Fancy A Cuppa?

We're Mod Tea and Mod Haggis, and welcome to ourblog! We are here to answer all your burning questions about the United Kingdom!

[scriptbrit]

ScriptBrit is Archived Indefinitely

Hey all. Aunt Scripty here, speaking in for Mod Tea. Tea’s life has become much more complicated than it was when this blog was started, and she’s unable to continue with the blog. 

Therefore, in coordination with Mod Tea (and at her request), this blog is being archived. 

All previously existing posts will remain up and searchable. However, no asks will be accepted and no new posts written until such time as either a new mod takes it over, or Aunt Scripty decides to move to the UK and live there forever. 

Thank you for your understanding, and please join me in wishing Mod Tea all the best in life. 

P.S.: The questions that were in ScriptBrit’s inbox have been deleted, as without an active mod they cannot be answered. 

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

[crystalpoints]

When people assume Celtic = Irish I get a strong urge to stab myself in the eye.

No no no no no no. 

Sit down we must have a conversation.

There were 6 Celtic nations.

Éire, Cymru, Alba, Kernow, Breizh, and Ellan Vannin.

Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Isle of Mann respectively.

They’re all related, but not the same. They all have different languages descended from a similar group, Irish (Gaeilge), Scottish (Gàidhlig), Manx (Gaelg), Welsh (Cymraeg), Cornish (Kernowek), and Breton (Brezhoneg). Some are more widely spoken than others, for example Welsh is still commonly spoken in Wales, whereas hearing Cornish in Cornwall instead of English is rare.  All Celtic nations have varied mythology and culture. Irish Mythology is different from Breton Mythology, and even Welsh and Cornish mythology (arguably the most related Celtic Nations) have subtle differences to each other. I wish I could add more about the cultures at this time but my knowledge of Celtic nations is primarily made up of the history and languages of those regions, particularly Cornwall. 

You might have notice that England and English are missing from this, because the English descended from Anglo-Saxons, who were German invaders that came to the isles right around the Fall of the Roman empire in the 5th Century, erasing the Celtic influence in what is now England. 

So what this all really means is that Celtic is an umbrella term, and just because it’s Celtic doesn’t mean it has anything to do with Ireland at all. So don’t assume that just because someone’s talking about something Celtic that they’re talking about something Irish.

[stephrc79]

I actually didn’t know this. Thank you, tumblr person

[gaywithflowers-deactivated20200]

I love you for this. I love learning and this day started in a good note.

[seonaxus]

Furthermore there are currently six modern Celtic languages divided into two families. The Goidelic or Gaelic languages: Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx, which are all descended from Middle Irish; and the Brythonic languages: Welsh, Cornish and Breton all descended from Common Brythonic. It should be noted that both Manx and Cornish are revived languages, that is they effectively died (There were no living native speakers) for a time, but revitalisation efforts amongst the communities to learn the languages as second languages resulted in children picking up the languages as their first language, thus returning the languages to living languages with communities of native speakers. Although all of the languages are growing in number of speakers at each count, only Welsh is not counted as being endangered. This revitalisation is part of why the written form of Manx is so different to that of its sisters, despite the close similarity of the spoken form; its spelling is designed to make sense to a native English speaker, whereas Irish and Gaelic use a more traditional phonetic spelling system which only makes sense if you are used to the concept of a séimhiú being represented by the letter h. The Manx for “Isle of Man”, for example, is “Ellan Vannin” whereas the Irish name is “Oileán Mhanann” while the spelling is very different the actual pronunciation is almost identical. Both refer to Manannán mac Lir of the Tuath dé Danann, an ancient race of supernatural creatures, often interpreted as a christian retelling of the ancient Gaelic gods.

[cosmogyros]

Also, depending on who you ask, there’s a seventh Celtic nation! It’s Galicia, a region in northwestern Spain. Opinions are divided as to whether it’s Celtic enough to “count”, but here are some sources for further reading:

BBC: Where is the seventh Celtic nation? Spain Then and Now: The Celts in Spain Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies: Celtic Legacy in Galicia University of Pennsylvania Museum: The Modern Celts of Northern Spain

…and I can’t help but link to my own post of the beautiful song “Va unan,” sung in Breton and Spanish by the chorus “L’Ensemble choral du bout du monde” with the Spanish guest vocalist Jesús Cifuentes from the band Celtas Cortos.

[bogganbeliefs]

I think I’m honor bound to always repost this.

