English at school

[Eun]

When I was at school we were taught that lowland Scots was a language all of its own too. Words like dreich (for miserable rainy weather) or haar (for foggy wet weather). We get a lot of variations on wet here in the west!

But even in different areas of Scotland words have different meanings - like here in the west we say "weans" meaning children and in the east they say "bairns".

I am from Port Glasgow originally and my husband is from Glasgow (about 30 mins drive away) yet we still use different words eg I say "drain" but my husband calls it a "stank".

When we moved to Paisley when we got married I used the word "sausages" but they call them "links" in Paisley and what I call "slice" is what they call square sausage. Hubby calls fizzy drinks "ginger" but I call them all "lemonade". Weird eh?

When Rob goes to Rachel House they add "ken" to the end of sentences. Like "Weathers wet, ken?"

Eun

[Scally]

Definitions of Haar on the Web:
I agree that both Scots and Doric are important, linguistically significant dialects and well worth protecting. But I don't agree with Eun's definition of "haar" - that is very much an east Coast weather phenomena and rarely gets further west than Falkirk. It has a clingy, cold, low-lying nature quite different from the much rarer Atlantic fogs of the West Coast: (and to back this up I might mention that apart from being the only place Elvis Presley ever set foot on British soil, Prestwick airport in Ayrshire is well known for having the most fog-free days of any British International Airport).

In meteorology, haar is a coastal fog along certain lands bordering the North Sea; the term is primarily applied in eastern Scotland. Research has shown that haar is typically formed over the sea and is brought to land by wind advection.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haar_(fog)

A name applied to a wet sea fog or very fine drizzle that drifts in from the sea in coastal districts of eastern Scotland and northeastern England. It occurs most frequently in summer.
amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary/browse

Springtime fog that drifts from the North Sea into eastern areas of the United Kingdom.
www.stuffintheair.com/Blowin_in_the_Win ... ather.html

[MaryB]

On the subject of Scots, my mother calls me "Hen" this doesn't travel and as we have lived most of our lives in England she and I get funny looks whenever she says it and she says it all the time, why "Hen" my brothers are always called "Son".
I'm familiar with Ginger for fizzy drinks, links for sausages and weans for children or babies but we also have Cybies for Spring Onions
Vicky

[SandySea]

the one that gets to me is

"I saw it with my own eyes"

well whose eyes are you going to see it with, if not your own

Lol Susie, that reminds me of the other one - "I thought to myself"
Like duh, who else are you going to think to, unless you're both psychic!

[Maxi]

but that overused and out-of-context,as its seldom used to invoke the allmighty,many youths show surprise with the words,usually staggered for effect:"Oh-My-God!".i hope im right and that bit of silly usage might be on the way out.

[Maxi]

english sounds so much better spoken by other nationals who seem to learn it,use it as it should be spoken.