SUSAN TIPPETT BRAITHWAITE

Welcome to the second post in the revamped Things in Scots series. In this incarnation of TiS, I’m sharing the Scots language found in my upcoming romantic suspense novel, Running the Asset.

My aims for this series are to share my first language and to sneak in a wee bit of beta testing. Think of it as a cheaty way of making sure that the Scots words are easy to understand via context rather than explanations. Unless the explanation route is natural to the story and/or leads to sexy times (that could/might/totally will happen).

This week’s snippet might look familiar to some of you. Part of it appeared on the site in October last year in full/braid Scots as part of the Scotstober challenge for the word dreich.

Here’s the snippet… (unedited first draft)

Heat. Flames. The bone-shaking roar. The blast ripped through the air, knocking Adam hard to the ground. He tried to lever himself off the ground, but his vision was doing a slow spin to the relentless ringing in his lugs.

He tried again only to have the wind knocked out of him by something sent barrelling by the stampedeing crowd. With rough hands, Adam rolled the dead weight off him to the pavement. Shit. The terror stricken eyes of a teenaged lassie stared up at him from a blood stained face.

Running the Asset (Deniable Unit #1)

Okay, this is actually a Scots word twofer. First is lugs which is the Scots for ears. The second is lassie, which I think most folks know is one of the many Scots words for girl.

And that’s it

I hope you enjoyed this post. I’d love to hear your comments on how easy or difficult it was to get the gist of lugs and lassie as they appeared in the quote. 

I said last time that this wasn’t exactly a challenge series, but I’ve decided to go with making it one. So, if you find yourself inspired by the Scots words I share, add the tag #TiS or #ThingsinScots to your writing/art/photo post and drop your link in the comments.

If you want to see more Scots posts, check out the original series, Things in Scots.

Thanks for reading. Take care, and I hope to see you next week for more Scots on Manuscript Mondays!