SUSAN TIPPETT BRAITHWAITE

This week’s word is another one that might require a pronunciation explainer. Last week I explained that ae sounds like the English ay in bay/say/hay. The ea in wean sounds exactly the same.

Here’s the snippet… (unedited first draft)

Playing hunches was always a gamble, and in Adam’s experience, they had a tendency to backfire epically. But, the Leigh was unshakable, and if he had to listen to another oral history of Marseille’s darker side, he’d be up for murder. He closed her file, with a slap of his hand, dragging her attention to it. “Afraid I can’t.”

She pouted like a petulant wean. “It’s about me. I want to know what it says.” Her fingers wriggled out in the direction of the file.

Running the Asset (Deniable Unit #1)

I’m reasonably confident that wean was clear from the context ? But, if it’s not, wean means child. It’s most commonly used in the Central Belt of Scotland–where Adam is from. The more common word for child in the rest of the country is bairn.

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 wean 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!