[llywela13]

It’s easiest to think of the difference between Goidelic and Brythonic languages as q-Celts and p-Celts. Take the word ‘son of’, for instance, which we’ve all seen in names like MacDonald or MacGregor. Mac. That’s a q-Celtic word, Goidelic, ending in a ‘c’. In Welsh, which is a Brythonic or p-Celtic language, the same word became ‘map’ or ‘ap’. So where the son of Donald in Scotland became MacDonald, in Wales the son of Rhys became ap Rhys became Prys became Price or Preece. Same original root, leading to a very different linguistic end.

[scriptbrit]

Hiya! I'm aware that there are castled dotted around both England and Scotland, what are the rules/laws about trespassing? Would my characters, (a group of teenagers who have very little idea what they are doing) be able to feasibly use one as a hideout? Thanks much!

Since Scotland and England have different laws regarding trespassing, I’ll try to answer as best I can from the Scottish perspective.___________

The answer to this question is; yes, maybe, if they don’t get caught.

In Scotland there is a piece of legislation called the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, commonly known as the “right to roam” which, basically, means that members of the public can access just about most land and inland bodies of water, even if they are privately owned, generally for recreational purposes. It’s sometimes stated in Scotland that we do not have trespass laws at all, which isn’t true, but say, for instance, Laird Lairdy McLaird owns a big fancy estate with loads of woods and rivers and meadows, as a member of the public you have a right to be on that land, whether to walking your dog, swimming in the river, or even say, if you’re house is on the other side of the estate and you cannae be arsed walking around it.

There are exceptions. If say, our laird’s house (or castle) is in the middle of the estate, you can’t just walk into it or any part of the land which would be classed as his garden. That’s his home. That’s where he lives. This also extends to some other pretty obvious places, like building sites, military bases, schools and any land associated with it, a tourist attraction that charges an entry fee (such as a castle), and, as in the case of Old McLaird, someone’s house or garden.

Castles in Scotland can be occupied, as in, they are someone’s home; visitor attractions, which may have exhibits and such inside; or they can be ruins. In the first two cases, I’d say unless you can think of a reason why they would be empty and why nobody would be checking in on them, then you couldn’t use these as hideouts.

In the last case - maybe, if they don’t get caught. Ruined castles are often just sort of lying there, and people can generally go in and out as they please free of charge.They are generally maintained by someone, but there’s usually no office or anything like that attached to castle. They’re just sort of… lying there, unattended. But, I’d say that in order to not be caught, the ruins would either need to be isolated enough to not attract too many people, or small enough for people not to care.

Also, we are talking ruins here - like, no roof, no windows or doors, probably half the walls are gone. In this case I’d suggest your characters could possibly be camping out in the ruins, which I’ve heard of people doing, but not for long periods of time. And if they got caught, they’d probably just be told to shift. Trespassing isn’t a criminal matter in Scotland so other than that there’s not a whole lot they’d be able to do.

So, if your characters are okay with living in old ruins and can do so without anyone catching them, then yeah, theoretically, they could have their hideout in a castle.

Mod Haggis

[scriptbrit]

Hi there :) So, this is sort-of three questions (so I'm sorry if it's too much): I'm writing a group of teens for my story, from various parts of the UK, and one of them is Glaswegian. 1) Are there any differences in culture that might leave her scratching her head at her friends, 2) or vice versa? 3) Also, is there a way of looking up regional differences between counties? I'm from the West Midlands, but I'm aware that not everyone will speak/act the way I do. Many thanks in advance ^-^

Hello!

So, to answer the first two questions, while there are some cultural differences between Scotland and England, they’re not so great that they would leave anyone scratching their heads, as you say. Also, in the case of a Scottish character, we do get a lot of exposure to English culture through the media and such, so I doubt that your character would be confused down south. I opened this up to the UK Scripties and they’re pretty much in agreement with me, so from both sides of the border I think you’re okay.

A couple of things that could cause confusion though are dialects and accents. But I’d think that a person from any part of the country would likely speak standard English when around people not from their own area, and generally different accents/dialects aren’t really that hard to understand, especially in the context of a broader conversation. Also, there might be some cultural and historical references a Scottish character wouldn’t get because we don’t get a lot of English history up here. I don’t if it’s the same in England, unfortunately, but you’ll know that for yourself.

As for the last questions, I did try out Google to see what I could find, but in terms of cultural differences there wasn’t much. All I can really recommend is to look up the specific regions your characters come from and compare them. I did however manage to get a couple of resources on accent/dialect comparisons.

http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Millenium-memory-bankhttp://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Evolving-English-WordBank

The first one has recordings from different parts of England and you can look them up by region, and the last is examples of words found throughout parts of the English-speaking world.

