Graeme Obree / Scottish slang

Bronzie

Just started reading "Flying Scostman" - on the first page Obree refers to the abuse the family got because his father was a copper in Kilmarnock. He mentions "our bogie was burnt down and the tortoise also got the chop".

So I'm presuming a bogie is a garden shed or something? A quick Google revealed only the more common nasal offering.................so to speak. Any Scots care to enlighten me?

CHRISNOIR

http://www.firstfoot.com/scottish_dictionary/glossword/index.php?a=term&t=52aa5c605ead5c5e

Could he be talking about option 2? I remember 'bogies' to mean a home made go-cart round our way when I was a kid.

popette

mmm, I'll ask my husband. Can you guess what an oxter is? (I don't know if I have the spelling right).

star_rover

It's a wooden go-cart (that's what Oor Wullie called it). Don't know how you'd burn it down rather than just burn it . . .

Monty Dog

Yup, Bogie is definetly a home made go-cart or somesuch - usually an old set of pram wheels nailed to an old plank of wood. In those austere days, it was a treasured posession.

Bronzie

star_rover wrote:

It's a wooden go-cart (that's what Oor Wullie called it). Don't know how you'd burn it down rather than just burn it . . .

I probably haven't quoted it right then - haven't got the book in front of me at work (unfortunately ).

ivancarlos

popette wrote:

mmm, I'll ask my husband. Can you guess what an oxter is? (I don't know if I have the spelling right).

An armpit?

Crapaud

Bronzie wrote:

Just started reading "Flying Scostman" - on the first page Obree refers to the abuse the family got because his father was a copper in Kilmarnock. He mentions "our bogie was burnt down and the tortoise also got the chop".

So I'm presuming a bogie is a garden shed or something? A quick Google revealed only the more common nasal offering.................so to speak. Any Scots care to enlighten me?

The book actually says that it was "set on fire".

When I wur a lad we used to have bogie races - sometimes the bogies were nothing more than a tea tray nailed to a roller skate. Great for downhill, but also great for losing / damaging fingers. Ahhh, happy days!

popette

ivancarlos wrote:

popette wrote:

mmm, I'll ask my husband. Can you guess what an oxter is? (I don't know if I have the spelling right).

An armpit?

yes! don't know why but it always makes me laugh.

Crapaud

ivancarlos wrote:

popette wrote:

mmm, I'll ask my husband. Can you guess what an oxter is? (I don't know if I have the spelling right).

An armpit?

Correct!

Next, Glasgow rhyming slag. Can you guess what your "Duke of Argylls" are?

Bronzie

Crapaud wrote:

Can you guess what your "Duke of Argylls" are?

Do they require Preparation H to soothe them?

Crapaud

Bronzie wrote:

Crapaud wrote:

Can you guess what your "Duke of Argylls" are?

Do they require Preparation H to soothe them?

Indeed they do. Always makes me smile, that one.

RedAende

Duke of Argyls = Nobby Stiles

and a bogie indeed was old pram wheels and wooden planks.

My bogie had Campag quick release hubs (in my dreams).... though there were some very smart bogies completed from parts half inched from the clydes shipyards iirc.

Monty Dog

Canna find yer 'Dukes' on here either... http://www.firstfoot.com/scottish_dicti ... =dict&w1=A

McBain_v1

As soon as Scotland gets its independence then it will have more legitimate reasons for using such weird and wonderful terminology

Crapaud

McBain_v1 wrote:

As soon as Scotland gets its independence then it will have more legitimate reasons for using such weird and wonderful terminology

By then we'll all be speaking Doric as our first language - then you won't have a scooby what we're saying. And neither will I.

Bronzie

That FirstFoot slang dictionary is great reading. From this side of the border, the etymology of the apparently inoffensive "berk" is always an eye opener. :shock:

pneumatic

A cautionary tale:

When we lived in Devon, I took my Scots wife to a formal dinner hosted by the Mayor of Torquay. She decided that this would be a grand occasion to deploy some of her favourite vernacular vocabulary. It wasn't long before she found herself teed up with a perfect opportunity to launch the word "oxter" into the conversation. However, as sometimes happens when you over-reach yourself linguistically, just as she was about to use "oxter" she plucked the wrong word from her mental list, instead. The conversation went as follows:

Mayor (holding up the menu which was a rather large and ornate parchment scroll, tied with a ribbon): "What am I supposed to do with this?"

