d'ye ken it?

Today's soundtrack:
"Sinner Man" by Nina Simone

Just when you think you've got this Scottish business all figured out, they throw Burns' Night at you.

Technically, this was my second Burns' Night.  The first was years ago up at Malaspina and resulted in one broken chair, several bad fake Scottish accents, and a propensity to sing "The Hundred Pipers" in the shower.  That being said, this was my first really Scottish Burns' Night and it was wonderful.  Our neighbours invited us over for a proper dinner of haggis, neeps, and tatties, alongside fiddles, good poetry (and some bad), and enough beer to keep everyone afloat.  Along the way I learned that neeps are turnips, swede is rutabaga, and tatties are potatoes.  Also, vegetarian haggis is delightful.

A few days later I was at the local knitting afternoon and met a woman who spoke only in Scots.  Now, I thought I'd be able to understand Scots because a few days earlier I'd done not too badly understanding Burns.  That was folly.  But with a fair bit of patience on the part of the knitters, I managed to learn a few new Scots words.  My new favourite is scunnert.

Scunnert means fed up and knackered.  For example, "I'm scunnert with this knitting pattern".  Sic scunnert is really fed up.  Replace "knitting pattern" with "hormonal teenager" and you're just about there.

Also, ken, which means to know (as a verb) or knowledge (as a noun), is a handy one.. well.. tae ken.

The real shame is that listening to BBC Scotland will not result in understanding the Scots language.  Scottish English, sure, but not Scots.  According to my local sources, Scots was the language of the playground while RP English was the language of the classroom.  As a result, Scots is considered a less-educated form of speech, which is a real shame because it's so much more evocative than English.  Could I be any more accurately described than as crabbit when I wake up every morning?  Devoted readers will already know of my admiration.. and simultaneous distain.. for droukit.  Is there a better word for a dreary, gloomy day than dreich?  While I doubt I'll ever be able to speak it (having a Scottish accent would help), I'm hoping that with a few more years here I'll understand a bit more of Scots.

At the very least, it'd be nice to read a Burns' poem without having to look at the glosses every other word.  And it'd do wonders for my daily rendition of "The Hundred Pipers".