The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #102328   Message #2074497
Posted By: GUEST
12-Jun-07 - 05:18 AM
Thread Name: Folklore: The word 'scut'
Subject: RE: Folklore: The word 'scut'
I know exactly what you mean, Stallion. I originate in Braford (West Riding of Yorkshire - for those not local). I personally have a strong dislike of stuff that people try to write "in dialect" as dialect is how something is spoken. Obviously, some words only exist within a particular dialect, but a lot are just the way a standard english (or scots or whatever) word is spoken in that area.
Part of the problem is that dialect is specific local usage. As mentioned, I originated in Bradford. What I grew up speaking was in many respects very different from what people in Keighley or people from Leeds (about 10 miles away in different directions) would say. Something as simple as what we call a specific type of bread (tea cake/barm cake/bread cake all refer to the same item).
Give me a dialect poem written in plain English and I will recite it one way. Someone from a few miles down the road, or from my Grandfather's generation (not many left these days) would speak the same words differently.
Give a song sheet with the words "our house" to a Scot or a Geordie and you will get sung back at you "oor hoose" or "wor house" (apologies to geordies and scots, but you know what I'm trying to point out). It isn't necessary to write in "mock dialect" because those who speak the dialect will know what is meant and those who do not will probably never pronounce it the way the "writer" intended.

Quack!
GtD.