It was only in the relatively recent past – more than five years ago, but less than ten – that I made a discovery which shook me to my foundations. Reason, as they say, tottered on its throne. It had never occurred to me that ‘outwith’ was anything other than a standard English word, frequently used and universally understood, but now I was learning that it was known only in Scotland.
This seemed unbelievable, so I asked some English friends (those who had been born in England and never lived anywhere else) if they had heard of it. Not one of them had. English people who had moved to Scotland, yes. Scottish people who had moved to England, of course. English people who had only ever lived in England, absolutely not.
How, I wondered, could residents of the place where the damn language was invented be unaware of a word it contained? It’s simply the opposite of ‘within’, perhaps most frequently used in the phrase ‘outwith the law’, meaning ‘illegal’. ‘Outwith the country’ and ‘outwith the bounds of decency’ are also possible. Unlike ‘without’, it doesn’t have the additional meaning of ‘not possessing’, a cause of great confusion to me in childhood. Perhaps you know the hymn, written by Cecil Frances Alexander, which starts like this:
There is a green hill far away
Without a city wall.
I now know that ‘outside a city wall’ is also sung, but back then I only ever heard ‘without’, and I could never understand what was so special about this particular green hill that it didn’t have a city wall when, as far as I knew, none of them did. I admit that ‘outwith a city wall’ wouldn’t sound as good, because ‘with’ isn’t a great syllable to have on a strong beat, but it would eliminate the ambiguity.
Although knowledge of ‘outwith’ seems to be restricted to my fellow Scots, I still find it difficult to believe that it’s a specifically Scottish word. It seems too much like part of the English language for that. However, there are a great many words which are definitely of Scottish origin and are used in normal conversation rather than just to confuse tourists, even though this might appear to be the case.
If I put in enough effort I could probably list a hundred of them, but then this article would go on for ages and you would become vexed. Keen to avoid that, I’m going to restrict myself to a dozen, all of which I was familiar with before the age of ten. I should point out that they are not necessarily used throughout Scotland, a small country but one with startling linguistic variety. I grew up near Glasgow, where they were part of common speech, but if I had grown up near Aberdeen I might never have heard some of them, and would instead be familiar with words I can barely translate today.
(I’m not exaggerating about that. I once overheard a conversation between a chap called Douglas, who lived closer to Glasgow than I did, and another chap called Norman, who lived in a small town in Aberdeenshire. Norman had no problem understanding Douglas, but Douglas needed an interpreter to explain what Norman was trying to tell him. I am not joking. This definitely happened.)
Okay, let’s go.
blether
A wonderful word to start with. As a verb, it means ‘to chat’, but I think it has a cosiness which ‘chat’ can’t convey without a helpful adjective. This also applies to ‘having a blether’. Less cosily, if you say someone is blethering you probably mean they’re talking too much, or not telling the truth, or both. Similarly, the noun blether, in the sense of one who blethers rather than the act of blethering, can be a pejorative term meaning a gossip or liar.
blootered
Glasgow-adjacent slang has an extraordinary number of words meaning ‘drunk’, and this is one of them. I don’t mean mildly intoxicated, I mean barely capable of speech or unassisted movement. Of an object, it means ‘severely damaged’. For example, if you hear that Archie has crashed his car, and you ask him if it can be repaired, he might sorrowfully reply, “Naw, it’s blootered.”
clype
This appears in English dictionaries, but I’ve only ever heard of it being used in Scotland. It’s one of the most savage things one school pupil can say of another, since it means that the second is about to report to the authorities, or has so reported, an infraction on the part of the first, thereby violating a code of honour. This is often warned of in advance with the phrase, “Um! I’m telling on you!” (dear God, how often I heard that when I was at school myself), to which the response could be either, “Ya wee clype!” or the more plaintive, “Gonnae no clype on me?” meaning, “Please refrain from informing the teacher of my behaviour.” Regardless of the reply, this exchange shows both that clype can be a noun, meaning one who clypes, and that clypes do not refer to themselves as clypes, since telling on someone can be perceived as righteous, while clyping definitely isn’t.
