Category: Scots

It’s the second last day of Scotstober! It’s been a challenge to keep up with doing the posts, getting my writing work done, and keeping up with comments and other blogs–sorry for being so lax on the last two, but I’ll be catching up in the coming days.

Today’s word is mervaill. As a noun, it means a marvelous act executed by divine or other supernatural means of agency, a wondrous act, a miracle. As an adjective, it means marvelous, wonderful. And, as a verb, it means to feel surprise, astonishment or admiration.

Here’s my response to the prompt (taken from Running The Asset):

Hit aye mervailled Trevor at sae mony ingined fowk manished tae scug their skeels fae the governments thai sert. He’d connecktit fower veecious murthers tae Gavan afore he’d boded him the bit.

And now in English.

It always astonished Trevor that so many talented people managed to conceal their skills from the governments they served. He’d connected four vicious murders to Gavan before he’d offered him the job.

Today’s word, skreich, is pronounced skreech. The ‘ch’ at the end isn’t a hard k as it is in English, but the same soft, gutteral sound at the end of loch in Scots. It means screech, shriek, to yell out, a shrill cry.

Here’s my response to the prompt (taken from Running The Asset):

Hei oop, whar the lowe luntit maist sairly, ane o the firefighters oan the ledder ootside Rosa’s chaumer windae skreiched sumhin, bit Elle cuidnae mak hit oot. She didnae hae tae here the wirds tae ken thit thai’d fun Rosa’s corp.

And now in English.

High up, where the fire blazed most intensely, one of the firefighters on the ladder outside Rosa’s bedroom window yelled something, but Elle couldn’t make it out. She didn’t have to hear the words to know that they’d found Rosa’s body.