Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/193

Rh day," "siccan a fellow he is," "a few broth," "he'll be five come Lammas, "I'se quite agreeable," "mey peype's langer er (nor) theyne," "who's owt t' dog? It u'll be oor Tom's." The "I'se" above is exactly the Dutch and Boer Ik is = I am, preserving the Northern to be in the present tense. I have been asked by a Kintyre fisherman, "Who belongs that boat?" meaning to whom does the boat belong? He was not any more ungrammatical or illogical than the Cumbrian with his, "Who's owt t' dog ?" to whom is the dog owing? They both use the indeclinable interrogative as a dative. Likely, again, very frequently means "I suppose:" "Mr. S. is away from home likely," does not suggest any uncertainty, nor does "I will see you to-morrow, likely," which quite falls in with the Scottish attitude of noncommittal. The East Coast variant of "lickly" is "mebbe," or, preferably, "mebbes," for "it maybe so." Play oneself: "Barns! give ower! ye've played yersels aneuf noo." In Fife, purpose-like gudewives, greatly vexed with paidlin on the caum-staned doorsteps, would come out and exclaim: "Tak the croon o' the causey, vratches, and play yersels there." Meal's meat, what will suffice for one meal, is in Scotland always a meal o' meat: "Ah wadn't give 'm a meal's meat if he were starvin'." Rackon, to guess, imagine, suppose, has got a new lease of life across the Atlantic: "I'll reckon the' daizter an' dafter," says she, "nor iver I've reckon't the' yit." Up a heet for aloft is a common idiom in Hexham. Dr. Prevost illustrates thus: "Dan gev yah greet lowp ebben up a heet." In the North of England, as often in Scotland, one hears such awkward circumlocutions as Wadn't cud dea 't. The sense is that of moral, not physical, inability—he would be above doing it. "Another expression," says the doctor, "somewhat similar, is, 'Won't can come,'" where, however, the idea of physical inability is intended. The same ideas, expressed in the future tenses, as, "I will not can come," or "Shan't can dea't," are not in use. "Nay, I tell thee he wadn't cud dea't, I'll uphold thee; I ken ower weel for that, wey he wadn't cud din it." The favourite Glasgow circumlocution, "Can I get going?" is as nothing to these.

It says little for human nature that idioms of the colloquially exclamatory nature are more frequently contemptuous than complimentary. We have always with us the man who is only