Ahm affay sorry ken

ah've jist been hayin' a geck at ma past posts on doric an ah found a comment fae a man that runs the scots wikipedia site an it turn oot that it's mastley in doric - ah must've nae been affay guid at readin' it ken. so ah jist winted tay pit the record straight an also to thank Dereck fir commenting and pitting me richt - ah wid love tay tak up his offer oh jinin 'em bit ah'm nae affay guid at figurin' oot the wiki thingy (there's een fir N'awlins thit ah cannay de either) so ahm hopin he'll forgive this daft quiney her misreadin' an he'll keep up the guid work!!

Here's his comment:

Maist o the fowk contreebutin tae the Scots Wikipedia are aether Doric spikkers, Borderers or Scots lairners. "Central Belters", eejits or itherwise, dinna seem tae be sae interestit in warkin on it, tho there are ane or twa. A'm ane o the foonders an contreebutors an, like yersel maist o ma faimlie on baith sides are Doric spikkers at hame, sae whan A pit onythin in the Wikipedia A've nae chyce but tae pit it in Doric syne A dinna ken onythin else. Whit micht be leadin ye astray is that aw the Wikipedia editors contreebute wi the ae staundard Scots spellin. Sae if ye didna ken the richt wey tae sey "wh" or "i" in Doric, ye micht think that A wis writing in Central Scots. I can assure ye, that if ye heard me reading the airticle oot lood, ye'd hae little doot that the maist o the Scots Wikipedia wis written in Doric. The lave o't is quasi-Scots written by Scots lairners and needs reddin up but nae apolgies. We're short o fowk that can contreebute at ony level and we're nae sae prood but that we'll tak wha we can get.

In fact we're aye aifter mair contreebutors that can actually spik Scots, (Doric spikkers by preference since Doric is the healthiest Scots dialect an it's far mair likely that Doric spikkers actually ken the richt wey tae spik Scots), sae if ye dinna like the wey that we're daein things ay noo, we'd be richt glad if ye'd jine us and help tae set things richt.

Cheers

Derek Ross

Gordon the Gopher and Curious George

Having just wasted five minutes of my life looking for photos of Brown and Bush, I find it rather telling that I can't find any the normal way I pillage for legal visuals for this 'ere blog. This shows how in the grand news circle of the USA, Brown meeting with Bush was a non-event. In many ways it is an accurate assessment.

Lets see. We had George spout off about what a funny guy Brown is and not a 'dour scot' at all (pronouncing dour to rhyme with sour instead of poor) and how they'll be fast friends. I have an image of Bush boring Brown silly with tales of 'my great great great great grandfather' was Scottish and 'oh I went there on holiday' (- oh well it was the G-8 summit but you get the picture).

[One of my favourite sports is informing Americans who claim to be Scottish too (yes they actually say this) that no they are not - they have Scottish heritage and you can't be called Scottish unless you've put up with horizontal rain pelting your frozen forehead as you walk home from school in February at age 10. If I'm particularly successful I follow it up with saying that someone who has Indian parents but has been born or brought up in Scotland with the accent and everything is Scottish!]

Back to GB meets GB. Brown on the other hand looked like he was about as pleased to share two meals and a dubious golf cart ride with George as a colonescapy! No friendly remarks made about the blithering dunderheid to his left. Just an agreement not to rock the Iraq boat for now and help get George focused on something actually humane and worthwhile like world poverty and Darfur (likely payment for no boat rocking antics).

Gordon is coming into his own by all appearances in the UK. Everyone seems relieved to have someone less concerned with holidays with the rich and famous and more meat and potatoes politics. It should not be surprising that after ten years of smoke and mirrors Blair governance, warts and all Gordon is a welcome relief. But I think Gordy's slippery salmon to the North may prove to be more of a challenge than he thinks (see here for a brilliant take on the recent flag debacle)

The funny aspect is that Cameron's emulation of Blair appears to be backfiring in a serious way!! Maybe he'll finally go back to admitting he's an aristocratic toff after all?

GlasGO or at least Glasgae

The attack, on Saturday, at the Glasgow Airport was disturbing to me. I have walked through those very doors several times in my life and when I look at the photographs of the charred remains I am amazed that no one was killed or even hurt. It is disturbing to me to face the reality that Scotland is a target in international terrorism. However considering the Lockerbie bombing this is not the first example. Luckily Scots are not prone to panic and we are more likely to 'just get on with things' and this certainly appears to be what is happening in Scotland right now, as much as I can judge from this distance.

Having said all that there is one fallout from all this that is really disturbing to me personally. That is, that I have had to endure hearing SO many American voices mispronounce Glasgow!!!! The most common is that they make it rhyme with 'cow'. Another is that they put the syllable emphasis on the 'as' and make the beginning sound as if is it "Glass go". Along with the common mispronunciation of Edinburgh as EdinburG, this is driving me BARMY!!!! I know it shouldn't and the many hours of phonetics I sat through in English Language at Edinburgh Uni should make me a very understanding person ..... but please, anyone American reading this spread the word for the sake of my sanity - its GLAsgo.

If you can't manage that then you can always go for a more local pronunciation:
"GLAsgae"