Mair Crack Anent Plants
When the whin’s no in flower, kissin’s oot o season.
A wee bush is better nor nae bield
Weeds showing in a field between ploughed ridges are said to be ‘up like lupin’
A fresh new garden or reclaimed field is said to as ‘as green as leeks’
• • • • •
‘Bricht the pea that speels the sally’. This line from one of James Orr’s poems (the Bard of Ballycarry) roughly means ‘lovely is the pea climbing the willow cane’.
• • • • •
Sally Rods were cut for making baskets, or as ‘scobes’ for thatching. Francis Boal (the Bard of Comber) wrote a poem in 1811 about a basket-maker called ‘Owre Hamely’, with the following verse:
He cow’t the knowes whar grey saughs grew
An’ guid aish suchers left but few
He down the willow wands did hew
An’ Alders young
He snig’t the holly souples through
An’ hazel rung.
• • • • •
No Sae Daft Eddie
Mr P: Have you ever seen a red blackberry ?
Eddie: Sure wud blackberries no a’ be red whan they’re green.
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A new edition of Michael Montgomery’s From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English recounts the lasting impact that at least 150,000 settlers from Ulster in the 18th century made on the development of the English language of the United States. This new edition published by the Ulster-Scots Language Society documents over 500 ‘shared’ vocabulary items which are authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. A searchable online version of this dictionary is now also available here.
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