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Evertype: Alice in Wonderland -- in Shetland Scots!


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DePooperit, my understanding of the origin of "Der" was actually from John Graham's Shetland Dictionary.

 

It's not a lack of understanding at all - I disagree with you in relation to the origin(I believe it is a norse relic) but I didn't say or suggest that this is why it's a little piece of dialect treasure - I said that because it is and isn't a simple morphing of an english word like Dere's > There's.

 

I have no problem accepting that some words are Scots and some are Norse.

 

I'm not saying this in a bad way but what I can't understand is your(apparant) anti-norse attitude.

 

It has echoes of Shetlandforwirds anti-norse leanings and whose dialect writings are an abortion.

 

Sometimes I think some people can't see the wood for the trees......

 

I don't have an anti-Norse attitude. What I am anti is the tendency for the Shetland tongue to be seen as of value only insofar as it is seen in relation to something else, because constant concentration on aspects such as etymology distract from the fact that the Shetland tongue, as spoken by my generation at any rate, is, or was, a coherent linguistic system in its own right, irrespective of where its words originate from.

 

The reason I might have seemed to be anti-Norse on Shetlink is that most of the opinions which crop up here tend to be from the Norn perspective. Where these contain erroneous statements I argue against them because, unlike most people who make pronouncements on 'dialect', I happen to know some of the facts, not just mythologise about them. One of the worst erroneous statements was Deardron's claim that some obviously Scots piece of grammar was Norse; another was ex-isle's challenge to find 'my Scots' in some examples he gave, which I then did. It seems that people don't want their mythologies challenged by a scientific approach. 'Dialect' isn't something you're supposed to know about, and people resent it when you do.

 

The Shetland tongue has both Norse and Scots aspects, and I am equally opposed to Nornomania - representing as Norn what isn't - and what I call Nornophobia - an apparent fear on the part of the Shetland intelligentsia and media of recognising the Norn aspects. The difference is that most of those people, being part of the establishment, don't stoop to argue with the plebs on Shetlink, being secure in the knowledge that their position is the mainstream one and only requires the odd dig and jibe against any threat of 'dialect' getting beyond its station to be maintained. Therefore I don't argue with them on Shetlink, and therefore I seem to be anti-Norse. But it's just a selection anomaly. What I'm doing is presenting a scientific view of what the Shetland tongue is in opposition to the erroneous views which are used to bolster conflicting mythoideologies, and between which the language itself falls - which is the actual aim of the Nornophobe position, and the inadvertent result of the Nornomaniac one.

 

There has been the odd example of Nornophobia, such as when Malachy objected to the word 'Shetlandic' because it sounded Nordic. Why shouldn't it sound Nordic - Shetland has a long Nordic tradition? But in general, Nornophobes don't bother to argue - they don't have to. The word 'Shetlandic' is despised by the Shetland population anyway, largely, I suspect, owing to its deliberate omission by the Shetland media - which might have made it familiar enough to be acceptable - and its replacement by the deliberately vague and undefinable 'dialect'. Speakers of 'dialect' are definitively influenced, in their views about this, by usage in the English-language media, now largely controlled by people who speak only English. The term 'Shetland Scots' - more acceptable to the mainstream Shetland intelligentsia and media than 'Shetlandic' with its connotations of a specific identity - will now probably become the accepted term, now that 'Shetlandic' with its threat of giving the tongue an identity of its own has been definitively seen off.

 

Examples of Nornophobia are more likely, then, to crop up in the mainstream media than on Shetlink. One example was the first paper in Dialect '04, given by Brian Smith, where he started by quoting Thomas Hardy - thus placing the Shetland dialect on the same basis as any English dialect of England - and mentioned Norn only to 'get it out of the way.' This sort of obscurantism reflects the attitudes of an Anglophonograph intelligentsia to which you have to conform if you are to continue producing 'dialect' writing - one of the reasons I have stopped doing so, and probably why ShetlandForWirds appear to be Nornophobiac - if they weren't, they wouldn't survive the jibes of the likes of Smith and Tom Morton for an instant. The only reason they survive as is, is that the intelligentsia know that their present approach offers no threat to the established, Scoto-British attitude to language. Nornomania is a gift to the Nornophobes as well, because it gives them something which they can legitimately criticise.

