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