Postaday 2011: Slang, A Language… or a Boorach?

Ah dinae really believe in slang. Language is aye in flux. Aebody has their ain ideolect. Jist cos at some point in the past, sumdy decided to write a dictionary, it disnae mean that the forms of words they chose were ony mair right than whit Ah wid hae chosen, hid Ah bin there at the time.

As fir ma favrite words? Weel – Ah reckon that this week ma favrite words wid hae bin:

Smoorach – This is the consistency/form of something when it has been allowed to soak or stew for too long. For example, baked beans, when overdone and almost decomposing, could be said to be in smoorach. This was in my mind this week because my little daughter squished a bar of soap for so long in warm water that it went into smoorach.

Boorach – only brought to mind because of the smoorach incident. A boorach is a busy mess. Also known as a “guddle”. A kitchen with too many cooks spoiling the broth is likely to be described as a boorach.

There are ower many words I love that dinae appear in Standard English. And nane ae them are slang. Jist Scots. It wis jist that the English got aroon tae collectin their words the gither afore the Scots got aroon tae it.

Yer likely scunnered wi this blog bi noo.