SUSAN TIPPETT BRAITHWAITE

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Things in Scots”! Are you ready for a new word to add to your growing Scots vocabulary? Of course, you are. This week’s word is “faut”, and let me tell you, it’s a doozy!

Here’s the snippet… (unedited draft!)

Dekker reached out and took her chin in a gentle grip. “You can do this.”

Elle looked up into the eyes she hoped she’d someday manage to forget. “How do I make the guilt go away.”

“I don’t know. But it wasn’t your faut. You didn’t know what would happen.” A bitter look crossed his face, and for some reason, Elle had the sense that it wasn’t directed at her but at Dekker himself. 

Running the Asset (Deniable Unit #1)

Okay, if you listened to the audio of the snippet, you may have noticed that I slipped in and out of Scots for reading Adam’s part. I’d thought about re-recording it to have him only speak faut in Scots but decided to leave it to give you a wee bittie extra Scots. 

For audio listeners: A is I; bit is but; hit is it; wisnae is wasn’t.

Did you catch that? “Faut” is the Scots word for “fault”. And as you can see from the snippet, it’s a powerful word that can convey a lot of emotion. So the next time you feel guilty about something, just remember – it might not be your faut. ??

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 faut as it appeared in the quote.

That’s all for this week’s “Things in Scots”! Join me next week for another Scots word to add to your vocabulary!

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 Fiction Friday!