I am departing from my usual posting and hope that you will find this, if not interesting, at least mildly amusing. I was asked by an English friend on one of my visits south what a 'bawbag' was as he had been watching people in Scotland being interviewed about Donald Trump and was mystified to hear the Donald being described by several people as a bawbag. The term bawbag refers to the bag of skin that houses the male testicles and is, of course, very derogatory and displays contempt for the person being described as such. It also carries the connotation of an unpleasant and undesirable person. I'm afraid the Donald's presence in the Aberdeen area has been significantly negative.
In Scotland, and particularly the West, Southwest and Central belt working class regions, the normal way of speaking can be quite incomprehensible to outsiders and is heavily leavened by slang and colloquialisms. It is the way I speak and can be quite guttural. For example, when speaking in our normal everyday to each other, we leave out some of the lettering in a word, as in ball. We normally leave out the letter L when we refer to a ball and pronounce it baw, thus a ball bag becomes a bawbag. If I want someone to give me something, instead of asking them to 'give me' I would say 'gie's' and so if I was playing a ball game and wanted someone to give me the ball I would simply say 'gie's the baw'. Similarly, we miss out the t's in butter and water and say bu-er and wa-er, and call becomes ca', away becomes awa', and know becomes ken etc. If I was planning to visit Edinburgh, I would tell people I was going to Embra. Similarly Glasgow becomes Glesga. Were I to refer to the Duke of Edinburgh, it would sound like 'rachookyembra'. As a result of this, I am making the claim on behalf of my kin that the Scots invented text language one thousand years before mobile phones.
Now I am of course perfectly able to speak received English and was obliged to in my job. But in my everyday life I don't, as received English is actually quite unnatural to me and even though I used it on a daily basis, often made mistakes and slipped back into my natural vernacular. Indeed, I don't know why I should because my language is part of my identity and I am unashamed of being Scots, working class and not English. Although I cannot speak a word of Gaelic I strongly support its preservation and cultivation. Gaelic was never spoken in my part of the world but that doesn't lessen my support for its recognition in my nation's cultural and historical heritage.
This blending of the old and traditional with the new and alien is the result of English being imposed as the official language in Scotland and being grafted onto what is known as Braid (broad) Scots. The best example of Braid Scots is to be found in Burns poetry, and is why we call him Rabbie as opposed to Robert. I live twelve miles from Alloway, Burn's birthplace and the site of his Cottage, and so grew up in that cultural environment. Old (or Braid) Scots was an actual language and examples can still be found in old historical documents dating from before the Union of the Crowns. It is also often forgotten that Burns published over one hundred pieces of literature in received English and so his normal use of his Scots language was a conscious choice as it better expressed what he wanted to say. In working class areas people continued to speak in their normal colloquial manner despite being formally taught English in school and this has developed into modern Scots slang, for example bawbag. It is also a stigma due to the class snobbery that exists in Britain and so working class Scots like me suffer the same social stigmas that associate with language and accents in English regions like the Geordies, the Scousers, the Brummies etc. Geordies are from Newcastle, Scousers from Liverpool and Brummies from Birmingham. Geordies get their name from the original Geordie lamp carried underground by miners and so bourgeois people from the North West would be horrified to be called a Geordie. In north Scotland, men are known as loons and women as quines (a derivative of queen).
If you ever fly into Prestwick Airport in Ayrshire, you will be greeted with signs telling you that Prestwick is 'Pure Dead Brilliant' which makes little sense to most people as it appears to be completely contradictory, how can something be pure, dead, and brilliant? In English that makes no sense, but it makes pure dead brilliant sense to a Scot. This is of course a huge topic, but I trust I have given you a flavour of the diversity that exists in Britain and why, when the Prime Minister comes up to Scotland as she did last week and told a Tory conference that although we are four nations we are one people she is talking utter drivel. We are not one people, I have as much in common with someone in Beijing as I have with Theresa May. I have a different history, a different culture and a different language and so my message to Theresa May is 'awa n bile yer heid ya bam'.
I trust you have not been confused by my inane drivel, I remain
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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