JJ's Cook Book

[Twister_Ken]

Re: JJ\'s Cook Book

Or a Scottiebott forum for those that have the Jock, and the piles.

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[ParaHandy]

Re: Para skink

ah use ra smoker (frae oban irnmonger) wich is nae unlike yon upright tumble drier wi' a few wood chips inna bottom and heated gentle noo - gas mark 2 or so. best tae gut them firsht ... ah find thus is ra ony way tae cope wi ra mass catchings which fra time to time ah've hid the joy o' experienshing ..... the secret is ra tune ye play on ra chanter tae encourage ra feesh tae jump straight in ra pot ....

oh near forgot ... add a few herb type stuff in ra bottom tae gie some taste and serve wi salad


<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by ParaHandy on 08/07/2003 18:25 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[claymore]

Considered Bollocked

Am now writing in finest Queen's English as spoken not far from Inverness.
Might I regale my countrymen to follow suit in order that further dire prognostications do not befall us.
Might I point out to the deliverer of the remark concerning brain softening that your English Monarch once tried to ban the wearing of the kilt - might I further remark on the irony which is inescapable - of your present Monarch's firstborne's predeliction for highland dress?
Toodle pip all.
Back soon - Bung -ho

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Claymore
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[ParaHandy]

Re: JJ\'s Cook Book

Here we go .... Jimi borrowed my spinning rod and deposited half the reel in a complete fangle in the bottom of Loch Melfort. Jimi recently asked what method was best to lead a haliyard up a mast and I offered the fishing line. If he'd accepted the suggestion, the opportunity would then arise to remind Jimi where he left it. But no, our Jimi saw this ploy a mile away (ie wee scunner) .... I will be fishing again this weekend and hope to exceed EU quota etc etc

Hope this helps ...

Yrs sincerely

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[jimi]

Re: Considered Bollocked

Yes .. Yes. must try harder! Anyway back to the subject I think TCM should share the secret of the magical Fajitaas with us ...

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[jimi]

The Scots Dossier

Credit ro Dr Anne King from whom I filched it

People write about Scots in the papers. They proclaim its mither tongue status and its fitness for all linguistic purposes - or they deny its relevance, or even existence. Sometimes they wax vitriolic about the gobfuls of Glasgow slang that assault viewers from TV screens and sometimes they wax lyrical about the lilting good Scots in North-East fishing villages. This good Scots, and its synthetic Lallans relative do receive some (all too) serious media attention: usually in the context of a heritage industry which wants to preserve demotic speech in some kind of linguistic aspic. Everybody seems to feel strongly about Scots, whatever their view, but very few know much about its history or character, even those who speak it.

First things first. Scots is not linguistically related to Gaelic. Indeed, in the medieval period Gaelic was held in very low esteem by speakers of Scots - Dunbar in his Flyting of Kennedie (who spoke Gaelic) claimed A lawland erse wald mak a bettir nois!. Neither is Scots a corrupt form of Standard English. True, it began life in the 8th century as the most northerly branch of Northumbrian Old English at a time when Scotland was a multi-lingual country populated by Picts, Cumbrians and Gaels. But from its first toehold in the South-East of Scotland, brute force and negotiation allowed Scots to become, by the mid 14th century, the dominant language spoken in Lowland and North-East Scotland by everyone from the King downwards. From then on, Scots was culturally sophisticated and linguistically independent - a standard language. It possessed, and still does, many linguistic characteristics that distinguished it from the standard Southern English contemporary with it in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation (so hoose and not house, gie and not give). Scots was a potent symbol of national identity - the langage of Scottis natioun. Like the culture and society it served, till the 17th century, Scots was outward-looking and eclectic in its make-up. Much of its vocabulary, for instance, was borrowed from European languages like French, Norse, Dutch and, peculiarly to Scots, Gaelic. This includes surprises like those culturally-iconic words Hogmanay, tartan and haggis (from French), kilt (Norse) and whisky (from Gaelic - particularly apt since most of todays malt whisky distilleries are to be found in the North-East of Scotland, which was originally Gaelic-speaking territory).

Events of the next two centuries were to blur this linguistic picture considerably. After the Reformation Scottish people learnt to read and heard sermons from the Geneva Bible in Southern English - there was no Scots translation in print. The Union of the Crowns (that apparent lifeline for famine-ridden and war-torn 17th century Scotland) presented irresistible opportunities for enterprising Scots businessmen and would-be social climbers. It meant, however, familiarising themselves with English, to the detriment of Scots. Where literature was concerned, the Union opened up a wider market for the writings of Scottish poets if they wrote in English and not Scots. By means such as these, the previously strong links between the Scots language, Scottish culture and national identity were weakened. No longer was it the language used by all classes in all circumstances; English started to take its place as the formal, most prestigious language, and the status of Scots in society was correspondingly lowered. Because most Scots had never seen their language written down, those few who now learnt to read for the first time had little inkling that it was English, and not Scots, they were being taught. Most of the books available in print - formal works like histories, religious writings, poetry - were in English, or, at best, rather heavily anglicised Scots. So began the dissociation of Scots from an all-purpose, standard written language.

