h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

An oldie but goodie for gthis day, 2th Jan...

Charles Windsor is visiting a hospital. He's shown into a ward, approaches a patient and says,
"Hello. And how long have you been a patient?"
And the guy in the bed says,
"Fair fa' yr honest, sonsie face!"
"Oh, jolly good..." says HRH, somewhat confused and moves to the next bed. "And are you a patient too?"
"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us!" comes the reply.
Totally perplexed now he moves onto the next bed.
"Wee cowrin' timrous beastie!" says the patient.
Chuck turns to the hospital official accompanying him.
"I say, I can’t understand a word these chaps are saying. What is this? The psychiatric ward?"
"No," comes the reply, "It’s the Burns unit."


Make sure you celebrate with a spot of Houghmagandie!

It's Greek to me!

...monarch of the pooden race...

Akshully...

"Great chieftan o' the puddin-race"

(Aboon them a' ye tak your place/ Painch, tripe, or thairm)

You can get very tasty vegetarian ones these days.

That reminds me, there's a wee dram o' Glenmorangie round here somewhere ....
What was that hilarious TV series set in the Glasgow I used to enjoy? There's was a down an' oot, a ne'er do well, an' their wives an' kids. In one episode they won a holiday to the Costa del Sol, I seem to remember.

Rab C. Nesbitt?

YES! Thank you King Bomba!

Specifically, Rab C wis fae Govan. My wife used to work in Govan. At first she resisted watching Rab C, assuming that it would be portraying offensive stereotypes. But when she finally relented...she agreed that it was 100% accurate!

She used to run a Social Work project on Govan High Street. One year there was a very cold snap over the Winterval holiday and everyone's pipes froze. She got a phone call from the Polis on New Year's Day telling her that water was gushing out from the projects front security door. I was volunteered to go along with her to 'do something'. As I stood outside with one of those long T-bar things, wondering what to do, I was immediately surrounded by a mob of disgruntled Govanites:
"Haw! Are yis fae ra cooncil? Oor watter's aff!"

I remember driving through Sterling one sunny afternoon and was amazed to see 3 or 4 Rab C Nesbitts types (incl. a couple of that other character, his best pal, sitting together) on a brick wall at the side of a betting office and a selling-oot shop.

I mourn the passing of the string vest from fashion outlets.

I think it's possible that LLl was driving though StIrling. Unless he means he was driving through a big pile of money.

I'm mortified that nobody has spotted the relevance of my nickname. Uncultured shower!

Burns unit indeed!

(sorry, googled it)

Try googling 'Houghmagandie'!

Aye, 'twas noble Stirling I meant!

Doric prose . . . how official is the spelling? If o is the equivalent of of, why does it get a napostrophe? Trouble is, it looks to the untutored eye like the spelling out of an accent. If out is pronounced oot, isn't that understood, without spelling it oot?

Scribimus indocti doctique!

Selling-oot shop (Unofficial Lucky Llareggub Dictionary)
An off-licence or off-sales sometimes attached to a public house or other premises for the sale of beer, porter, wines or spirits on and/or off the premises.



Twas a slip of the pen. But then I thowt it fit to lie.

Hmm. I suppose that Burns's Ayrhire dialect hadn't been standardised in the way that Johnson did it for mainstream English. This does make it very difficult to quote Burns accurately.

It wasn't Doric, though. That name normally pertains to the quite distinct north-eastern dialect. Doric and Lallans are mutually unintelligible. During the 'Cod Wars' of the 1970s, the Royal Navy momentarily thought they had intercepted the Icelandic Navy's radio frequencies. It turned out to be the chatter between the Peterhead skippers.

That reminds me:-

In my office in the North-West of England there worked a dour Glaswegian with a Rab C. Nesbitt dialect. One day he received a phone call from Aberdeen about a simple matter. There was much shouting and swearing and almost bursting of a blood vesselwhen he finally thrust the phone into my hand almost in despair: "Can yoos deal with this mon? I kenna stand a bleeding word from this, this, this ... Aberdonian".