Scottish emojis, explained
I was sent this set of icons the other day, and I thought it would be fun to share them here.
The Scots language and its slang are characterised by very expressive words and phrases.
Here's my wee explanation for each of the words/phrases used above:
- Stoater: Something beautiful, extraordinarily nice. Example usage: "That's a stoater"
- Scunnered: fed up. Example usage: "I'm fair scunnered"
- Wheesht: be quiet, as in 'make yourself quiet' or 'silence yourself'. Example usage: "hud yer wheesht, min"
- Taps aff: Take the clothing off the top half of your body.
- Sleekit: Sly, sneaky, cunning. (Can also mean streamlined, if used to describe an object)
- Peely-wally: feeling (or looking) off-colour, pale, sick
- Blootered: very drunk
- Ya beauty: Exclamation (usually loud) of joy about something excellent that's just been observed. A try scored against the English at a rugby match usually qualifies :)
- Bampot: an idiot or foolish person, or a mad person
- Aye right: I don't believe you.
- Beamer: When a person's face blushes (goes red) with embarrassment they're said to have a beamer
- Glaikit: someone that is stupid or foolish, or sometimes someone that's acting without thought, or someone that's a bit eccentric.
- Gallus: someone that's being bold or daring, often in a mischievous way. The sentence before or after commonly contains the word 'blootered' (see above).
- Drookit: very wet, drenched
- Crabbit: Very grumpy, or bad-tempered
- Wabbit: exhausted, very tired, no energy left
If you're interested in learning more about the Scots language, and seeing a Scots 'word of the week', I recommend the Dictionaries of Scots Language.
I grew up in the North East of Scotland where The Doric, a Scots dialect, is more commonly used. You can read more about that dialect here, and download an excellent guide with examples of common usage from the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.