Scots had hit the headlines for the first time in the 18th century - quite spectacularly. The Union of the Parliaments, the Enlightenment, Augustanism, Sentimentality and Romanticism, forced Scots to confront the issues of national identity and good, and society and the individual. Language use was salient to these difficult questions, and was also much affected by them. Burns, archetypical 18th century figure and Superscot, astutely kept a foot in both linguistic camps that sprang up. He wrote sometimes in Augustan English. This fitted the linguistic prescriptions of purity, correctness, refinement and propriety which, adopted from Southern England, were promoted by the aristocrats and intellectuals who peopled the socially and culturally brilliant circles of the Enlightenment. Augustan tenets had persuaded these improvers that Scots was barbarous, vulgar and provincial. So, subjecting themselves to elocutionary tortures and hard linguistic labour, they tried to rid their speech and writing of giveaway Scots features and replace them with English ones. Their attempts met with only partial success: spoken Standard English was rarely heard in Scotland and visiting elocution teachers commonly had regional accents (like the actor Sheridans father who spoke with a strong Dublin accent!) Inadequate descriptions in books meant the affected (in both senses) Scots frequently blundered by hyper-correcting, and produced surrealistic statements such as McTavish was seen in the High Street carrying a clock (cloak!) on his arm. Writing was more easily anglicised, though books listing Scotticisms of vocabulary and grammar and their Standard English substitutes often gave poor recommendations. Genuine Scots usages, like Whats yon? (asked in allusion to something in the distance), to be replaced with What is that distant object?, appear beside non-Scots ones: Give me a clean glass - this earns the authors scornful reproach Leave out clean which is unnecessary, as you would scarcely ask for a dirty glass.

As will be obvious to anyone listening to speakers in Scotland today, this attempted linguicide of Scots was not entirely successful. It gave rise to Scottish Standard English - a blend of Standard English and Scots - which has, since the 18th century, been spoken by the middle classes (and now too by Scots dialect speakers who code-drift into it when formal circumstances require). For writing, Standard English is used with various Scots grammatical features and vocabulary (The glaikit lassie had a wee greet to herself when the tattie-bogle she had made cowped and crashed into the rowan tree). The linguicide also failed because most of the Scottish population were largely untouched by the linguistic improvements - they carried on speaking their various regional dialects of Scots - and still do.

Burns wrote only one letter (that survives) in Scots. Both this and the samizdat The Merry Muses of Caledonia are in a broader, racier and more sustained Scots than we find in his poems. This, and the sprinkling of Scots in his songs, was, however, sufficient to align his outlook with those who were influenced by the Sentimental and Romantic Movements and ensure that his other foot was placed in the remains of the second camp. These campers had been happier than the improvers. They too were culturally and politically powerful, but had Episcopalian, Jacobite and antiquarian leanings and included the writer Allan Ramsay, the printer Thomas Ruddiman and James Watson, who collected medieval Scots poetry and traditional songs. Burns had inherited from this proudly Scottish circle one model of literary Scots (his other came from Fergusson) as well as a tradition of written Scots, albeit one confined to song or poetry in lowly, comic or sentimental genres.

A diminished Scots shuffled its way through the 19th century. Stevenson carried on the Burnsian written tradition in his poetry but, along with Scott, extended its use to set pieces in prose fiction, usually spoken by old, uneducated, rural, comic and often female, characters. Kailyard authors confined their implausible, synthetic Scots to dialogue, parentheses and glosses. Scotland under the Empire no longer had its own independent culture, but an official one had been imposed on it based on English ideas of Scottishness, its icons Balmorality, tartanry, militarism, bagpipes and blended whisky. Mainstream Scots poetry and prose, steeped in maudlin nostalgia, complacency and banality, pandered to this image. The low status of Scots persisted - it was fit only for sentimental and couthy subjects or for poking fun at (witness Harry Lauders phenomenal success in the next century as the professional, red-nosed, whisky-sodden, bekilted Scotsman singing mawkish Scottish songs).

But Scots, people and language, still possessed several vital sparks. The local (identity and speech) now began asserting itself under threat of extinction by officialdom - Empire and attitudes, the Scottish Education Departments promotion, from the 1870s, of English (and definitely not Scots) in the classrooms - industrialisation and urbanisation. Scots bounced again into the headlines and onto the pages of newspapers and journals that printed articles and poems by working and lower middle class male - and female - writers. This Scots was new and (more) real. Closely reflecting local rural and - a new development - urban dialect, it showed itself capable of describing actuality - contemporary social and industrial change, science, love and philosophy. There were other reactions to the perceived threat: linguists recorded dialect speech (before it disappeared!) and dictionaries of Scots were published. This linguistic lepidopterology caught the attention of writers like Hugh MacDiarmid who responded by creating a synthetic Scots - Lallans - intended as a classical, standard Scots for a world-class literature. Its ingredients, obsolete words trawled for in dictionaries and medieval Scots literature, words and grammar from several rural dialects, made it artificial, remote from real life - a kind of cuddly toy Scots - and unsuitable really for anything other than poetry (its main use today).

