derogatory term and it can mean a person with a chubby face (shaped like a ball) or stupid person.

5. scran

Scran is food. This term is used in other parts of the UK, but it originated in Scotland (according to the internet).

6. messages

'Messages' are 'groceries' or other things that you'd get from the shops. 

7. the stair

I can't find much about this online, but I think the stair refers to the hallway of a block of flats. The area outside the door of the flat where the shared stairs are. Irvine Welsh used this quite a few times in his book 'The Blade Artist' and I saw this sign in Edinburgh.

8. sook

A crybaby, a shy or timid person, a coward, a softy. A lady in Inverness told me her dog was 'just a big sook' who always wants attention.

9. braw

Fine, good, or pleasing. Oor Wullie says braw a lot.

10. blether

A long-winded talk with no real substance. Chit chat or gossip.

How did you get on? That's all I've got for now. I'm off to find some lunch, take a look around Lanark and decide where to visit next.

Thanks for reading,

Brian