The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 7:50 am**

Not often we get a happy thread evolve from an angry one, but here it is. Dialect words and their usage, spawned from the Annoying Words thread >>

Grampfer: noun, West Country, meaning grandfather or woodlouse.

Confused Yorkshire hotel landlady, new to her West Country inn, on finding a damp bed full of woodlice:

"The bed was full of grandads!"

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:03 am**

Copied over from Annoying Words:

Knightmare wrote:Its amazing the difference in phrases/expressions even in the short journey along the M8 to west lothian. I remeber asking for a slice of toast at work and there was an "Outsider" (the fat peice of bread at each end of the pre-cut loaf) sitting in the tray. The girl looked at me as if i'd just landed on this planet.

West Lothian call an "Outsider" something else but the trouble is i cant remember what it was she said. Any help welcome or if anyone else calls the "Outsider" something else, i'd be glad to know.

I've always known the outermost slices of bread as 'ootsiders', but does anyone else call a sandwich made from ootsiders a "sore haun"?

I started hearing the phrase whilst serving my time and I don't hear it much these days outside family and old shipyard workmates.

It's pretty apt considering when you're holding such a leviathan your mitt looks like you've just blootered it with a mash hammer.

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:10 am**

Dookit

springs to mind just now - we had one in the house for bills etc and lots in the decrept victorian office I started in 1839 as office junior :wink:

Has the word got something to do with pigeons as well?

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:11 am**

Derived from dovecote, perhaps?

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:12 am**

You don't see many of them any more.

Probably due to the number of them being used for various nefarious purposes .. hardly any of them involving pigeons.

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:13 am**

BrigitDoon wrote:Derived from dovecote, perhaps?

probably
I suppose dialect is part "lazy pronounciation" of certain words?

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:57 am**

I think it is a word which has become 'pigeonholed' personally.

How about 'scunner', as in ' he's a right wee scunner'? Very graphic to a Weegie!

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 10:22 am**

Knightmare wrote:Its amazing the difference in phrases/expressions even in the short journey along the M8 to west lothian. I remeber asking for a slice of toast at work and there was an "Outsider" (the fat peice of bread at each end of the pre-cut loaf) sitting in the tray. The girl looked at me as if i'd just landed on this planet.

West Lothian call an "Outsider" something else but the trouble is i cant remember what it was she said. Any help welcome or if anyone else calls the "Outsider" something else, i'd be glad to know.

You live and lean. I've never before heard of the end slices of a loaf being referred to as "outsiders" and I've lived here on and off for 40 years.

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:47 am**

I've never heard of them referred to thus in 40 years either, but that's because I'm an outsider.

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 12:05 pm**

Doorstop wrote:
I've always known the outermost slices of bread as 'ootsiders', but does anyone else call a sandwich made from ootsiders a "sore haun"?

Strangely enough I've often heard them called 'doorstops': also bookends and heels.

I was brought up with a billion lexicons'worth of old Lanarkshire words like wersh, glaur, stoor, drookit, gowpinsworth, snell, chilpit, rid oot, lobby press, and so on, but my grandmother would always say 'learn the boy proper English, so using this rich heritage of Lallans was regarded as uneducated even at home. As I remember it was also stamped upon in the schools where our language skills were enforced by rote, rhyme and tawse.

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:03 pm**

munroman wrote:I think it is a word which has become 'pigeonholed' personally.

How about 'scunner', as in ' he's a right wee scunner'? Very graphic to a Weegie!

love that word scunner it's just perfect
"I took a scunner to the beer after the 15th pint"

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:09 pm**

MacotheIsles wrote:
Doorstop wrote:
I've always known the outermost slices of bread as 'ootsiders', but does anyone else call a sandwich made from ootsiders a "sore haun"?

Strangely enough I've often heard them called 'doorstops': also bookends and heels.

I was brought up with a billion lexicons'worth of old Lanarkshire words like wersh, glaur, stoor, drookit, gowpinsworth, snell, chilpit, rid oot, lobby press, and so on, but my grandmother would always say 'learn the boy proper English, so using this rich heritage of Lallans was regarded as uneducated even at home. As I remember it was also stamped upon in the schools where our language skills were enforced by rote, rhyme and tawse.

forgotten about stoor - dust/rubbish on the floor? drookit - thirsty? glaur - glare?
I wasn't allowed to use any slang words in Glasgow by my Grannie.
One had to ask if one could associate with the ruffians on the pedestrianised street after schooling of a day.

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:27 pm**

Fact is the words quoted by Mac are not in any way slang but part of our heritage but as Mac also states the education system had a way of forcing you into not speaking at school the way you spoke outside it.

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:35 pm**

"I wasn't allowed to use any slang words in Glasgow by my Grannie.
One had to ask if one could associate with the ruffians on the pedestrianised street after schooling of a day."

When my sister moved to Harestanes in KIrkintilloch, my aunt from Bridgeton insisted on telling her friends she had moved to Harestones!

Did anyone get covered in 'clabber' as a child? You could get really 'maukit' with it!

Posted: **Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:55 pm**

Icecube wrote:Fact is the words quoted by Mac are not in any way slang but part of our heritage but as Mac also states the education system had a way of forcing you into not speaking at school the way you spoke outside it.

true
wonder why people of my grandparents generation (in Glasgow) thought that they were words to discourage?
They grew up/lived in poverty like many others.

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