The minor issues of being bi-dialectal
I’ve lived in London for twenty years. Long enough for my accent to soften, my vowels to behave themselves, and my speech to acquire the careful precision of someone who has occasionally had to wrestle a sentence into submission.
I have a stammer, so I tend to speak deliberately. It helps me get the words out in the right order, and it also seems to have had the side effect of sanding down some of my accent.
Some of it, anyway.
Because I’m Scottish. Specifically, I come from the soft accented Lowlands, where people sometimes describe the accent as Galloway Irish, thanks to generations of intermingling with our Irish neighbours. I’ve also lived and worked in Glasgow and Aberdeen, so there are occasional contributions from elsewhere in Scotland. My voice is less a single accent and more a small committee that can’t always agree on what we’re discussing.
Most of the time, colleagues, friends and my wife hear the London-adjusted version. Then something surprises me. Or annoys me. Or I forget, for a moment, that I’m not speaking to someone who grew up with the same collection of sounds.
And suddenly I’m back in broad Scots.
The Accent Has a Mind of Its Own
The switch can happen with very little warning.
Someone says something so astonishing that my brain abandons its usual vocabulary and reaches for the emergency supplies:
“Och! Go awa an’ bile yer heid!”
This is an excellent phrase for expressing incredulous disbelief. It has a satisfying rhythm, a clear emotional direction, and the sort of imagery that makes the listener pause to consider whether they’ve been given advice or a threat.
Usually, it’s advice.
Then there’s the occasional “gobshite”, which comes out when the situation has moved beyond disbelief and into the advanced stages of irritation. It’s a useful word. Efficient. Economical. A whole character assessment packed into two syllables.
The people around me are generally left equal parts bemused and amused. I can see them trying to work out whether they should respond to what I’ve said or simply wait for the accent to finish.
Vegetables Are a Constitutional Crisis
The accent isn’t the only thing that gets me into trouble. There are also the words.
A turnip, for example, may be a neep. Or a tumshie. This is perfectly straightforward until you’re in England, where people seem to have switched the names of turnips and swedes in a way that makes no sense to me.
I’m not saying the English have got it wrong. I’m saying that if I’m standing in a supermarket, looking at a pile of roots and wondering which one I’m meant to buy, there has been a failure of international diplomacy.
And if I’m already annoyed, being asked whether I mean a turnip or a swede can push me over the edge. Not because the question is unreasonable, but because I’m now being forced to defend a vegetable vocabulary I was using perfectly happily before I moved south.
It’s possible the root vegetable is innocent in all this. I’m prepared to consider that.
A Pocket Phrasebook for the Bewildered
Some Scottish phrases don’t need much explanation. Others benefit from subtitles, especially if you’ve spent the last twenty years assuming I’m about to say something in an ordinary London-adjacent accent.
Haud yer wheesht.
Translation: Hold your tongue. Be quiet.
Meaning: A polite, or not-so-polite, way to tell someone to shut up. The exact level of politeness depends on how loudly it’s delivered.
Yer bum’s oot the windae.
Translation: Your bottom is out the window.
Meaning: You’re talking nonsense, or possibly behaving like you’ve misplaced your grip on reality. It’s vivid, direct, and hard to misinterpret once translated.
Ye mak a better door than a windae.
Translation: You make a better door than a window.
Meaning: Please move. You’re blocking the television, the view, or whatever it is I was trying to look at before you parked yourself in front of it.
We’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns.
Translation: We’re all Jock Tamson’s children.
Meaning: We’re all human beings, and we’re equal in that respect. A lovely little reminder of our shared humanity, usually delivered without needing to call anyone a gobshite first.
Dinnae fash yersel.
Translation: Don’t trouble or upset yourself.
Meaning: Don’t worry about it. A soothing phrase, although it may sound less soothing if I’ve just used it to tell you that the turnip situation is under control.
And then there are a few useful additions:
Keep the heid.
Translation: Keep your head.
Meaning: Stay calm. Keep it together. Try not to become the person shouting about swedes in the supermarket.
Yer heid’s fu’ o’ mince.
Translation: Your head is full of mince.
Meaning: Your thinking is a bit muddled. Or, depending on the circumstances, you’re talking nonsense. A phrase that somehow manages to be insulting and faintly appetising.
Tatties ower the side.
Translation: Potatoes over the side.
Meaning: Everything has gone horribly wrong. If the potatoes are over the side, it’s probably too late to pretend this is all going according to plan.
These are not phrases I sit down and consciously select from a menu. They just appear. My brain reaches for the nearest expressive option, and the London vocabulary occasionally gets elbowed out of the way.
“How Are You?” Is a Trap
The other difficulty is that I don’t always remember the English phrase for something until I’m already halfway through the Scottish one.
Someone asks how I’m feeling, and I say:
“I’m a wee bit peely wally and feeling fair scunnered.”
This is not an elaborate attempt to confuse people. It’s just what arrived first.
“Peely wally” means looking a bit pale and unwell. “Scunnered” means fed up, disgusted, or thoroughly sick of whatever’s going on. Add “fair” for emphasis, because apparently being scunnered wasn’t quite enough on its own.
By the time I’ve translated myself, the person who asked how I was has either learned a few new words or is wondering whether I need medical attention.
Possibly both.
Sometimes the Confusion Goes the Other Way
Of course, my accent confusion isn’t just from me to other people. Sometimes it happens the other way around.
When I worked in Aberdeen, famous for its impenetrable Doric accent, I stayed in rented digs. One day my landlady asked me, in her thick Aberdonian accent:
“Div ye funcy a fine piece fur yer fly?”
I blinked.
“Pardon?”
She repeated it. Slower this time, pausing after each word as though I might be a bit simple.
“Div… ye… funcy… a fine piece… fur yer fly?”
Gentle reader, it didn’t help.
At this point, one of the other residents laughed and explained that she was asking whether I’d like a chocolate biscuit with my mid-morning cuppa. A treat biscuit is a “fine piece”, apparently, and the “fly” refers to a sneaky or extra cup of tea.
I had been offered a biscuit. I had briefly considered whether I was being recruited into some sort of bird-related activity.
I never did master the Aberdonian accent. “Foos yer doos?” apparently means “How are you doing?” The literal translation, “How’s your pigeons?”, doesn’t exactly make the meaning obvious. Though I suppose if someone asked after my pigeons, I’d know they were making conversation.
A Very Small Language Department
It’s strange to think of myself as bi-dialectal. I don’t feel as if I’m deliberately switching between two carefully maintained versions of English. It’s more that one version tends to be in the foreground, while the other is waiting in the wings with a more colourful turn of phrase.
The London version is tidier. More measured. It helps me speak clearly, especially when I’m trying not to trip over a sentence.
The Scottish version is quicker to arrive when I’m startled, cross, or speaking without thinking. It has access to words the London version seems to have misplaced. It also has a higher tolerance for calling someone a gobshite.
I’m not sure who’s in charge of this arrangement. There’s no rota. No handover meeting. Nobody has written down the rules.
I can be talking quite normally one minute and sound as though I’ve wandered into a conversation from a completely different part of my life the next. My colleagues get a surprise. My wife gets a familiar old phrase. My friends get to laugh at me while I explain, again, what a tumshie is.
And then, at some point, I go back to speaking as I was before.
Mostly.
Until the next time I forget where I am of course or I get surprised!
Jings, crivvens, help ma boab!