Monday night in our house.
I'm reading at the table, J's on her computer and daughters number one and two are watching a Mexican telenovela on a laptop. Why they are watching this I'm not sure.
I can't see the screen but I can hear it. It's a programme that seems to consist of extended screaming. In Spanish. "It's madder than Hollyoaks," daughter number two says approvingly.
Between the bouts of screaming they are discussing language and accents [1]. "What does the word 'shun' mean?" daughter number two asks. "Ignoring someone," daughter number one replies. "Turning your nose up at them."
"Like dingying them," says daughter number two.
"Like what?" I say.
"You dingy people you don't want to talk to, Dad."
This is a new word to me. I'm trying to get my head around the possible derivations [2]. Come to think of it, when I first came to Scotland I used to tell everyone I was starving when I was cold. For years people - OK, J - laughed at this. It got to the point where I started to believe I'd been confused. But not so. The word "starve" descends from the Old English word "steorfan", meaning die. In the 14th century starve came to mean "die of cold". And then later it morphed again to mean to die of hunger [3]. But Ulster - as is so often its way - has just hung on to the old ways.
Back in the room the conversation has moved on. "At college everyone says the central Scottish accent is the worst," daughter number one tells us. A Falkirk bairn, she sounds a little put out. "Really? And I take it that's Glaswegians saying that?" I ask.
"I always think Glaswegian men either sound as camp as Christmas or as hard as girders," J says. "It's only ever one or the other." In my head I start to divide the Glaswegians I know into one category or the other.
"Everyone says the Alloa accent is the worst," daughter number one continues. I'm not sure if these are Weegies saying this or her fellow Bairns. If it's the latter I suspect we're talking local rivalries.
Another bout of Spanish screaming interrupts things. It occurs to me then that the idea of the central Scottish accent as some kind of sonic abrasive makes no sense to me. How could it be when J talks in it? The Denny version. So in fact my entire romantic life has more or less been played out in it. You Weegies are so wrong about the central Scottish accent. For some of us it's an aphrodisiac.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Noam Chomsky has nothing on us.
[2] Answers on a postcard.
[3] Linguists call this process semantic narrowing. Don't say I never teach you anything.
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