 

I object, incidentally, to anyone's writing being described as 'an abortion' without some detailed analysis to justify such a statement. My own writing was described in this way by Brian Smith in the same address - another reason I have given up writing. The bottom line is that anything at all written in 'dialect' will be described as an 'abortion' by someone, because ultimately standard English is the only written language acceptable in a society like Shetland.

 

The other aspect of this is the Unst-based dictionary effort - Norn words highlighted in blue (again, reducing the tongue to an etymology mine), irrelevant arguments about the spellind of 'da' as 'de' (because of the spelling in Jakobsen's dictionary, which is Danish, not Norn at all), done, as far as I can gather, by people who don't write 'dialect', and in general gifting the Nornophobes a Nornomaniac approach which they can use as a foil.

 

I do not, in any case, see why there is a necessity to try to identify Norn where it isn't, when there are vast numbers of Norn words in the Shetland tongue already. Or there would be, if part of the aim of Nornophobia was not to reduce that tongue to a Lowest Common Dialect which can be written off the cuff by any English speaker and still be commended as good dialect literature.

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^ I wid sae wi you wi maist o' yun. Hoosumivver I wid ventir dat you're been affroed fae kerryin on ritein yoursell be precious little o' ony wirt. Dir nane yunder it kens bettir is ony idder een o' wiz aboot Shetlan, dir aw gotten da laer dey hae fae an among fornirs onywye, an maistlee biddin and wrocht among da sam....Hit widna be saein rang da windir foo muckle dir hed's ir been turnid I dunna tink.

 

Noo, an dis is laekly juist da twartered an traan side o' me cumin furt, if I wiz ta rite ocht a Shetlan, an I'll no, fur hits no me, I wid be blyde if hit aw med estableeshed "experts" most wrath - Fur I wid ken den it I man be duhin sum o' hit richt, and hit wid spur me on ta mak aw da mair.

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@ DePooperit:

 

Ahh....I did not intend my assertion that the translation is literal to be taken so literally (pardon the pun). The point I was trying (and apparently failed) to make, is that when considered as an overall passage, it comes over as more of a literal translation than an actual one. As you quite rightly point out, certain phrases etc have been "translated" somewhat which makes it not a word for word translation, but (IMHO) more than enough English sentence structure, phraseology, grammar and punctuation remains to conclude it is more "English" than Shetland. I'd describe it as "tweaked", ie. enough Shetland has been inserted in place of the original to give it a Shetland "flavour", but the end result is not entirely Shetland by a long shot. Put it this way, if a Shetland speaker was asked to read the relevant passage in the original book, then write it or speak in in their natural tongue, this is nothing like what would be produced.

 

I'm not going to argue that I have fallen in to the "trap", if indeed it is a trap, of judging the piece according to Shetland as I know it. Its the only version I know, so how else can I judge it? I will argue though that I am criticising it on the basis that I consider the version I know as being the only "authentic" form of Shetland, far from it, I would contend that there is no one "authentic" version of Shetland, but numerous ones. However, what is written in this passage I have never come across any Shetlander speaking unless perhaps a handful in Lerwick and a few incomers who have been here quite a long time. I would further contend that writings such as this which attempt to write in a Shetland "style" by effectively borrowing bits from here and there among the many variants does far more harm than good. It creates a mish mash that virtually no-one actually speaks or has spoken, and pleases none of the people none of the time. Where speech has such wide variants as a syllable being correctly pronounced as "ik", "ook" and "week" depending upon the speaker's exact origins, I would argue any attempt to create speech "common" to all is always going to meet with negativity all round, as its nothing to no-one. Either you preserve as many variants as possible equally (a Herculean task), or you let it all go where its fast going already, to the grave.