Headline-hitting continues. It is pleasing to see that Scots is now being acknowledged as vital - in both senses - and that the outrage of Scots like the poet Tom Leonard (I just felt that the voice in my mouth wasnt being represented) is being responded to. The Concise Scots Dictionary is a best-seller. Scots is officially registered as a lesser-used language with the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, which has commissioned a booklet on Scots for distribution throughout EU countries. Interest in Scots is high in the United States, Germany, Italy and Japan. Recent Scottish Office Education Department 5 - 14 Guidelines recommend teachers to encourage an awareness and use of Scots by schoolchildren. To help with this, the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum is producing a resource package of teaching materials (The Kist). In the University, the first ever first-level course on Scots and Scottish English (taught in the Department of English Language) is now in its third successful year. The Department also organises an annual lecture on Scots, sponsored by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society - past speakers have included Jack Aitken and William McIlvanney (this years speaker is Liz Lochhead).

There is still a long way to go, however. The acknowledgement of Scots needs now to be followed by an acceptance of it for what it is - a language without official status, but with at least nine different dialect areas; several written varieties - Lallans, Sunday Post Scots and Central Scots dialect (Liz Lochhead, Bill Herbert); a tremendously flexible, vigorous language whose speakers drift into English and back to Scots with ease. Scots, like all minority languages, is affected by media and American English influence, but is thriving. While maintaining its base, it loses and acquires words as all living languages do. Not many Scots these days have, or even want, to know what a daimen icker in a thrave is, but they create new words where needed, e.g., sitooterie (patio), cahoutchie-padlock (condom) and gouchin or vegging (sitting about hungover and tired in a pub). The work of writers like Tom Leonard and James Kelman has raised public awareness of Scots and done a lot to move it beyond Oor Wullies pail and out into todays Scotland. But perceptions of Scots will only change with wider public access to it, and a greater appreciation of it in all its variety and vitality.


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[ParaHandy]

Re: The Scots Dossier

jings .... gee whuzz ... hae ye nae goat ra executiv summary ... ?

Our wee pal, JJ, shouldn't be flinging stones in a gless hoos ... there's many aroond here whit hae mangled ra english intae an unintelligible mush ...

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[jimi]

Re: The Scots Dossier

didnae want tae be accused o' sexing it doon!

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[tcm]

Re: Magical Fajitaas recipe

Ingredients.
Chicken breasts
fajitas (which are sort of uncooked pancake things which BA serves these days on shorthaul flights)
Colourful peppers
some chillified sauce in a bottle
an onion
a fair bit of garlic
lime juice or similar eg orange juice.

Decide that it would be an idea to warm the faitas in the oven. Then cook the chicken in a pan with the orange juice, sort of boiling it a bit. Suddenly realise that the chicken should be cut into strips, so attempt to cut chicken in pan into strips, resulting in slightly hacked chicken, but not to worry, cos the whole thing gets wrapped up in the floppy pancake fajita thing.

Then cut up the peppers also into strips. It looks nice if the peppers are diffrent colours. Cut up the onion at arms lengths so it sdoesn't make you cry. Also the garlic. With another pan, fry the onion, which looks and smells like proper cooking - all proper cooking starst with burning an onion. Anyway then the garlic, and then the peppers. Have cup of tea.

Rember the fajitaas in the oven and check on them - burnt! So chuck them out and hope jimi has bought some more - phew he has.

Then put the lot including the chicken in a new fajita thing and hand it to someone. I thinnk there was something else in there too, but not to worry it'll be fine like that.

Next day try and make it again at 40 degrees of heel.

Can i have a TV series now please?

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[sailbadthesinner]

Re: Och aye the noo

not mention old gaffer and the other ditch crawlers
shouting Boyurrrr at anyone passing

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=red>if guinness is good for you. i must be very very good</font color=red>

 

[claymore]

Re: The Scots Dossier

Well - thats all fine and dandy - but wha the deil hae we getten fer a King but a wee bit Jermain lairdie?
I fer one is no being tempted tae keep bletherin an get accused o' saftenin his heed er whitivver it was he wrote whilst the King is aroon. Its yin thing being Kimmerised - but ra King...
He'll be away soon nae doobt, daein yin o they boaty tests - ah see he disnae get ower involved in they hoddin tanks Jamesie.

<hr width=100% size=1>regards
Claymore
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[Twister_Ken]

\'s wee bat lang, an\'all.. nae massage

`

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[Ohdrat]

Re: The Scots Dossier

So Claymore's boat should be re-christened "sitooterie"/forums/images/icons/wink.gif

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[claymore]

Re: The Scots Dossier

Claymore's boat is fine being called Claymore thank you very much bye the way.
She has a fornicatorium, a lavatorium, a cookatorium, a navigatorium and several sleepatoriums. She also has the finest fenderstep on the west coast, purchased from that marvellous emporium ArdfernYachtatorium.

<hr width=100% size=1>regards
Claymore
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[Aja]

Re: The Scots Dossier

Managed to fit in the twin tubium yet?

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