Monday, November 19, 2007

Och aye the noo

There was an item on tonight's Feedback on Radio 4 about Scottish voices. (Feedback responds to listeners's letters.) One lady said (more or less), 'It's not that I don't like the Scots but do we have to have them on Radio 4?' Another lady said she couldn't understand what they said. They were amongst a number of people who've been complaining about the recent increase in Scottish voices.

I love the Scottish accent, and I've not noticed any more of it. But then again I don't think of James Naughtie as Scottish so maybe I'm not the most observant of creatures.

But for people to actually take the time to write in ...

6 comments:

mdmhvonpa said...

I'm just not sure why there is such a dislike for scotts ... I's like the folks on the east/west coast not liking Mid-westerners ... wait ...

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

What a weird thing for that lady to say about not having them on R4! James Naughtie's is one of my favourite voices...

Mauigirl said...

I love the Scottish accent! Admittedly, some Scottish accents are easier to understand than others, but that doesn't bother me.

I remember we were in Scotland about 20 years ago on the Isle of Skye and we were way out on the outer part of the island and there was a shack on the side of the road with a sign saying sheepskins for sale.

We decided we wanted one as a souvenir, so we stopped and went in. There was this lovely young man there who sold us a great sheepskin (our dog loves lying on it to this day!) and we had a nice conversation with him. He must have been a native Gaelic speaker because we could hardly understand a word he said!

We did gather that the ruined church around the bend in the road once was burned to the ground by the MacDonalds of the Island of Uist, with our friend's McLeod ancestors worshipping within it. They were all killed, so the remaining McLeods went over to Uist and killed a bunch of MacDonalds. The interesting thing is this happened like 300 years ago, and he was still mad at those MacDonalds, and the ruined church is still there. My husband took a great picture of the church. Anyway, I digress. I love accents of all kinds!

Anonymous said...

She dinna laik Scots fowk blethrin on her wee radio?

She canna unnerstan whit we sae?

The ither year, Burns nicht : me a ree ray in ma waddinbraws. Twa faikin fums (agnats) shue laik scowpers. I lerb twa jutes, muckle manky jutes, an gledge a redhieded peronall. Ah skleush ower tae her, fer tae splunt thae loorach. Wi thae fower bask jutes, ah thrammle like a kenspeckle kensy, an partle tae rush instead o ma whaisk frae sculduddery ;-)

There now miss, you missed the joke, maybe that's what annoys you?

jmb said...

My Dad was a Scot so I certainly am fond of the accent.
I had to laugh watching a program one time where they were interviewing some Scots and they had subtitles underneath for the Americans. However some of them are definitely broader than others.

Liz Hinds said...

It's an English thing, mdm!

I was surprised to hear the comments, welshcakes.

It's a clan thing, mauigirl!

Okay, Dr Stu, I give up. I don't understand the joke!

Sub-titles?! Gosh. I suppose some dialects are a lot harder to understand than others.