 

 

This is the nub of the problem. It is, in fact, a description of one aspect of the prevalent dialect ideology - not the Lowest Common Dialect ideology, which is one aspect and the most influential one, but the Infinite Variation ideology. Put as simply as possible, you cannot preserve all the variants of 'dialect' - because, ultimately, it varies not only with locality but with each individual - therefore this is not a mere Herculean, but an impossible task by definition. Moreover, you cannot 'preserve' language, because language changes anyway. An example of how dialect ideology falls between two stools is that, whereas Infinite Variation ideology insists on preserving unpreservable nuances, Lowest Common ideology uses the idea of language change to justify regarding anything at all that varies from standard English as 'dialect'. Atween dis twa stuils da er*e faas trowe.

 

At the bottom of this problem is the conception of Shetland speech as 'dialect'. Dialect, conceived of as 'dialect', cannot be 'preserved' - it is too local, too individual, and too ephemeral. What can be done - and what is done in places like Catalonia or Faroe where they take their native tongue seriously - is to establish a common framework which can accommodate the various strains of dialect within it. Both the Lowest Common and the Infinite Variation mythologies have managed to represent this approach as killing off variation, leaving the field open to the thing that is really killing off the Shetland speech - standard English, as promoted by the entire mainstream British society, media and education. As I was saying, this state of affairs is welcomed by most Shetlanders. The irony is that those who do not welcome it are still hoodwinked by the mythologies of the dialect ideologies, and by Nornomania, Nornophobia, or some combination of these.

 

 

As regards your cited example, viz:

 

"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw around, "lives a Hatter:

 

"Doon yon wye," said da Cat, wavin his richt paa aboot, "der a Hat-makker at bides:

 

I would contend the translation should be:

 

Den, is he flappit wi his richt fit athin dat ert, da cat sed, "dir a man it makks hats it bides ower yunder(oo)".

 

"Doon" means either literally "downhill" or "southwards", nothing else. Description of situation usually precedes repeating actual speech. Gesticulating with a limb in a particular direction doesn't constitute a "wave" as I know it, the meaning of "wave" is quite narrow. "Paw" I'd contend in not a Shetland word, animals either have a "fit" or a "cliv".

 

This of course is Shetland as I know it, I'm not suggesting that mine is any more "authentic" than the quoted "translated" statement, just illustrating two equally probable "correct" Shetland passages, which supposedly say exactly the same thing, but end up being so different in composition and structure. In turn illustrating why I believe a Shetland "style" piece of writing is so wrong, and displeases everybody.

 

 

This exactly illustrates what I was saying. The main difference I see between your translation and the published one is style. Any language can accommodate a variety of styles, and, conceived as a language, so could the Shetland tongue. Conceive of it as 'dialect', however, and there are no criteria other than personal taste - and, more often than not, prejudice - to go by. And, as you point out, the result of trying to please everybody - by the pseudo-inclusive Lowest Common Dialect approach - is to displease everybody. That, of course, is grist to the mill of the viewpoint which regards standard English as the only real language anyway.

 

In every language - and calling it 'dialect' doesn't alter this fundamental fact, because it's a feature of natural spoken language and doesn't depend on what you call it - there are some aspects which can be represented as formal grammar (e.g: the fact that the 'dae' form takes a plural verb), others which are at the level of idiom and can't be so definitively described (e.g: the nuances of using an expression such as 'wi dat sam') and others which must remain at the level of individual style. The differences between your and the published translations are mostly at the last level. If there were a language described as 'Shaetlan' or 'Shetlandic' in English, these differences would be recognised as differences of style, which they are, whereas under the 'dialect' perception they are merely bundled in with everything else.

 

Another aspect of this question is the lack of literary precedent. Our experience of 'dialect' is only of the spoken form. But written language develops characteristics of its own. We don't notice this in standard English because we're so used to it. Another offshoot of the 'dialect' perception is that the Shetland tongue can never be allowed to develop the characteristics of a written language. And, as written language rarely if ever follows the exact nuances of speech, the Shetland tongue is caught in the impossible situation of being expected to be exactly like every individual reader speaks. Then, when it can't do that, it's dismissed as being artificial. The only answer is to have a recognised framework of formal grammar which then becomes accepted as a literary form. But that is a characteristic of language, not of 'dialect', and nobody in Shetland wants Sheltie Prattle to climb out of the ess and sharn and go to the ball.

