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>Dundonian Branch password: > >Ye aff a yaat? Whit yaat ye aff? Odd (rum?) this getting on an off of boats thing. Shippoleths, maybe? A group of actresses of my acquaintence once spent a winey meal trying to come up with a new idiom which might later enter the language and settled on 'off a ship' meaning shoddy (which also has nautical connections of course) or untrustworthy. Ten miles south of Dundee is where I come from. Another ten and you are in the fishing villages of the East Neuk (Crail, Cellardyke, Anstruther, Pitenweem, St Monans - can you not just smell the salty creels, the bobbing boats, the fistfights in Spar's carpark when the pubs shut?). Here the dialect is marked by its complete unfathomability. "Aarite, yonny boats? Monny boats. Mfehrsa skeppur. Skawd eftir mawld dear. Marite. Yarite. Nawm nae pseht, ah a waw l'is." (How are you? Are you a fisherman? I am a fisherman. My father is a captain of a fishing boat. It is named after my darling mother. I'm fine this evening. Are you fine too? No, I'm not incapacitated by drink, I always walk in this fashion). >(Should we be telling everyone this, Roddy? Won't the entire list move to >Scotland and eat all the shortie?) Hmm... have you noticed that all the Scots on this list live in England? Except for Andy and he lives in Bearsden, which is more Anglified than Basildon! Roddy %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%