Showing posts with label silliness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label silliness. Show all posts

03 October, 2010

Separated by a Common Language

Fraser got me a magnetic poetry kit of Scottish colloquialisms. Before I could make use of it, he had to give me a glossary of terms. There's no way I could recreate the hilarity of his examples and exaggerated accents, but I thought I'd share the results nonetheless. You might, as I did, think you know some of these words, but you might be wrong. False cognates abound!

Note: definitions come from Fraser, who did have to wrack his memory for some of them.

bampot - a person displaying general daftness with a kind of insanity that looks for trouble.
noo - not later
pit - verb, to place
stoor - stirred up dust and grit - blowing around or kicked up in a cloud, as opposed to lying on furniture
wan - less than two
footer - verb, to fidget or tinker
greet - verb, to cry
aw - not just some
disnae - opposite of "does"
feart - afraid
fankle - to get in a tangle (not opposite of "cankle")
baffies - slippers
och - all-purpose utterance
bairn - people who need babysitters when their parents go out
gang - going, also to go
cannae - opposite of "can"
carry-oot - takeout, but mostly alcohol
hoose - where you live
dae - do
oxter - where you put deodorant
ran-dan - all-nighter (drinking, not studying)
neeps - turnips
blether - chat
swally - a drink... or several
cludgie - bathroom
frae - from
hen - woman (affectionate, not a reason to slap someone)
toty - little
boak - verb, to retch
wean - similar to bairn, but smaller
bide - dwell
cauld - opposite of hot
fash - a fuss (dinnae fash yersel'.)
crabbit - crabby (not strange hybrid of crocodile & rabbit)
lang - opposite of short
messages - the stuff on the shelves in the grocery store
awfy - awful
fancy - to like-like someone
whit - what
oot - opposite of in
gonnae - please
deid - opposite of alive
dunt - somewhere between a nudge and a shove
youse - y'all
dram - a serving of whiskey
aye - affirmative
aboot - about (not footwear)
ken - Scottish for "grok"
tak - take
cowp - landfill, dump
haver - to talk nonsense (now you know what that means.)
tae - to (not to be confused with the Tay, a river)
awa - far, far
keek - peek
efter - after
fer - for (not the stuff that grows on the cat)
hae - have (not what you feed to livestock)
yon - over there
gey - give (not boys who date boys or girls who date girls, nor merry)
onie/ony - any
ither - either
sair - sore
wee - not big (except as in "the wee big thing"), impossible to complete a sentence without
jiggered - ranging from tired to exhausted (Och, hen, you make the tea. I'm jiggered.)
birl - turn, as in a trip around the block, not as in a board game.
eejit - see "bampot"
claes - stuff you wear (not what flower pots are made of)
lum - what Santa slides down to deliver the presents. (Look at the state o ye. Ye look like you've been up a lum all day.)
yin - one, as in, the personal pronoun (Billy Connolly = "Big Yin")
heid - it's like Sputnik! Like an orange on a toothpick! (it sits on top of your neck)
jessie - sissy (not short for Jessica)
guid - opposite of bad
intae - opposite of "out of"
scooby - a clue (Jinkies!)
yer - not mine
braw - see "guid"
muckle - unnecessarily big
canny - cunning
dae - opposite of "don't"
ne'er - opposite of "ever"
fair - "totally"
doon - opposite of up
ma - not yours
dinnae - don't
ain - opposite of rent
gaun - going
aff - opposite of on
haud - hold
brae - a hill
wi' - opposite of without
fu - opposite of empty
baw - what you kick up the footbaw pitch
jings - Jeebus! (see also "crivens" and "help ma bo'ab")
nicht - opposite of day
glaikit - gormless, naïve (Jings, ye glaikit-lookin bampot, ye!)
sae - so OR sew
girn - make a face
dreich - rainy, gloomy weather
wabbit - sickly (like you might be after a long night of hunting some long-eared rodent or about to boak.)
skelp - slap
they - those
hame - where the heart is
huv - or to huv not
oor - not your
mind - remember
twa - more than one, less than three
mair - more
guddle - fishing, but by hand
ben - back in
goonie - gown
een - you have to wear glasses if yours don't work
tattie - potato
bucket - a large quantity of drink
jeely-piece - jelly sandwiches
ower - the end, opposite of under



Not in the kit, but Fraser adds:
burd - a thing that flies, but also how a less-educated man might refer to his girlfriend
drookit - drenched
crivens - see "jings"

Now, use it in a sentence, such as:
Don't gies any mair o ye cheek or ye'll git a skelp aboot the heid, ye bampot!

18 August, 2010

Free-Range Haggis

Muppet roadkill?! Ikea is a strange and scary place.
For starters, Fraser and I have reached a new level of relationship status: the all-important Ikea phase. There is an Ikea dangerously close by, and we got some stuff to make life a little easier as we occupy this space on loan to us from a generous and lovely friend. He's putting together a chest of drawers right now, while I mostly laugh at the grumbling and occasional swearing coming from that direction.

Most importantly, to my thinking anyway, is the coffee maker. I dunno where these Europeans get off calling that watered-down espresso an Americano and trying to tell people that it's the same thing as brewed coffee. Take it from a lifelong American coffee drinker - it is so not the same. Oddly enough, we had lunch at a nice pub in the city, where they had great big signs in the window, advertising that they serve real, regular coffee, but I didn't have it then. It was the first thing I did when we got back from this first day of being shown around.

Duke of Wellington statue, with upgrade
We did some window shopping and walking around the City Centre. There was the modern art museum, where we might have momentarily pretended to be statues, unless you were that pair of non-English speaking tourists who happened by at just the right moment and gave us funny looks, in which case, those statues were totally real.

I've also gotten to meet a lot of people this past couple of days - no thanks to the extremely surly customs agent who demanded all these insane details before stamping my passport - given that I've only been here less than 2 days. Every single one of them has remarked upon my height - mostly in complimentary ways, but some, not so much. Fraser's dad was funny about it, taking great delight in standing next to me and seeing how tall he could stand.

He also gave me quite the history lesson on the time-honored tradition of raising one's own flock of haggis, nurturing them and caring for them, until Burns Night, when, just as you pick a lobster out of a tank at a seafood restaurant to have it cooked for you, you select your haggis, then catch and kill it yourself, a cruel process much like boiling crabs (In my head, this was actually a lot more like the scene in Son In Law, when Crawl attempts to slaughter the Thanksgiving turkey he frightened to "death" in the barnyard). I was much chastised for not giving this ancient and sacred practice its due reverence upon its being recounted to me, as I was being delivered of a solemn trust to welcome me into the fold. I have promised to try harder next time.

As far as getting back on the grid goes, this post marks the successful implementation of the wireless network here, and my iPhone has picked up the signal, though it doesn't seem to like any of the free wifi networks we encountered around town. At any rate, I should be able to use Skype on the iPhone from here, and/or at least access email and socnets.

19 January, 2009

You can make up words on Poe's Birthday

Even in other languages! If there were any doubt that these are my brothers, in spirit if not DNA, let them be laid to rest now. The doubts, that is, not the guys. Our tribute to Poe's 200th birthday:

Heather Harris
BaronessHeather Crackenuppen laffencryen headexploden! from TweetDeck


Todd Jones

Heather Harris


peglegpogostick

Heather Harris
BaronessHeather @ElwoodJBlues Especially on Poe's birthday! Sir Phantasmagoric himself would bezenproudzen! from TweetDeck in reply to ElwoodJBlues

peglegpogostick

Big finish now, in stereo:

Heather Harris
Todd Jones