 

As far as the examples you give are concerned, when I read ‘Doon yun wye’ I imagined that the cat was pointing to somewhere downhill. Does the context prohibit this? I can’t see how you can complain on the one hand about over-literal translation, and then on the other not allow the translator any free reign for imagining the situation. You seem to me to be moving the goalposts to where you want to kick the ball at the time. Your ‘Athin dat ert’ is a much more literal translation than the published one. I’d have said, or written, ‘Ower yunder’ or ‘Ower yundroo’ but again it seems to me to be a difference of style. And I have in any case long ceased to present any of my own renditions to the bulldozer of comprehensive Shetland negativism.

 

Your comment that ‘ Description of situation usually precedes repeating actual speech.’ is purely a result of the fact that ‘dialect’ is usually spoken and not written. In the phrase:

 

"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw around, "lives a Hatter:

 

the phrase ‘the Cat said, waving its right paw around’ is a narrative tag. It is part of the convention of writing that such tags can come before, after, or in the middle of the speech, depending on the writer’s style and flow at the time. The actual speech, wherever the tag occurs, is ‘In that direction lives a Hatter.’ The only reason I can conceive of as to why you think this is wrong in the Shetland version is that you are unfamiliar with ‘dialect’ as a written medium (writings incorporating ‘dialect’ usually have the narrative tags in English) and react against any attempt to use it as such with the conventions that any written medium must use to be a written medium, instead of the conventional English method of having the dialogue in ‘dialect’ and the narrative - the voice of the author rather than the character - in English. The underlying presupposition is that ‘dialect’ is for the voices of characters who are written about by writers rather than the voices of writers who write.

 

The idea that ‘paw’ isn’t a Shetland word is completely alien to me. A ‘cliv’ is a what a horse or cow has, a ‘paa’ is what a cat or dog has, and a ‘fit’ could apply to any of them. I’ve been telling dogs to ‘Gie’s a paa’ since I was about three. Again, this is an example of some completely localised, or individualised, usage, or lack of it. Similarly the idea that ‘wave’ is very restricted in meaning - I just don’t see this at all. Your entire approach, it seems to me, is to restrict language in a way which makes it effectively unusable, just as the Lowest Common Dialect approach expands it in a way which makes it ultimately meaningless.

 

It seems to me that you have fallen into the trap of what I call ‘Snapshotism.’ That is, most speakers of any speech form reduced to the status of ‘dialect’ are aware of it only as a snapshot in time and place - their own time and place - and insofar as they are aware of variations they are likely to object to or ridicule them. I have heard Shetlanders describe pronunciations from about ten miles away as ‘hideous.’ This, again, is grist to the mill of the proponents of standard English as the only language accorded any written status above the level of cartoons, and poetry which hardly anyone reads anyway, because we all accept standard English without any of these prejudices. By contrast, speakers of a ‘language’ - such as English, or Faroese - are familiar with the various styles and registers, as well as the historical development, of their own language.

 

 

As regards "Dunna Chuck Bruck", "chuck" to me is not Shetland, its English slang, if you are going to throw something, you bal it. "Bruck" I would contend, as used in the slogan is the incorrect word, now had they chosen "brucks" instead, that would have been better, even if it would have been something of a mis-usage, it would have been near enough to do. "Bruck" to me is a very rarely used word in Shetland, only ever used in the phrase "lok o' bruk" and preferred by a few too "prim and proper" to use the alternatives "lok o' hellery" or "lok o' sh*te". It has no other usage that I know of.

 

"Brucks" as I know it, is leftover/redundant/surplus/unsuitable for the job at hand, but not necessarily useless, as in "da brucks o' Yul" or "gie da dennir brucks ta da dug", so although it wouldn't have been entirely incorrect to direct it at discarded litter, by definition it does not cover "waste" of all sorts. Hence the preferred "sh*te", or its probably more socially acceptable alternatives "hellery" or "traash", which do cover all "waste" items.

