LL-L "How do you say ...?" 2002.04.16 (03) [E]

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From: Matthew McGrattan <matthew.mcgrattan at brasenose.oxford.ac.uk>
Subject: LL-L "How do you say ...?" 2002.04.16 (02) [E]

> From: Sylvain Lavoie <elisabeth-sylvain at sympatico.ca>
> Subject: Watter o' Oof
>
> The person who provided the translation wrote ...
>
> "... unlike English, which has a formalised version
> universally recognised as "correct", Scots has a myriad of local
> dialects,
> and everyone tends to think of the one he or she was brought up with as
> being the "proper" way to say things ..."
>
> So, what Mattew wrote is probably right in a definite context, but only
> relatively right in others.
>
> Sylvain

I would beg to differ on this point. I am fairly certain what I wrote is
right in ALL Scots contexts. My comment re: "Oof" was not intended to be
some parochial prejudice in favour of my own dialect. I just don't
recognise "Oof" is Scots at all.. of ANY dialect.

While it is true that Scot has a variety of different dialect forms and
also true that some of those dialects may involve different combinations
of Scots "proper" and Scottish English vocabulary and grammar they are
nonetheless recognisable as similar to each other and most of the time
they are mutually comprehensible.

When other Scottish or Northern Irish participants post to this mailing
list I can usually understand most of what they say, and can recognise
what they write AS Scots even though there may be times where they use
vocabulary I am not familar with or grammar which differs from mine. I'd
be the first to concede that perhaps my own idiolect is closer to
Scottish
English than "proper" Scots than some others, nonetheless, I do feel
that there is a common core with which I am familiar.

Additionally, this common core is not one that I've acquired second-hand
from Scots dictionaries, or from written sources but rather first-hand
from actually being brought up in a area of Scotland where people still
speak a significant amount of Scots.

Following on from that, I repeat:

"Oof" is NOT the Scots word for "wolf" and no degree of "lexical
relativism" will make it so.

The fact that Scot has a variety of dialects doesn't make
"bramboracka" the Scots word for "tattie soup" anymore than it makes
"Oof" the word for "Wolf". ("bramboracka" is Czech incidentally.)

I'm happy to be corrected on this point, it's possible that there IS
some
dialect of Scots in which "Oof" is the word for "wolf" - I'd just like
to
know where that dialect is from. I'd like to know whether the person you
quote (with the comment about Scots having a variety of dialects and no
universally accepted standard form) IS a native Scots speaker and where
in
Scotland they are from.

I'd love to know what other Scot users of this list think... perhaps I
am
being overly dogmatic and "Oof" is acceptable in some dialects.

Thanks,

Matthew

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