Question about Scottish

[Beverly Flanigan]

Michael Montgomery could answer this best.  But my father (b. 1900) was
taught by an old-fashioned New England schoolmarm to say "give it me"--and
no amount of arguing from this smart alecky high schooler would convince
him that it was "wrong."  So maybe this was standard in British-derived
English?

BTW, "schoolmarm" reminded me of the use of written 'r' (or even double
'r') to represent r-less New England speech in the old days; it's in Marmie
of _Little Women_ too, and in Whittier and others.  I suspect it's confused
generations of readers, as it did me as a kid.

At 10:58 AM 2/17/2004 -0600, you wrote:
>     Would someone familiar with Scottish please let me know whether
>"Gie it us" (Give it to us) can be said. Or must one use the
>preposition "to": ("Gie it to us")?
>
>    I'm interested in cant "geetus" (= money; first attestation: 1926;
>variant spelling: "gheetus," which seems to indicate a hard g-).  The
>etymology is unknown, but if Scottish "Gie it us" exists, perhaps
>this is the basis of "geetus," with "it" here likely referring to
>stolen money.
>
>Gerald Cohen