Lesson 14 A closer look at Dialect (4)

In this lesson, you will learn:

• similes
• forms of ‘be’ and ‘do’
• Match the meanings
• Wordsearch
• The Minister’s Cat
• Call my Bluff

Do you know what a simile (said sim-i-lay) is? It is a way of comparing a thing, a person or an experience to something else that gives you a clearer picture of what it's like. Similes usually begin with the word like or are put together in the form as... as... . These are interesting because not only are they very descriptive, but they also give you an idea of how people lived at the time they became popular.

as able as a cart horse
able: physically strong

like a bag o weasels (‘noisily argumentative’)
weasel (Ulster-Scots wheasel): The animal known as a ‘weasel’ elsewhere is not found in Ireland. Here, the name is given to the stoat.

like a basket o cats (this also means ‘noisily argumentative’)

as neat as a bee's toe
This simile conforms to Standard English. The Ulster-Scots word for ‘neat’ is trig, while ‘toe’ is tae in Ulster-Scots.

like a bleeze o whins (‘quickly’)
bleeze is Ulster-Scots for ‘blaze’. whin is usually pronounced whun in Ulster-Scots, and refers to the scrubby bush with yellow blooms that is known as ‘gorse’ elsewhere.

as bose as a barrel
bose is Ulster-Scots for ‘hollow’ or ‘empty’.

like the last bap in the winda
bap: a baker’s bread roll, again of Scots origin. It’s also used as a term for the head, as in use yer bap (use your head). Loss the bap means ‘lose your temper’. winda (wunda, wundae) is Ulster-Scots for ‘window’. The phrase is expressive of the feeling of finding oneself forlorn, friendless and surplus to requirement.

THE VERB ‘TO BE’: FORMS

* Is and was forms are used in the plural when the subject is a noun, e.g. the people is or was. They are not generally used with pronoun subjects, where the usual forms are they are or were. These rules are Scots and Northern English. It is, however, usual to say them is e.g. Them’s the words he used to me.

THE VERB ‘TO DO’: FORMS

* The past tense form is always did when the verb is used as an auxiliary. Done or din is used only when the verb is a main verb, e.g. He done it, but He broke the window, so he did.

MATCH THE MEANINGS

Match the meanings in Part A with the Ulster-Scots equivalent in Part B by writing the letter reference of the Ulster-Scots word after the meaning. Answers at the end.

PART A - MEANINGS

PART B – ULSTER-SCOTS WORDS

Wordsearch

CLUES

1. n _ _: the human nose
2. r _ _ _ _ _ _: useless rubbish
3. l _ _ _: a crease, a wrinkle, a fold
4. m _ _ _ _: play truant from school
5. f _ _ _: annoy, trouble
6. n _ _ _: "nick", steal
7. l _ _ _: the palm of the hand
8. h _ _ _: a cough
9. e _ _ _ _: an ant
10. p _ _ _ _ _: a policeman
11. s _ _: related by blood
12. a _ _ _ _: a plate
13. g _ _ _ _ _ _: a gooseberry
14. b _ _ _ _ _: belong
15. s _ _ _ _: a splinter
16. p _ _ _ _: rain blows on
17. p _ _ _ _: of liquid boil vigorously
18. d _ _: do
19. c _ _ _ _: a tell-tale
20. s _ _ _ _: shell, pod (peas, etc.)
21. e _ _ _ _ _: equals in age
22. s _ _ _ _ _: sure, certain
23. b _ _ _: purplish-blue, blue-black
24. e _ _ _ _: intend, aim, have in mind (to do)
25. l _ _: a leap
26. e _ _ _ _: a shoemaker’s awl, a bradawl
27. l _ _ _ _ _: a lane, a track, a by-road
28. n _ _ _ _: the fist
29. p _ _ _ _ _: a spinning top
30. m _ _ _ _ _: a small dog, a cur
31. s _ _ _ _ _ _: thin and sickly-looking

THE MINISTER'S CAT

‘The Minister's Cat’ is an old-fashioned game in which each player in turn completes the sentence, ‘The minister's cat is a --------- cat’, supplying a describing word in alphabetical order. So the first player might say, ‘The minister's cat is an awesome cat’, followed by the second player with ‘The minister's cat is an awesome, bold cat’, and so on until a player ‘dries up’. The game should be played using Ulster-Scots words, and the players may look at a dictionary to provide ‘prompts’.

An example:
The minister's cat is an aumlach, baukey, caleery, doldered, elegant, feerdy, girny, horrid, ident, janty, kilrickit, laith, marled, nebby, odious, pawky, quim, ratterbrash, scundersome, tapselteery, unco, vaigish, wanchancy, yewky cat.

A simplified version can, of course, be played in which the player substitutes his/her word for the word used by the previous player, instead of adding it.

CALL MY BLUFF

Some of you may remember the television panel game of this name. A word appeared on the screen, and then each of the three members of one team gave his/her own definition of this word. All were equally plausible, but only one was correct. The other team had to guess which was the genuine meaning.

The original format can be adapted with one participant providing the definitions, and the rest voting on which they think is the right one. Dictionaries can then be consulted to find out whether they were correct.

However, the more crafty players may enjoy making up their own definitions and ‘spoofing’ the others, and a worthwhile variant of the game will permit this, either as individuals or groups.

Examples:

Jaw-boax - Is it:

(a) a kitchen sink, e.g. ‘Ah teemed the prittas oot in the jaw-boax’.

(b) a lunchbox, e.g. ‘Ma mither gien me ma piece in the jaw-boax’.

(c) the container that grannie puts her false teeth in at night, e.g. ‘Ah’m awa tae ma bed. Reach me the jaw-boax’.

Puddock - Is it:

(a) an enclosed place for keeping farm animals, e.g. ‘Sammy, did ye hird the kye intae the puddock?’

(b) an abusive name for a short, thick-set person, e.g. ‘Ah’m no fur gaun oot wi thon wee puddock. Ma freens wud aa lauch at me’.

(c) a frog, e.g. ‘Ye darnae lay doon on the wat gress fur the puddocks lowpin owre ye’.

Stoon - Is it:

(a) a particular type of stone that is very difficult to cut into, e.g. ‘This stoon’s that hard the chisel’s stoatin aff it’.

(b) a violent, throbbing pain, e.g. ‘Ah cudnae stan fur tha stoon in ma heid’.

(c) a dismissive name for someone who is easily fooled, e.g. ‘Ach, he’s a richt stoon – he’s aye lossin his pye tae some fly boy’.