If you didn’t know, I just got back to the States (I never know if I should capitalize that or not??) about 10 days ago. Before that, I was over in Scotland for almost five months studying abroad and traveling around the UK and Europe.
I knew pretty early on that I was going to do a post like this. People always ask about Scotland so I thought sharing differences would be the best way to give you more insight into what the country is really like.
Basic Vocabulary
Of course, Scottish people have an accent compared to Americans, so that would just be dumb to include, but they also have quite a few vocabulary differences as well. Some are things I had heard of before, and others completely surprised me.
- Cheers – this is thank you and hi and bye and everything over there
- Joined up writing – also known as cursive here
- Fit – now this word seems simple enough but it can mean hot in addition to athletic there
- Pants – the one that caused me the most trouble because I’m so used to any bottom being pants, but no, pants to them are underpants
- Football – this is soccer and probably the most know vocab change
- Yous – I was told this is more of a Glaswegian thing, but I definitely heard people from other cities say it as well. It’s basically the Scottish y’all
- Lorry – semi truck. No idea how lorry makes any sense at all
- Toilet – you don’t ask where the bathrooms are, you ask where the toilets are
- Holiday – you don’t go on vacation, you go on holiday
- Chips – fries
- Biscuit – cookie
- Crisps – chips
- Camp – gay