 

 

 

There are a number of points here:

 

1. The fact that 'chuck' is English (whether slang or not I don't know - I would say 'colloquial' English) doesn't mean that it isn't Shetland as well. If it's used by a sufficient number of Shetlanders, then it is a Shetland word, whether it's shared with English or not. It seems perfectly natural to me, and I’m not a Toonie - I speak a traditional dialect of Shetland - all the more so, perhaps, since I have lived outwith Shetland since I was 18. Whether it would have been better to use 'bal' is another question. I do, however, see a slight problem with ‘bal’ in that’ to be equivalent to ‘chuck’, I would say ‘bal awa’ rather than just ‘bal’, and that wouldn’t make for a very memorable phrase.

 

2. I entirely disagree with the idea that 'bruck' is a rarely used word. In fact, to me, there is a definite distinction between 'bruck' and 'brucks'. 'Bruck' means 'rubbish' and 'brucks' - as you say - means left-overs, and would be a misuse in this context. 'Hellery' is to me a much more figurative word - I would never use it in the context of ordinary rubbish. To me it either means 'rubbish' in the figurative sense, or things which are perceived as being silly or superfluous - like Christmas decorations or fancy clothes or something! (Hence my liking for the phrase Up Hellery Aa, which would probably get me drummed out of Shetland if I ever appeared there again.) 'Sh*te' is just a Northern English form of English 'sh*t' and 'trash' - however many 'a' s you put in it - comes across to me as an Americanism - I’ve never heard it used in Shetland speech that I can recall. What makes these acceptable when ‘chuck’ is an ‘abortion’ beats me. 'Bruck' remains the most natural word for me for 'rubbish' and I would suggest that, rather than it being used by prim and proper people, it is a traditional usage which has been discarded by foul-mouthed people in certain localities who prefer to use scatological terms derived from English rather than traditional Shetland ones - a trend I've often noticed. In fact, the fact that it is still used by the people you regard as prim almost proves this - where would they have got the usage otherwise? The idea that words shouldn’t be used if they are regarded as ‘prim’ seems to me to be part of the idea that ‘dialect’ is intrinsically disreputable - which is simply accepting the sociological strata to which it has been allocated by the Great and the Good in order to preserve their own position as the Great and the Good.

 

At bottom here seems to be a failure to appreciate the relationship between figurative and literal language. If a word like ‘bruck’ is used figuratively in a phrase like ‘lock o bruck’ it must derive from a literal precedent. If there were any intent to build up the Shetland tongue - which there isn’t - then words like this would be having their scope of usage increased, not restricted by the holes they happen to have been confined to by people’s propensity to resort to English swearwords. A second aspect of this is that many of the words which are regarded as being obsolete or confined to certain meanings are only obsolete or restricted in certain areas - I have come across this in being asked to remove the use of ‘can’ as an infinitive from my writings (as in the phrase ‘We winna can ta dui dat’) which is natural to me but has apparently died out in most areas. Other ‘dialect’ writers regard it as Burra, but it is much more likely that it has died out in their localities and just happens to have survived longer in Burra. Both the Lowest Common Dialect approach and the Infinite Variation approach would be against introducing it into a Common Shetlandic. Ironically, this usage - unlike many which are quoted as such - is almost certainly a genuine Norn one.

 

 

Yes, again I don't doubt Shetland as I know it clouds my opinion on this one and all, but again I can't think of anyone who would have actually naturally have said "Dunna Chuck Bruck" before the slogan was invented, unless perhaps again a few in Lerwick. Hmmm....Common theme developing perhaps?

 

I'll concede that it appears to have been a reasonably effective slogan, but I'm never going to get past the opinion that it is an abortive hotch potch of language and one of the most irritating pseudo-Shetland slogans ever thought up. It irritates me considerably more than someone saying "The Shetlands"....don't ask why though, as I don't know either. It just gets my hackles up on sight/sound.

 

 

I think this illustrates two things:

 

1. Slogans are rarely things that are naturally spoken - that’s what makes them slogans. To be memorable they have to be unusual. The rhyme in Dunna Chuck Bruck makes it memorable - and emphasises both a traditional Shetland usage (dunna) and a traditional Shetland word (bruck) where I still maintain that your view that it isn’t a natural usage is simply wrong. Dunna Bal Bruck micht have been better - replacing rhyme with alliteration - though less memorable. But ‘bal’ without ‘awa’ still sounds a bit strained to me in this context.

