Fankled

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Earlier this year, we received an email from longtime listener Gordon Walker in Anaheim, California.

Gordon wrote to say,

My wife is Scottish, born in the Isle of Man, raised in Scotland until she was 25, when I got her to come over here and marry me. Over here means America.

He goes on to say, there is a big difference between standard Scots English and standard English English, which I, side note, Martha, is an understatement.

It would be interesting to have a program where you discuss the differences and where they come from.

Now, as you know, that wasn’t the last we heard from Gordon.

No, it was not.

Gordon wrote a bit later and again and again to give us some examples of the Scots that he’s picked up from his wife, like Finkle, F-A-N-K-L-E.

Did you remember that one, Martha?

Fankle? F-A-N-K-L-E? It sounds cute and small and negative.

Yeah, well, it means messed up or confused. Very good. What made you think that was negative?

Fankle. This telephone cord is all fankled.

There we go. It’s interesting. You should say telephone cord because fank means a coil of rope.

Oh, it does?

Yeah, or to fank means to mess up or to confuse something.

And so Gordon wrote to give us some tips on how we could talk about Scots.

And Gordon, here we are talking about Scots English.

If you want to send us an email on the subject, by all means do so, and we’ll talk a little bit more about it later on.

Well, if you’d like to talk about Scott’s English or any other kind of English, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.