Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/176

152 bore." Jots is used for jobs, usually trokes, e.g. “The servan lass riz i' the mornin, did up her jots, and geed awa tee market." Jamieson has jotterie, odd or dirty work. The most general term for this sort of thing is trokes, trokin, but these were unknown to my friend.

Many of these expressions are due to the special phonetic system of the North-eastern counties. Of this I secured some interesting illustrations from my friend. He sounded initial k where it is now silent, as in the olden time over Scotland and as in German still. He called the ankle-bone the kynockel o' the queet (Ger. Knochel, a joint, our knuckle); queet here is very characteristic. It appears also as cüte, cuitt, always referring to the epiphyses or knobs at the lower end of the tibia. A Fife man, narrowly examining the impressive mount of the trooper sentry at the gate of the Horse Guards on his first visit to London, was astonished to hear the warning, “Tak care, freend, or mebbes ye'll git your cuitts cloored" (be kicked on the ankles by the horse). The Guardsman hailed from Anster, and retained the accents of the fisher-toon. Mr. Ross knew the foot of the cow as the hive (hoof): “Yir beast has lang hives.” The older term is clüte, akin to the German kleuz, split, cloven. The Orcadian clett is a rock in the sea, broken off from the adjoining rocks on shore; cf. skerry and scaur. A singular illustration of how the track of the stranger can be followed by words is the appearance of clett on an odd and isolated corner of the Fife coast. Such a cliff or stack as one finds on the Caithness coast overhangs the bathing place well known at St. Andrews as the Step Rock. It used to be a tour de force for a daring bather to take a header from the Cleet into the pool below, brimful of the tide. Clooty is a familiar soubriquet of the Evil One, as shown on the mediæval stage: “If black claes maks a parfyt inan, Auld Clooty beets the priest” (Northumb.). Somewhat similar was kyob for the usual gebbie, a bird's crop (cf. gob, gab): That kyobie o'ee beestie is crammed fou o' meat." This initial I found also in his kneef, meaning “in thorough sympathy," “rale cheef,” reminding one of Shakspere's gossips who“knapped ginger” together. The root idea is that of breaking into small bits, hence the usages, pinching (nip), cutting (knife), breaking stones for roads (knappin). In the Morayshire sense we compare