SUSAN TIPPETT BRAITHWAITE

Welcome to 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.

Okay, this week’s word looks like the English word “greeting”, with the g missed off at the end. But that’s where the similarities end with this Scots word.

Here’s the snippet… (unedited first draft)

Elle’s gamble had paid off. Though, it may have cost her emotionally to do it. Not that Adam cared. An asset’s mental wellbeing wasn’t his concern. All that mattered was getting the drive and ending the Consortium’s weapons trade. Besides, caring got assets killed.

She hadn’t reacted the way he’d thought she would. He’d expected her to be a greetin mess, but she was dry-eyed and radiating rage. So much so that even Ward had picked up on it enough to stay out of her way.

Running the Asset (Deniable Unit #1)

Hopefully, you can see that greetin in this context means crying without sounding too explainy.

Greetin comes from the verb greet, which means to cry, weep, complain, and grumble. As a noun, it means sob, a crying fit. Bonus phrase: greetin face is what we call someone who looks miserable or about to cry all the time, or is a constant complainer.

That’s it for this week

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 greetin as it appeared in the quote. 

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!