Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/196

172 limited acquaintance with them in Scotland. Some golfers might enjoy this couplet, for we sometimes hear of one lamming into his opponent,—

On the North-east Coast one may perhaps find the Burrow Duck called the Stockannet, as still heard on the Solway shore. But a glossary would in most cases be now needed for Scoto-Cumbrian obscurities like lisk (the groin), wipe (a gibe or rebuke), kickin' up a wap (row). Sype in Cumberland is to drain to the last dregs, but in Scots it means to soak. Staw, to surfeit, is genuine Scots, as "Plenty o' butter wad staw a dog." As more or less local survivals in the North take "thyvel, a porridge-stick" (East Fife, theel), "gwote, a gutter through a hedge; if covered in, called a cundeth" (Sc. condie). This last is in Lanarkshire known as a gote or drain. Gutter is another form of the word. Of the numerous uncomplimentary expressions in which dialect revels light is thrown on these obscure Scottish ones: slinge or sloonge, to loaf about, to mouch; doughy or daichie, "A duffy gowk is a great soft fellow;" mayzy or mwozie, dreamy, sleepy. This last is a Galloway and Ulster word. An Ulster man, giving his opinion of a third party, not present, said, "Of all the mozies!" In Cumberland a "mayzlin'" is a simpleton. As a verb it is in the line, "I mazle and wander, nor ken what I's dien."

In one particular the use of the familiar thou, as well as the old English distinction between ye and you, the Cumberland dialect is markedly archaic. Burns carefully retains "thow" in such homely subjects as the ewe Mailie and the Auld Mare Maggie, but it has disappeared from the modern vernacular. While the Cumbrian question, "Ur ye gan teh t'fair?" would be quite familiar in Aberdeenshire, not so the answer, "Mebbe, is thoo gan?" The former shows the pronoun of respect, the latter the true "heimliches Du" of the German. The idiomatic feeling comes out in popular sayings, and here Dr. Prevost's illustration by happy phrases is of the greatest service. Many are good Scots with a difference, such as "sittin to t'bottom" for a pot sittin in, "just noo" for i' the noo, "still an' on"