 

2. The irritation that you feel, I would propose, is not so much irritation with the phrase as such as unfamiliarity with the Shetland tongue being used outwith its traditional domains. If it were to be used as a general written medium, things like this would become just one more aspect of register - the ‘slogan’ register - among other registers that the tongue would be used for. As it is, it is almost impossible for anything to appear anywhere in any form of the Shetland tongue, except in the traditional domains of cartoons and poetry, without someone objecting - again, grist to the mill of the English-only hegemony. As long as anything written in Shetland offends anyone who speaks Shetland, there is no need for the archivists, journalists and others who preside over the exclusive dissemination of standard English to the masses to fear the loss of their privileged position as sole purveyors of linguistic mores, which is accepted by the majority of the Shetland population as part what might be described as their ‘settled will’ towards the relationship of the Shetland tongue to standard English. My own objection to the ‘Dunna Chuck Bruck’ sign is that this - along with Da Voar Redd Up and the Spaekalation column heading - has become one of the two or three token public appearances allowed to the Shetland tongue by the condescending local media. It is only because of a briefly more positive attitude towards the Shetland tongue in the past that they exist at all.

 

 

I'll agree with you though about "mad", it is angry in my world, but would contend the the Shetland equivalent(s) are haf-krak, lost dir judgmint, fairly krak and possibly entirelee deranged. With you too on the older and confusable words being rather "derided" by some, probably in the same way as the remnants of Norn were put down by the educated chantry of that day slowly killing it off. "Shetland Scots" I just chose not to comment on, its not right, its not entirely wrong either, but it hardly seemed worth making a fuss over as it informed of the thread contents to a reasonable degree. I just call it and spell it "Shetlan" and beggar what anybody thinks or says.

 

 

You’re not familiar with the word ‘vod’ then? It’s a familiar word to me with this meaning, so I’m surprised to be unable to find it in either Jakobsen or the Shetland Dictionary. It’s more familiar with the meaning of ‘empty’ as in ‘vod hoose’ of course, and may be the same word. I’m not familiar with ‘krak’ in this sense and can’t find it in Jakobsen either, except with the meaning of ‘emaciated.’ I assume it’s not ‘cracked’?

 

‘Entirely deranged’ is just English, however you spell it, as is ‘lost dir judgement’. Again, how you can recommend phrases like this as genuine Shetland equivalents while regarding ‘chuck’ as an ‘abortion’ is beyond me. The only principle I can find is that you object to any English word you find in written Shetland, but you yourself prefer certain English expressions to traditional Shetland words, especially if they are scatological terms.

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Chuck is English slang for "throwing out" say rubbish or can be a term of endearment. (Edited cos His lordship interrupted me mid-flow!)

 

Sh*te isn't used all over the north of England; in Lincolnshire it is sh*t, sh*ite being more Geordie.

 

I don't get your argument re "abortion", especially if you adopt your argument that words used in Shetland end up being Shetland words.

 

Personally, I hate reading "pigeon Shetland" in the local rag mag and whilst I may curse 'til the cows come home, I'd rather attempt to read and understand Ghostrider's lingo passed down through generations than a half-hearted attempt to please the masses.

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'trash' - however many 'a' s you put in it - comes across to me as an Americanism - I’ve never heard it used in Shetland speech that I can recall

 

Some words used in Shetland may well have crossed the Atlantic with Shetland sailors. I recall an article in the New Shertlander that traced "hellery" back to Canada.

 

My late dad used describe someone with no redeming features as "a trash", and a friend of mine from Sandwick once described a person to me he didn't like as "a venomous trash"

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Chuck is English slang for "throwing out" say rubbish or can be a term of endearment. (Edited cos His lordship interrupted me mid-flow!)

 

Chuck can also mean 'throw' as in 'Chuck the ball over here.'

 

Sh*te isn't used all over the north of England; in Lincolnshire it is sh*t, sh*ite being more Geordie.

 

Lincolnshire. North of England? Really?

