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.

This week’s snippet is a bit longer than usual. When I cut it to just the Scots word, it made Adam seem like a guy who got violently angry over food. ?

I’m relatively confident that the meaning is clear from Adam’s internal dialogue.

Here’s the snippet… (unedited first draft)

“This stuff,” Blackwell lifted his spoonful of rice, “reminds me of the meals in Karfur.” A genuine smile tugged at his lips.

“Karfa? Where’s that?” Adam forced a smile to his face, even though he wanted nothing more than to pull the chib he had hidden in his coat and slit the fucker’s throat.

Blackwell watched him out of assessing eyes. “No, no, Karfur. It’s a nothing little country in Africa. On the east coast.”

The one good thing about wearing a shirt was that the collar hid Adam’s no doubt raging pulses. Blackwell was testing him, trying to get a reaction out of him.

From operatives to service personnel to aid workers, the blood-soaked massacre in Karfur had ingrained itself on their souls, including Adam’s. He’d been there for four months in an attempt to help the country and its people recover–if they ever could.

Adam raised his eyebrows in faux polite ignorance. “Never heard of it. Was it as good as this?” He nodded at the food he no longer had the appetite for.

“Bloody awful.” Blackwell just let the word hang there for a moment. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard of the place.”

Running the Asset (Deniable Unit #1)

Hopefully, you got that in the case of this excerpt, chib means a knife.

Chib also means to stab with a knife, and chibbed means stabbed.

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 chib 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!