“Ye’d Freeze Yer Baws Aff” – Scots in the Wild

Welcome to “Scots In The Wild”, where I find snippets of Scots in my day-to-day life, and we talk about them. Given that this is our first of many (I hope!) I’m going to keep it relatively simple. Today’s One In The Wild is a little back-and-forth dialogue I happened across on internet Hellscape #1. Given that it’s been a chilly week in Scotland, it’s quite seasonally appropriate.

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Okay, so I realise none of these commenters were expecting to be used for a linguistic discussion. This was just a snippet of a wider discussion about golfing in Scotland in January.

Thing is, this perfectly highlights two common Scots writing pitfalls: apologetic apostrophes and trying to backwards engineer English into Scots.

Let’s break down some Scots

• #1: You’d fucking freeze ya balls
• #2: You’d fookin’ freeze ya balls
• #3: Ye wid fukin’ freeze aff yer baws
• #4: Ye wid freeze yer fuckin baws aff

I doubt that #1 was trying to emulate a Scottish accent in any way, but #2 certainly thought they were – although, the ‘oo’ sound certainly throws me for a loop.

I approach all the Scots I read with bias – for my own local accent – but others had the same issue as me.

However, they suggested the ‘oo’ was a more ‘Irish’ accent.

Given that Irish accents are dramatically variable, I don’t know about that. It brings to mind – for me at least – certain towns in Northern England.

However, #3 is where things get set straight; they swap you’d for ye wid which I’d argue is more accurate — ye’d at least! — and goes straight for the baws. This is probably the most important distinction you can make.

Baws is an integral part of modern Scottish lexicon, grievously ignored by the DSL. Balls aren’t necessary in Scots; we hae ba’s fer the pairk, an ye micht hae baws doon yer troosers. Ye micht een ken a few bawbags.

The word baw in all its formats, is an essential ‘rude’ word, exclamation, insult – you name it. It’s part of our charm. Who remembers Cyclone Friedhelm? Probably not many of you

What about Hurricane Bawbag? Possibly one of Scotland’s finest moments, bursting onto the global stage baws oot.

So that’s what #3 did right. But what did they do wrong?

First off, we’re still stuck with the apologetic apostrophe. At some point I’ll create a more thorough guide to what it is and how it works in Scots.

For now: it’s used to make Scots words and their pronunciation more apparent compared to their English counterparts. Ie. Deil becomes de’il, becomes devil.

There are legitimate ways to use an apostrophe in Scots, but as a rule: if the whole composition is in Scots, it’s unnecessary to include apostrophes – especially for something as fundamental as the end of an ‘-ing’.

The issue with the syntax is harder to crack. This is something you’ll easier pick up in conversation than on paper. Here’s my best approximation.

“Freeze aff yer baws” is an almost soft sounding sentence: ee next to ff is almost a soft hiss.

Try saying it aloud; it’s hard to say the ‘freeze’ and ‘aff’ and have it be natural.

A lot of Scots structures change the order of things, it’s a rougher and choppier linguistic style almost.

“Freeze yer baws aff” splits the ee and the ff and adds that trademark growly ‘r’ right in the middle, emphasising baws, and letting ‘aff’ roll at the end of the sentence.

Of course, as with anything, there’s no definitive way tae freeze yer baws

Learning syntax is an ongoing thing and unfortunately requires you talk to Scottish people. Each area has its own linguistic quirks.

A lass fae Glasgae an a quine fae Aberdeen won’t always call you a bawbag in the same order.

Until next time — this has been “Scots in the Wild”!