LL-L: "Little words" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 04.OCT.1999 (05)

[Lowlands-L Administrator]

 =========================================================================
 L O W L A N D S - L * 04.OCT.1999 (05) * ISSN 1089-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
 Posting Address: <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
 Web Site: <http://www.geocities.com/~sassisch/rhahn/lowlands/>
 User's Manual: <http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html>
 =========================================================================
 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic
 =========================================================================
 You have received this because your account has been subscribed upon
 request. To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l"
 as message text from the same account to
 <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or sign off at
 <http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
 =========================================================================

From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk]
Subject:  "Little words"

> From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
> Subject: Little words [E]
>
> The comments about "while" reminded me that the phrase "just now"
> has three
> different meanings, as in:
> "I saw him just now" (a little while ago)
> "I'm busy just now" (at present)
> "I'll do it just now" (in the near future).

I interpret this a bit differently for English English and Scottish English:

English English: "just now" means "a little while ago" (in the order of a
few minutes)

Scottish English: "just now" means "at present"

It seems clear to me why the Scottish English meaning is different - it's an
exact cognate with the Scots "the nou".

In a phrase like "I'll do it just now" the future tense derives from the
auxillary "will", it's not part of the meaning of "just now".

Ian Parsley wrote:

> I didn't make myself particularly clear the first time - yes, Ed is right,
> it is more than possible given the various cognates that "stay"
*originally*
> meant "reside", and this permanent meaning was lost in southern England
> rather than gained in the North.

I think pretty much the same thing has happened in Scots as in southern
England, but for "reside" read "bide". There's a lot of overlap in Scots
between "bide" and "stey",  - in fact I think they're probably completely
interchangeable, but "bide"  has more connotation of permanence.

Actually, in southern English I think one would normally say "live" rather
than "reside".

I think the further north you go in England, up to a point, the more likely
you are to here "stop" used for "stay". I've never heard this in Scotland,
though.

To me "through" as in "pages 2 through (or "thru") 20" and "infrared thru
ultraviolet" seems strictly American English.

Scots (and therefore maybe Scottish English) has some special uses of the
word "through" (or "throu"). I don't know whether this would be said in
England or whether it's strictly Scots:

"Wull we gae throu?" (meaning will we go to another another room in the
house on the same storey). Interchangeable with "throu" here in Scots is
"ben", though "ben" has connotations of moving deeper into the house, i.e.
nearer the hearth, hence the Scots figure of speech "gey faur ben (wi a
body)" meaning "very intimate (with a person)".

"A gaed throu tae Glesga" (I went to Glasgow from, e.g. Edinburgh or the
Lothians) - "throu" in Scotland means travelling from an eastern part of the
country to a western part, or vice versa, at roughly the same latitude.

Of course, _most_ of the "little words", i.e. prepositions, in Scots have
uses that are different from in English.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org

----------

From: John M. Tait [jmtait at altavista.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Little words" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 03.OCT.1999 (03)

Ian wrote:
>
>John is quite right in his observation about the verb "stay" used in
>Scotland/NI and England. Its Scots equivalent "bide"/"bied" covers boththe
>English meaning "stay" and "reside", which is probably how the
>Scottish-English "stay" has come to take on the meanings "reside" also.

Is there a justification for categorising 'stay' as SSE and 'bide' as
Scots? The former has a different pronunciation in Scots from English
('stey', [st at i], SSE [ste:] - the fact that the Scots pronunciation looks
more like an RP one is pure coincidence!). Does 'stay' actually have a
shorter history in Scots than 'bide' does, or is this an example of the
tendency to exclude English cognate words wherever a more characteristic
Scots word will serve?

John M. Tait.

==================================END======================================
 * Please submit contributions to <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>.
 * Contributions will be displayed unedited in digest form.
 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
   to be sent to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or at
   <http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
 * Please use only Plain Text format, not Rich Text (HTML) or any other
   type of format, in your submissions
 =========================================================================