Hi Ritchie,

This is another interesting thread. If I may just make a couple of observations on the Scots words:

1) (10 Jan 09:08) The Dictionary of the Scots Language (http://www.dsl.ac.uk) gives examples for "vow" (or earlier "vou") as in interjection in Scots from the 16th century till the late 20th (as well as "wow", which also seems to be attested earlier in Scotland than elsewhere). Among the writers cited as examples for the form with "v" are Burns and Robert Fergusson. I think we can be sure that in this context there is no comic intention behind the use of "v" rather than "w". It's not like the fake Cockney in some English printed ballads. It's just a variant form that was probably more current in Lowland Scotland at the time than it is now. As you say, the Scots is tempered in this text, but it's not completely absent: we still find "ken" and "blaw", and "haul" in stanza 9 must be a misprint for "haud" (= "hold") - not to mention "wakerif", where the printer seems to think a Scots word can be made English by imposing English spelling on it. (In the same text, "done't" = "done it".)

2) (18 Jan 09:30) "Fat", "faur", etc. for "what", "where" are common North-east Scots forms, so not surprising in a song text from Aberdeenshire. However I don't think the form "vat" would be heard anywhere in Scotland. Outside the North-east, the sound would normally be "hw"

3)(18 Jan 10:33)The DSL also shows that "our" rather than "ower" or "o'er" is not just "poor use of slang". It's actually the older literary form of the word in Scots, and forms like "oure" and "oo'r" are cited from more recent literature. As far as the Greig-Duncan text is concerned, I suspect that this spelling may be used to show that the singer pronounced it "oor", and not like the English "our", but maybe someone who is more familiar with North-east pronunciation than I am can help here.

I'm glad to see you've managed to make sense of the line about the "clod that winna cling". I wish I could think of a solution for "sketches", but I can't. I wondered about it being a printer's corruption of "shekels", as slang for "money", but according to Cassell's Dictionary of Slang that just goes back to the mid 19th C. so it's far too recent -- and anyway, why would he say "money" twice?

Jim