Scotticisms

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Some Scotticisms noted in US English in an 1875 reference book:

"anunder" = "under"
"bowl" = "basin"
"chuck" = "throw"
"fornent" = "opposite"
"glasses" = "spectacles"
"[not a] hait" = "[not a] whit"
"red up" = "arrange"
"slippy" = "slippery"
"sundown" = "sunset"
"tantrum" = "outburst"

Some of these are now general, some obsolescent, some Pittsburghese.

Questions for the dialectologists:

(1) Is general Scots "hate"/"hait"/"haet" still in US use, as in "I don't
give a hate" = "I don't give a damn", or "I haven't had a hait to eat all
day"? (DARE shows an example as late as 1971. It's in the OED. It's not
familiar to me.)

(2) Is the general Scots word "rift" = "belch" still usual anywhere in the
US besides Pittsburgh and vicinity? (Recently I met an adult native
Pittsburgher who didn't recognize this word, so it may be on the way out.)

-- Doug Wilson