SCOTTISH DIALECT IN RHYMES.

Auckland Star, 2 September 1933, Page 8 (Supplement)

SCOTTISH DIALECT IN RHYMES.

The following was written by a Scottish poet, Robert Lcighton, to illustrate Scottish dialect: They speak in riddles north, beyond the Tweed, The plain pure English they can deftly read; Yet when without the book they come to speak, Their lingo seems half English and half Greek. Their jaws are chafts; their hands, when closed, are neives; Their bread's not cut in eliccs but in sheives; . Their armpits are their oxters; palms are luifs; Their men are chields; their timid fools are cuill's; Their lads are callants, and their women k humors; Good lasses denty queans, and bad onee li m mors. They thole when they endure, scart when they scratch; And when they give a eample it's a swatch; Scolding is flytin, and a long palaver Is nothing but a blither or a haver; This room they call the but aiid that the ben, ' And what they do not know they dinna ken; On keen cold days they say the wind blaws enell, And they have words that Johnson could not spell. To crack is to converse, the lift's the sky; And bairns are said to greet when children cry; When lost folk ever ask the way they want They speir the gate; and when they yawn they gaunt; Beetle with them is clock; a flame's a