My wife (with a gleam in her eye and a loud triumphant tone): "Oh just pop it under your scrotum!"

We left Torquay, and Devon, and England. Now we live in Fife. We don't eat out.

popette

pneumatic wrote:

A cautionary tale:

When we lived in Devon, I took my Scots wife to a formal dinner hosted by the Mayor of Torquay. She decided that this would be a grand occasion to deploy some of her favourite vernacular vocabulary. It wasn't long before she found herself teed up with a perfect opportunity to launch the word "oxter" into the conversation. However, as sometimes happens when you over-reach yourself linguistically, just as she was about to use "oxter" she plucked the wrong word from her mental list, instead. The conversation went as follows:

Mayor (holding up the menu which was a rather large and ornate parchment scroll, tied with a ribbon): "What am I supposed to do with this?"

My wife (with a gleam in her eye and a loud triumphant tone): "Oh just pop it under your scrotum!"

We left Torquay, and Devon, and England. Now we live in Fife. We don't eat out.

aw, that's funny. Do you tease her about that often?

pneumatic

popette wrote:

pneumatic wrote:

"Oh just pop it under your scrotum!"

We left Torquay, and Devon, and England. Now we live in Fife. We don't eat out.

aw, that's funny. Do you tease her about that often?

Oh yes!

and if she finds out I've posted it up on the interweb, she'll kill me, or worse, damage one of my bikes.

McBain_v1

Does your wife often confuse your oxter with your scrotum?

Crapaud

A cautionary tale II:

Many moons ago a friend was down south for a rock concert. After the concert he went into a chippy for a fish supper (fish and chips to youse). As the woman hands him the supper he asks her if he can have a poke* and got promptly thrown out of the shop minus the fish supper.








* Up here a poke's a bag ( more correctly a paper bag). Couldn't find it on the Urban Dictionary.

pneumatic

McBain_v1 wrote:

Does your wife often confuse your oxter with your scrotum?

Not any more!

popette

got anymore cautionary tales? I love stories of embarrassment. :twisted:

nwallace

I was unaware that I had a Dunfermline Accent until I started working in Dundee, the Dundonians in the office all think I speak like someone from Dunfermline, however the Buckhaven local in the office says I speak like a Dundonian who has visited Kelty too often, I have absolutely no idea what a mate from Kelty is saying half the time as my Fifish is from and area triangulated between Dundee, Cupar and St Andrews, Of course St Andrews doesn't have any Fifers in it so its really mostly Dundonian and Cuparish, but then most of the time I can understand St Andrews locals from watching and listening to the BBC. Dundonian of course contains only the word "Eh" and understanding what a customer wants when they bring a computer into your shop requires the understanding of the many different ways of saying "Eh". It also produces the phrase Ehl hae ehn inngin ehn an aw.

At least Ya hoor sir is plain to everyone.............

pneumatic

Did you know that the Nobel-winning bioscientists in Dundee have successfully crossed an Octopus with a Blairgowrie prostitute?

Apparently they've come up with a hoor o' a berry picker!

And for the rest of you, who are not from a triangle between Dunfermline, Dundee and Dunbar, you would simply marvel at the cultural diversity one encounters on a 100 mile day ride around the Kingdom (of Fife, that is).

When we set off on our cycle pilgrimage from St Andrews to Santiago, we were blessed by not one but two fully togged up chaplains of traditionally opposite denominations and given a champagne tally ho! among the ancient stones of Scotland's erstwhile capital city. By the time we got to Kelty, an erstwhile mining town, the landscape had transformed into two 14 year old boys carrying a tray of 24 Tennents lagers down the street, a 15 year old girl vomiting over someone's garden gate and a chorus of "F off you lycra bum bandits" from the doorway of the pub.

Humanity, don't you just love it?