dreich
The vowel sound is ‘ee’, the ‘ch’ is pronounced in the Scottish or German manner, and a rolled ‘r’ adds considerably to the effect. Dreich is an adjective describing weather which is depressing rather than actively unpleasant, possibly including rain but, if so, not very much. It’s a fabulously descriptive word, and so is ‘smirr’ – moisture in the air which dampens your face as you walk through it but is not actually rain. If you encounter smirr (which I suppose is what clouds are made of) you could say the weather was dreich, but more optimistic companions might protest that you were exaggerating.
heidyin
A compound word containing ‘heid’, pronounced ‘heed’ and meaning ‘head’, and ‘yin’, meaning ‘one’. The most important person in, or leader of, a group. ‘High heidyin’ is a more emphatic version of the same thing, and has a less respectful equivalent, ‘heid bummer’. The leader of the Scottish Parliament, formed (or, depending on how you look at it, reconvened after a break of two hundred and ninety-two years) in 1999, is called the First Minister, but at the time of devolution it was jokingly suggested that Heid Bummer should be the official term.
peely-wally
An adjective describing a pale complexion caused by mild illness, as in, “You’re looking awful peely-wally, hen,” ‘hen’ in this context being a term of endearment and not the word for a female chicken. ‘Wally’ rhymes with ‘alley’, not ‘jolly’.
skelf
A tiny but very sharp fragment of wood which has become lodged in the skin, causing extraordinary pain and anguish. “So a splinter, then?” you say. Well, yes, but I don’t think ‘splinter’ conveys anything like the horror that ‘skelf’ does.
skelp
Unrelated to the similar-sounding skelf, a skelp can be a mild act of physical violence used as corporal punishment. To skelp someone is to administer a skelp. Used intransitively, the verb means ‘to move quickly’. Robert Burns used ‘skelpit’, the past participle, in Tam O’Shanter: “Tam skelpit on through dub and mire” conveys far more urgency than the standard English, “Tom hurried on through puddle and bog.” A more modern example might be, “Whoever was riding that bike was fair skelping along.”
stotious
Prounced ‘stoh-shuss’. My favourite of all the synonyms for ‘drunk’, and roughly equivalent to ‘blootered’ but perhaps with less of an implication that all facility has been lost. Synonyms include ‘paralytic’, often pronounced ‘paraletic’, and ‘marockulous’, derived from ‘miraculous’.
stramash
An elegant word, especially if spoken in a refined Glasgow accent, meaning a dramatic but fortunately temporary collapse of civilised behaviour in a large group of people, following the expression of sharply differing opinions on contentious subjects such as whether Scotland should secede from the United Kingdom or, more importantly, which of two football teams is better. ‘Stushie’, or ‘stooshie’, is less elegant, but means exactly the same.
urny
Another word very often used by school pupils, this may be outwith the limits of comprehension to anyone not brought up in Scotland, and perhaps specifically in or around Glasgow. One child deliberately uses an offensive term to describe another, suggesting, for example, that they are a fan of some reviled singer, or are an incompetent player of a popular sport. The other child denies this. In standard English, the conversation might continue as follows: “Yes you are!” “No I’m not!” The exact equivalent, where I grew up, is “Aye ye ur!” “Naw am urny!”
wean
A usually affectionate term for a child. ‘Bairn’ is also used, but I think that’s a Norse word, since it’s very close to the Norwegian ‘barn’. ‘Wean’, pronounced ‘wain’, is a shortened form of the indisputably Scottish ‘wee ane’, meaning ‘small one’. I don’t think there’s a specific rule about this, but in my experience bairn is most often used in the singular and wean in the plural, hence, “The bairn fell over and hurt her knee,” but, “Who’s looking after the weans tonight?”
Top image by Artur Kraft via Unsplash.
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