Mod Haggis.

[scriptbrit]

I think that one of my secondary characters is going to be a Scottish immigrant in Denver, CO. She is a lab tech forensic scientist doing things like DNA screening and etc for a hush hush government entity (think Abby Sciutto from NCIS as far as work goes). What sorts of things can I add in to make her seem authentically Scottish? Are there good phrases I can drop in, or foods she'd prefer, or just a mannerism what will read "Scot!".

A Scottish person living in the US will most likely adapt to the culture around them, so in terms of language, I wouldn’t worry too much about her not sounding authentic enough. However, she may still slip some Scots words into conversation.

Some words she could use could be aye/naw (yes/no), ken (know), wee (small), wean/bairn (child/baby), crabbit (moody/grumpy), eejit (idiot), tube (also idiot), bampot (idiot, again), glaikit (stupid), scunnered (tired), blootered (drunk), boke (retch/vomit), braw (pretty/attractive/nice to look at), feart (afraid), lassie (girl/young woman), wan/yin (one) and greet (cry). Some phrases she might say could include “you’re no right in the heid” (meaning you’re crazy or stupid), “I’m up to high doh” (I’m stressed out/worked up), and “away and boil your heid” (something you say when someone’s talking rubbish or being a nuisance). There’s also “yer da’ sells Avon” which is supposed to be an insult but is just something stupid we say for a laugh.

She might occasionally drop some of these words into conversation - perhaps without realising it - but she won’t be speaking broad Scots whilst surrounded by Americans. Also, some of these words are regional. If she’s from the Highlands or Islands, she probably won’t use them, and if she’s from the Aberdeen area she’ll most likely speak Doric. But if she’s a Lowlander these will do.

Some things you could do to make her seem more authentically Scottish could be:- have her start conversations with strangers in public, like on the bus, in a waiting room, in a queue, etc. Scottish people will talk to anyone and everyone; and not just small talk. She’ll have their life story by the end of the conversation.- have her complain about the weather. If it’s too hot, she’ll complain. If it’s too cold, she’ll complain. If it’s raining, she’ll ask when it’s gonna stop, if it hasn’t rained in a while, she’ll wonder when the rain’s coming back.- she might like a drink. Scottish people love to drink, and we’re good at it, but obviously avoid making it seem like she has a drinking problem. We love a drink but we’re not alcoholics.- Scottish people have a great sense of humour. We laugh at everything. We laugh at ourselves, at each other. We love innuendo and double entendres. We’re very self-deprecating. Scottish comedy tends to be heavily based in the pretty shitty aspects of Scotland, and we make a lot of jokes at our expense. Also, we like to rib our friends, and generally the closer we are to someone the more we will do so.- have her support a Scottish football team, particularly Rangers or Celtic, plus maybe a local team. If she comes from a Protestant background, she’ll be a Rangers fan, if Catholic, it’ll be Celtic.- she might start sentences with “see” especially if she’s asking a question or explaining something, or “here”, kind of as a way to get everybody’s attention. Also, when asking a question, she might ask “how” instead of “why”.- she may be more cautious with her money. Scots aren’t tight, but we don’t like to waste money. It will be simple things, like bring lunch from home or mending clothes rather than throwing them out, just the average stuff you do to save money, and generally we don’t waste money on status symbols - if we buy an expensive car or a big house, it’s because we wanted it, not to show off how much we have. - she’ll lament the lack of good Scottish food that she’s used to back home - square sausage, potato scones, Scotch pies, Irn Bru - and if she can, she’ll buy them by the barrel-full.

When it comes to food, Scots love our home cooking, so when she has time she might make soup, stew, or stovies (which is like a stew made of potatoes, onions, carrots and usually beef), or sweets like tablet, cakes, biscuits, or shortbread - and she’ll make loads, and probably offer some to her friends.

Scottish people are very patriotic. We are fiercely proud of our country, our culture, our language, our history, and our contributions to the world. And being abroad makes us even more so. Generally, we’re not dicks about it - it’s about how much we love our own country, not how much we hate yours.

Also, we have this word “thrawn” which essentially means we don’t like being told what to do, especially when it comes to politics. We don’t like non-Scots getting involved in our affairs - especially when it comes to the issue of independence. Your character won’t like her American friends making comments on Scottish and even, to an extent, UK politics or culture, regardless of her feelings on the subject.

