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12th Nov Dreich. Dismal, tedious etc. Ho, hum. Scots borrowed (ASH) from ME dregh, from ON drujgr, ‘lasting, strong’, (actually Drújgr, meaning ‘lasting, substantial) but not the right word anyway. ON drokr, ‘drudge, drudgery’ gives us a suitable source. Notice how ASH persons go out of their way to introduce an irrelevant English word. Look back to ‘lum’, ‘stookie’ ‘guiser’ etc., etc., and see how the DOSL shows a dismal and tedious tendency to get things awry. The Scots non-Celtic tongue came from ON Viking settlers, who have left their place names all over Scotland, especially southern Scotland. How could there be an Anglic source for our tongue when they have left NO substantial settlement names behind?
19th Nov Wally dugs. Porcelain dogs. Quote from Dunbar, ‘wallie gowdye’ term of endearment to a woman with golden hair. Also mention of ‘walie nieves...’ huge fists. DOSL are uncertain as to the etymology because of ASH. If they look in the wrong dictionaries because of seriously wrong Scots history it is little wonder. The monstrous delusion of non-existent Anglic settlements etc., is a serious drawback to the study of the Scots non-Celtic tongue.
There are TWO Old Norse words here. One refers to the fine quality of a foreign product. The other is ON for a ‘knuckle bone’. If you want the full details, purchase ‘Viking Place Names of East Lothian’ !
26th Nov Loon with Quine, tagged on. Loon is basically a man/youth, with various uncomplimentary epithets such as immoral, cheat, criminal, being the earlier senses, and quine, a girl/woman. Of course ASH in the form of ME lowen is mentioned, but DOSL think that ‘the origin of both is yet to be established’. In other words, because of ASH they can’t give the etymology of Loon! If anyone wants to know the Norse etymology of these words, you know what to do. Look at last weeks entry if you don’t.
3rd Dec Thole. Suffer, endure. Says it comes from OE tholian and the related ON thola, ‘to endure’. ASH nonsense. Later it states that there is a specific Scots legal term ‘ thole an assize’, meaning to ‘stand trial’. What is Not said is that this sense comes from OLD NORSE, thola, recorded by C/V in the phrase (a couple of hundred years before of the late 14th c), “eigi fkal þat ok skal þola Snorra log, le t us 'thole' the law to Snorri, i. e. let us give him the benefit of the law.”
Which highlights the Norse source of Scots ‘THOLE’. More ASH in the bin. The Herald press can’t cope with þ , pron. as th in ‘thin’.
10th Dec Wersh, warsh, etc. Usual ASH drivel. DOSL not sure where it comes from, perhaps ME (of course) werish, insipid, tasteless, flat as in ‘flat beer’. Why do ‘Scots’ commentators look for an English connection? Ask them. Why don’t they look at words like ‘banks and braes’, ‘sleekit’? And the large numbers of Old Norse, (Norwegian) words in The Brus by Barbour written in 1375, (more than 500 years after the Norse settled all over Scotland) like 'allgat, apert, ayndless, bayt, bolle, byrd,(no it’s not a “bird”) encrely, erding, espyne, etc’, which are pure Norse? No connection at all with any kind of old English which is the ASH myth they peddle. Old Norse, Icelandic, Vari, ‘watery substance of the blood; water; liquid’ plus common sk, sh, ish, ending denoting related characteristics. Things can only get ‘wersh’. Poor old Scotland.
17th Dec Boorach. ‘Cluster, small house, heap up, crowd together. ASH and DOSL, ‘may derive from OE bur ‘dwelling’ or...burg ‘fortified enclosure’. Tripe. What English settlers of the 8th/9th c. settled in Caithness, Buchan etc.?? Unbelievable. Gaelic burach, to dig up mentioned. Possible. ON Bú, bær, bœr, býr, ‘small house, cow-stall, farm, estate’, probably the root. Worthy of consideration is ON raka, to rake, sweep up, rake hay, for the suffix, or a ‘boorach’ in Buchan.
24th Dec High heid yin. ‘A leader’ etc. No etymology. Very poor. They aim ‘to raise the profile of Scots Language Dictionaries’.
Giving no etymologies seems a strange ASH ploy to achieve this. The SND gives ‘heid’ as variant of English ‘head’. Old Norse Dictionaries with a high profile give ON Heið(r), n. ‘Worth, honour’; Há ‘high’; yin possibly came from ON á, compounded with Norman/French ‘un’. YOU can’t look for English sources of early Scots words when there are no traces or history of numbers of OE settlements in Scotland. The place names prove it!! HAPPA-JÓL.
HOGMANAY 2005 Happy New Year 2006
It will be if the ASH is scattered. Read about it HERE.
Hogmanay is New Years Evening when gifts are presented with good wishes for the New Year. Uncertain origin, but most agree it is of Norman/French origin. The Vikings in Normandy (Old Norse) had a word Hœgindi, ‘relief -for the sick and poor/comforts’ which could have been allied with French Monnaie, ‘change, little money’. The celebration of Christmas and New Year was banned by John Knox and his fellows in the Church of Scotland in the 16th/17th.c but was revived later. The common people in Scotland used to go about at Hogmanay shouting for Hagmonay , and many variants. The DOSL suggests perhaps from N.French dialect Hoginane, ‘a gift for children and a cry for such’. Certainly possible. But ONE certainty is NO ANGLO/SAXON ETYMOLGY!! Also did you know that they had New Year on March 25th with their celebrations finishing on April 1st, April Fool’s Day, until 1752.!!
A Guid New Year Tae Yin An Aw!!!
7th Jan 2006
No more ASH from DOSL and The Herald. Are they rewriting their dictionaries? ‘Cop’ this space. Cop, with the meaning ‘watch, look at, gaze’, a well known word in Scotland, is NOT in DOSL. It is from O.N. Kápa ‘gaze, look at’.
14th Jan 2006 ASH returns!! ‘Pinkie’ from Dutch Pink, ‘Little finger’. Actually, from Dutch, Pinkje, dim. of pink "little finger," of uncertain origin. There is a place ‘Pinkie’ in East Lothian, nothing to do with above.
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