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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

Do not believe Reddit's view of what the Scots think is their favourite word. (grew up in Scotland, 1960s-1970s) The C-word is not actually that common. (I don't mean "chips")

However, if you learn a word from reading the immortal words of D.C.Thompson's "Oor Wullie" or "the Broons" It may or may not reflect reality. To my mind, nobody used "jings" un-ironically but an older generation did use "braw" in its true sense. And the adjective "wee" is heavily used. As in "wee dram" which means "DO NOT STOP POURING THE BOTTLE UNTIL I SAY SO"

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As a Scot living in London (I left around 5 years ago). The C-word is certainly commonly used, especially in the West Coast where I'm from.

Folk say ct all the time. I went to a very international uni and was shocked by how offended Americans and English folk got by it. Americans also got weirdly offended by saying fk. That made working with them at the start of my career somewhat difficult as it barely registers in my brain as inappropriate.

It's folk in the west who lack airs and graces who say it all the time.

No true Scotsman would use such language so casually. ;-)

No true Scot bothers with airs and graces.

Yes I would.

Scot here, "cunt" is actually used a lot, but of course only in very informal settings. If a friend does you a favour, for example, you might say "ta, yer a good cunt!".

In general, we Scots seem to have swearing ingrained as part of the vernacular.

Apparently "good cunt" is a New Zealand thing too. I was wonderfully surprised when a Kiwi friend declared me a good cunt.

Some numpty awa an nicked ma limbo stick oot the shed. How low can ye go...

I always liked numpty but 'the bill' cockneyfied it.

One other important thing to learn about Scots English - calling a woman a "cow" is a lot worse North of the Border.

"Oats is the food of horses in England and men in Scotland. And where do you find finer horses and finer men?"

—An old Scottish engineer who didn't like me because as a wee lad I used to ask him things like: "How do you weigh a grain of sugar?"

Crivens! My dad has a pile of Oor Wullie annuals, must be from the '60s when he lived in Edinburgh. I had no idea it was still going.

"the C-word"... welcome to jupiter broadcasting.

Talking of chips, how come Scots can't cook chips? Awful soggy limp things.

Are you comparing them to fries? Chippy chips and fries are two different things

No, to English or Welsh chip-shop chips. The salt-and-sauce I don't mind, but Scottish chips are uniformly awful.

Couldn't disagree more. I've lived in the north of Scotland, the north of England and now I'm in the South of England. Here has pansiest chips of the lot, nevermind the shops at the beach in Bournemouth whose chips feel like they've been fried by English willpower alone.

Well horses for courses I guess. Chips is the south aren't great and you take your chances on pensioner beach, but you don't like north of England chips? I'd rate those as the best. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Northern chips are fine. I was strongly disagreeing with the notion that Scottish chips are the worst.

Where in Scotland were you? Quality varies everywhere in the UK I find but if you want a proper good chippy either go to a real Italian chippy or one of the Fife village chippies.

Mostly Glasgow & Edinburgh, intrigued by the "Italian chippie", that's the same priciple as the "Italian cafe" I guess (ex POWs who hung around to provide the locals with decent food) used to be so common in London, now mostly gone; thanks for the tips :-)

There are just a lot of chippies run by Italian families, particularly in Glasgow. As a general rule they tend to be better than most chippes. The often have Italian names, are family run and do pizza & pasta as well as chip shop food.

The Merchant Chippy in Merchant City, Glasgow. Not a finer chip has been fried.

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