AT LAST, LE MOT JUSTE. -- Bill Kirton
An acknowledgement right from the start. I owe the inspiration for this piece to our fellow AE member (and my good friend) Eden Baylee. All will be revealed in due course. Lochnagar My theme is the Scots dialect (or bits of it, anyway). I’m English but have been fortunate enough to live in Scotland for most of my life. You’ll have seen the images of the place – gorgeous, accessible hills and glens, lochs and rivers – heard the magical names – Loch Ness, Glencoe, – and you probably have your own ideas, positive or otherwise, about it. My focus here is on just one aspect of it, one which I, even as a Sassenach, appreciate as much as, or perhaps even more than some Scots do themselves, their language. What better word, for example, to convey the exact feel and nature of a dreary, rainy overcast day than ‘dreich’? Or what better label for a stubborn woman or naughty girl than ‘Thrawn besom’? (When I checked the spelling of this in my dictionary I couldn’t resist copying the exa...