 

 

Personally, I hate reading "pigeon Shetland"

 

Personally I hate, and I fully accept that it is not entirely rational to do so, your use of 'sarf' and 'peeps' on this very forum.

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Obviously 'trash' was used in some places. But that doesn't alter my main point, which is that Ghostrider, while deploring the use of 'chuck' as' English slang,' prefers 'trash' - which is certainly as much an English word as 'chuck' is, in the sense of not being peculiarly Shetland - to 'bruck' which is, if not peculiarly Shetland (certainly Orkney as well) at least characteristically Shetland. So we have:

 

Bal as against Chuck

Bruck as against Trash (or sharn) - I meant sh*te - (sigh).

 

In both cases, the left hand word is a particularly (if not exclusively) Shetland one, and the right one is also English. One would think that, from a 'purist' point of view, you would want to use the characteristic Shetland forms 'Bal' and 'Bruck'. To prefer 'trash' or 'sh*te' to 'bruck' while repudiating 'chuck' doesn't make sense.

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...

 

Sh*te isn't used all over the north of England; in Lincolnshire it is sh*t, sh*ite being more Geordie.

 

Lincolnshire. North of England? Really?

 

:roll:

 

Personally I hate, and I fully accept that it is not entirely rational to do so, your use of 'sarf' and 'peeps' on this very forum.

 

That's alrite Guv. :wink:

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Chuck is English slang for "throwing out" say rubbish or can be a term of endearment. (Edited cos His lordship interrupted me mid-flow!)

 

I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise. The point is that Ghostrider repudiates its use while recommending 'trash', which is equally English, as preferable to 'bruck'.

 

 

Sh*te isn't used all over the north of England; in Lincolnshire it is sh*t, sh*ite being more Geordie.

 

 

Not being used over all over the north of England doesn't mean that it isn't a northern English form - if that's what you're implying? Geordieland is in the North of England.

 

 

I don't get your argument re "abortion", especially if you adopt your argument that words used in Shetland end up being Shetland words.

 

 

Are you talking to me here? If so, I don't recall any argument of mine about abortion. Were you referring to something I said in particular?

 

 

Personally, I hate reading "pigeon Shetland" in the local rag mag and whilst I may curse 'til the cows come home, I'd rather attempt to read and understand Ghostrider's lingo passed down through generations than a half-hearted attempt to please the masses.

 

I would be interested to know what the characteristics of 'pigeon' (I think it's 'pidgin' BTW) Shetland are. There are kinds of Shetland writing I don't like either, but I could tell you exactly why - things like ignoring the traditional Shetland syntax in favour of uncritically following English grammar, for example. However, in the case of the Alice text, it seems to me that the translator is following traditional Shetland grammar, and is still being criticised for not doing so.

 

Both myself and Laureen Johnson - who translated Alice - are equally Shetland speakers whose language has been passed down through generations. What is it that makes this translation (or characteristics of it) unacceptable to Ghostrider? It certainly isn't an inferior pedigree. And why has my writing been used as a bad example to the extent that I have stopped writing it? Ghostrider's explanations of the things he doesn't seem to like about the Alice text - at least that small bit of it - don't seem to me to make sense, as I have explained in my post. And just talking about 'pigeon Shetland' without explaining exactly what is wrong with it is just invective.

 

My own view is that (a) there is an increasing amount of Shetland dialect written which is simply Shetland words forced into English structure, owing to the fact that the formalising of grammar - as in Grammar and Usage of the Shetland Dialect - is held to be inappropriate for' dialect,' and the general deterioration of the traditional forms, but that (B) this doesn't really make any difference, because any Shetland writing is going to be unacceptable to most people anyway. This is ultimately because Shetlanders in general are not - and do not want to be - literate in their own tongue, and reserve the right to judge it according to the 'snapshot' criterion that I spoke about earlier.

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Chuck is English slang for "throwing out" say rubbish or can be a term of endearment. (Edited cos His lordship interrupted me mid-flow!)

 

I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise.

 

You queried whether it was English slang.

 

Sh*te isn't used all over the north of England; in Lincolnshire it is sh*t, sh*ite being more Geordie.

