Hello again intrepid Morrison fan’s! Time again for another update from across the sea…………..and then some land, then change planes, over some more sea, some more land, turn left at Albuquerque, then another plane and there you have us. Now quite a bit has happened since I last posted so I’ll break this one up into a couple of updates over the week. Hopefully it wont be too onerous a task for you all. Today I thought I’d give you more of an insight into Scottish culture and language. Now I have been joking with the staff here at Belmont about these things so I know they will not take offence at anything I say or poke a bit of fun at. Firstly names. I have encountered some names here that are unusual from my point of view but are more common here. Obviously I will only mention first names so as to preserve anonymity. Some of them I had no idea how to pronounce and had to ask so good luck with them. First names – Niahm (quite a few of them), Mirren, Eilidh, Nuala, Ailie, Ines, Freya, Murrin, Ealaidh, Mhairi, Eilliech and Ruaidri Most of these I believe have a Celtic/Galic origin and some of them just don’t sound the way they are spelt. I am also still having trouble understanding some of the things said to me. A colleague was reading a list of names off a role to me and I had to ask three times about one of the names as I just couldn’t understand the accent. We did have a laugh about it. As well as that when some of the kids talk fast I still get lost, particularly if they come from a nearby town called Tarbolton. The accents vary greatly within such a small area. And then some of the words just aren’t English. Desneh/Dehneh/Didneh – Doesn’t/Doesn’t/Didn’t/Don’t Ken – Know/Understand “I dehneh ken”/”I don’t understand/know”. I first encountered this when a student told me that he had spilt acid on his hand in Science. I gasped and asked what kind of acid and he said “I dehneh ken” and I was “You don’t CARE!?”. He then had to explain it to me. And hence the joke “What’s the difference between Frank Sinatra and Walt Disney? Frank sings and Walt desneh!” Gutties – Sneakers. But don’t forget they don’t pronounce many “T’s” over hear so it come out “Guhies”. It’s not common, but was confusing nonetheless. Ragein’ – Really angry “I was ragein’ about this.” Mingin’ – Really gross/off/yuck/filthy “Chris’s coffee cup is mingin’” Outwith – Outside/ Outside Of. Now here is a strange one. It’s not that it is in another language, it’s just odd e.g. ”Please write down on the form any clubs you are involved outwith (outside of) school”. Gets said quite a bit and I still can’t get my head around it. “Ya ‘right?” – Now I did know about this one so it wasn’t a surprise. It’s “Are you alright?” and it’s used as a greeting, as in “Hello. How are you?”. But every now and then when someone says “Ya ‘right?” I pause for a moment and think “Yeah. I’m alright. Why shouldn’t I be? Is something wrong?” Then I go oh yes “G’Day” How – This was an absolute revelation. A real light bulb moment for me. Now on the surface this may sound simple enough. But ahah! You would be mistaken for thinking so. This has taken me four months to figure out. I had been teaching classes and giving instructions out to students for all that time and it didn’t click. Every now and then I would give an instruction or make an umpiring decision and the student would ask “How?” e.g. “Foul. Red ball.”, “How?”, “You give them the ball and they take it. That’s how?”……. “You. Go over there.”, “How?”, “Walking, hopping, on your hands, I don’t care how just go over there.”……. But my good friends after four months of this and getting thoroughly confused it finally dawned on me. When they asked “How?”, they were actually asking “Why?”. I confirmed this with one of my colleagues here and they said “Oh yes that’s a West Coast (of Scotland) thing.” And if that wasn’t enough, when they actually say it, it comes out more like “Ho” than “How”. Now I know they weren’t calling me a “Ho”. Now to be fair I am throwing around a liberal amount of “G’Day’s”, “Fair Dinkum’s” and “You Beauty’s” and I make sure it comes out through the nose dripping with Australianness (the accent, not what’s up my nose) and most of the kids think it’s pretty cool Well they giggle anyway. Maybe they’re just laughing at me. But I do draw the line at “Stone the flamin’ crows.” I just can’t bring myself to sink that low. Recently I had cause to call the weather quite “Balmy” as it was about 15C and I had to explain to staff what it meant and yesterday I said “Barrack” when referring to supporting a football (soccer) team and had to explain that as well. So it does cut both ways. On the cultural side of things we got some fish and chips from “The Wee Hurri” (a very famous fish and chip shop here in a town called Troon just down the road) I had Cod and chips and Cullen Skink. They were both nice. Not thrilling, but nice. The Skink was a little under seasoned but had plenty of smoked Haddock which was good. But damn it was expensive. Most things over here are pretty cheap and I went for a middle range priced fish. Had I chosen the Monkfish it was 8 Pounds 90 Pence with chips a further 1 Pound 90P. 10 Pounds 80P. About $15 Aussie for a piece of fish and handful of chips. Wow! Well that’s it for now. Last weekend was a four day midterm break and we drove to York and then down to London for a look so I’ll put another update and some pic’s on later this week which will include the surprise we sprang on Taylor by taking her to the Warner Brother’s Harry Potter Studio’s. Bye for now. The Morrison’s.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:00:24 +0000
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