Words... and stuff... My weekend ramblings. Sell fish anyone?

I'm pondering.

Years ago I remember two kids standing in the lane, leaning on their bikes, arguing. It went something like this.
"Youse selfish." (We're in Scotland youse is colloquial)
Second child flung his bike down. "I dae not. Ah've got a paper round."

After I'd managed to walk on by, not snigger out loud or drop my bag of groceries, I wondered how many other words sound like something else, or have different meaning in different part of the country.

I mean we've all done the Chinese whisper thing, where chocolate and wine ends up as jockstrap and mine, or whatever, but this was said at the top of their voices and in an accent they both had. Made me giggle.

When we moved from one side of the country to the other, my kids learned that far from meaning great, or fabulous, 'doss' or 'dossic' now meant awful or horrible. Think of 'chill' or 'don't sweat'. How many of you outside 'Geordie-land know what a worky ticket is? Or elsewhere, a fly boy? Wide Boy? A bit of a geezer? Jack the lad?

When I lived in Staffordshire an oatcake was a flat pancake sort of thing. 

In Scotland it's a savoury biscuit. 

Fruit cake and fruit loaf depending on the tin it is cooked in. (A bit simplistic but you get the gist) Or, buns, baps, and rolls.

Language is amazing. Fabulous...and full of pitfalls. As an author, it's damned hard not to get caught out sometimes. Especially if a word or phrase is used where you live and even a few hundred miles away they have no idea what you mean. 

How many names do you know for a narrow road behind a house? Lane, alley, ten foot, airey. Loan, lonnen, wynd, path and passage to name but a few.

And what about these? Glasgow Kiss... Bam head... Hadaway... Jujubes... Kalai... Grockle... Cassie... The list is endless. 

And that of course is before all the more common slang we can hunt out.

I love looking these words up and expanding my vocabulary. Learning new phrases, savouring new sayings. What about you? Do you fancy a wee donder?

And on that note I'm not off to donder up the lane, or even swallow my thesaurus, but make a cup of coffee and get back to my edits. Which I should be doing but got sidetracked by my ed asking me to somehow add an explanation for a word I'd used. (Leg-shackled... ie to be married)

For those of you who actually read this, many thanks. I talk to myself much too often. Luckily I always answer as well, and try not to be too argumentative. Or sell fish.

Happy reading,

love Raven x

Nb...all pics, source, pinterest.