 

Not being used over all over the north of England doesn't mean that it isn't a northern English form - if that's what you're implying? Geordieland is in the North of England.

 

Just merely giving an example of regional differences.

 

I don't get your argument re "abortion", especially if you adopt your argument that words used in Shetland end up being Shetland words.

 

Are you talking to me here? If so, I don't recall any argument of mine about abortion. Were you referring to something I said in particular?

 

Yes.

 

I would be interested to know what the characteristics of 'pigeon' (I think it's 'pidgin' BTW) Shetland are. ...

 

Oops, serves me right for not proof reading. :oops: I blame Ghostie for depriving me of nicotine. :wink:

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Obviously 'trash' was used in some places. But that doesn't alter my main point, which is that Ghostrider, while deploring the use of 'chuck' as' English slang,' prefers 'trash' - which is certainly as much an English word as 'chuck' is, in the sense of not being peculiarly Shetland - to 'bruck' which is, if not peculiarly Shetland (certainly Orkney as well) at least characteristically Shetland. So we have:

 

Bal as against Chuck

Bruck as against Trash (or sharn)

 

In both cases, the left hand word is a particularly (if not exclusively) Shetland one, and the right one is also English. One would think that, from a 'purist' point of view, you would want to use the characteristic Shetland forms 'Bal' and 'Bruck'. To prefer 'trash' or 'sh*te' to 'bruck' while repudiating 'chuck' doesn't make sense.

 

I beg to differ. On a personal level I never heard the word "chuck" used anywhere in Shetland by anyone prior to the late 70's - considering multi channel TV and a Ro-Ro service arrived 76/77, I would contend that there may be some sort of correlation, but it was maybe nothing more than it took that long for the word usage to filter down to my bit of the south end. "Trash" on the other hand was in common usage by the oldest members of the community as early as I can remember, as in. "Yea, boy, goadliss weet simmer dis, wir ayr o' hey is naethin bit lags o' wirtliss traash".

 

"Bruck" on the other hand I never heard used outwith the example previously given in my neck of the woods, and would speculate that today it is virtually obsolete, as those most likely given to using it in the example given have virtually all passed on now.

 

I'm not contending that "chuck" and "bruck" aren't valid Shetlan words, they may well be someplace in the isle, I'm just saying that in the spoken Shetlan I've personally experienced, the former IMHO hasn't been in common usage for long enough to distinguish whether it has become a permanent addition or a "trend" of a generation or two. The latter on the grounds that its use in the last half century has been minimal, in a different context, and has been steadily declining to have reached the point now of virtual extinction.

 

If I'm going to be accused of being a "purist" (whatever that may mean), I'm going to base that "purity" on what I have personal knowledge of having been in usage in the remembered past and what is in current usage, regardless of where it originated from, rather than disregard my own experiences in favour of an alternative just because it has unique usage somewhere else in Shetland. I largely learned my speech from my grandparents who were born almost 110 years ago, who in turn learned it from their parents who were born as much as over 150 years ago. While I realise spanning a 100-150 year of source and evolution is but a blink in the big picture, I would hope it counts as a little more than just a "snapshot" in speech that has after all only existed in one form or another for around 500 years.

 

Incidentally I agree with you concerning the "dialect" terminology and what follows on from it. I always describe Shetlan as a "language", as I believe it is (was?) sufficently alien from any other "language" to justify such a classification.

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"Bruck" on the other hand I never heard used outwith the example previously given in my neck of the woods, and would speculate that today it is virtually obsolete, as those most likely given to using it in the example given have virtually all passed on now.

 

 

I disagree. Bruck is a word that is in common usage among almost all Shetlanders (and even some non native, for want of a better term, Shetlanders) I know, and have known. It is one Shetland word which I think is likely to survive as the dialect becomes more and more Scotty/Anglo/American/ised with the passing of time.

 

Bruck - Rubbish - 'Dis shed is foo a bruck'

 

Brucks - Remains or parts of something 'I gie da dug da brucks o' me brakfast' or 'Hit took me da brucks o' da day t' win hom.

 

Bruck - To break up. I made dis fancies oot o' bruckett up biscuits.

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