In our September issue, we visited Glasgow in our My City pages. If you were inspired to a visit yourself, here’s a little primer on how to speak like a true Weegie while you’re there.
Awa' an bile yer heid
Meaning: ‘Go away and boil your head.’ Or get lost, take a hike, etc etc.
Baltic
Meaning: Cold (etymology fairly obvious, and Glaswegians know a thing or two about the cold, so if THEY say it’s Baltic out there, we believe them.)
Bampot
Meaning: Idiot, probably derived from the English word ‘barmpot’, a pot for storing yeast.
Coupon
Meaning: Face, likely from the French ‘couper’, meaning ‘to cut. It’s thought French soldiers in battle referred to decapitated heads of the enemy as ‘coupons’, and that somehow filtered through to the streets of Glasgow,
Hee-haw
Meaning: Nothing. The sound a donkey would make, or a loud laugh. As in “how much is in your wallet?” “Absolute hee haw!”
Wean
Meaning: child, as in a baby who would be weaned off the breast.
Scunnered
Meaning: Disgusted. From the old Scots ‘skunnyr’ meaning to flinch or shrink back from.
Piece
Meaning: a sandwich or slice of bread. As in a ‘jeely piece’ (jam sandwich). A piece referred to a piece of bread but it came to mean a sandwich, too. Not that a true ‘piece’ is not a tidily cut-up sarnie but a couple of slices of bread, stuffed with filling that probably falls on your top as you eat it.
Haud yer wheest
Meaning: shut up. Wheesht once existed in English as ‘whisht’ and both simply mean ‘shush’.
Greet
Meaning: To cry, coming from the Old English ‘gret’. A ‘greetin’ face’ is a cry baby.
You can read all about Anna Pande’s Glasgow in our armchair travel pages, My City, in our September issue.