This is quite a lot information and I think I’ve basically dissected your average Scot, but I think their good things to consider when writing a Scottish character. Hope this helps.

Mod Haggis

[scriptbrit]

I'm British myself, but I must ask: how do both of you pronounce scone?

I, personally, pronounce scone so that it rhymes with cone, but according to my friends I’m a dirty heathen. It’s more common to hear it pronounced rhyming with ‘gone’ north of the border, but I like to be different.

Mod Haggis

[scriptbrit]

Sorry for all the questions, in another story, I have a character that is trying to get a position as a chef at an exclusive B&B. If they are a Scot living abroad, what might be some of their signature/preferred dishes? Are there highly rated culinary schools in Scotland or are they more likely to have trained as sort of an apprentice? Also, would they be bothered by extreme heat and humidity? (like 90-100+ F for multiple months in the summer). Thank you, y'all are great. Much love!

Honestly, I’m not really sure that culinary schools are much of a thing here. I know a few people who have studied and gone on to be chefs, and most of them just went to a standard community college, so it’s likely your character will have done the same. If you’re interested, here’s a webpage that gives more information on becoming a chef in Scotland. It also has resources for many other careers too - www.myworldofwork.co.uk/my-career-options/chef

Signature dishes could literally be anything from any range of world cuisine - particularly Italian or French. If you’re looking for something Scottish however, an obvious choice would be haggis, neeps, and tatties. From a restaurant, this would be served as a haggis tower with whisky sauce.

Other dishes could include Scotch Broth - probably as a starter - smoked salmon (using Scottish salmon of course), Cullen Skink, a soup made with smoked haddock, or for dessert, Cranachan, which is oats with cream and berries. This site has a list of some traditional Scottish recipes www.rampantscotland.com/recipes.

Now for the final part of the your question: would they be bothered by extreme heat or humidity? Yes. Probably. We don’t get a lot of hot weather here. I’m not saying they’ll pass out or die, but it will take some adjustment. And besides that, Scottish people love to complain about the weather. If it’s cold, we complain. If it’s hot, we complain.

Mod Haggis

[scriptbrit]

It seems like anytime someone has a Scot or Irish character, they give them a name like O'Kelly or McLeod. Are these names overly cliche? Is it best to pick an "O'" or "Mc/Mac" name? What are other common surnames in Scotland?

While they can be cliché, Mc/Mac names are actually really common in Scotland, which is probably why they’re cliché.

Some common traditional, less-cliché Scottish names could include Lamont, Gowan, Mitchell, Paterson, Scott, Campbell, Stewart, Boyd, Ross, Henderson, Wallace (yes, it’s actually quite common), Hamilton, Shaw, Hendry, Ferguson, Reid, Frazer, Craig, Bruce, Douglas, Stirling, Laird, Bowie, and Chisolm.

If you want to avoid a cliché Scottish name, it’s first names that I’d be more worried about. A James McDonald wouldn’t be out of place, but Hamish McLeod might set some eyes to rolling (sorry if there’s any Hamish McLeods reading this!)

Also, a lot of people in Scotland have Irish ancestry, so Irish surnames are really common in Scotland. You’ll find your fair share of O’Briens, O’Neils and Murphys around.

Mod Haggis

[scriptbrit]

Hey! I'm writing a book in which one of the characters is British, but moved to the United States when he was 8. This is a small detail, but he keeps a journal and I was wondering how he would be most likely to write the date in his journal? I read on Wikipedia that people in the U.S. write the date month/day/year, while in Britain it's written day/month/year. He's 16 at the time of the story taking place, BTW.

Hey Anon,

In the UK we write the date day/month/year, so today’s date would be written 10/06/2017 or 10/06/17.

However, if you’re character moved to the US at such a young age, it is likely he will have picked up on the American. Whether or not he writes with the British or American system is really up to you.

Mod Haggis

[scriptbrit]

What things are considered bad luck in Britain? Like, are there numbers associated with bad luck? Animals or something someone does that's bad luck? And are there colors and symbols that are linked to bad luck?

As far as it goes in Liverpool, most of us are superstitious, which you can see reflected in Blood Brothers, a play written by Willy Russell set in Liverpool.

Now I can go on and on about the themes and context of this show as I am both a massive literature and theatre nerd but I’ll save you the essay and just paste the lyrics.

‘SHOES UPON THE TABLE 

AN’ A SPIDER’S BEEN KILLED. 

SOMEONE BROKE THE LOOKIN’ GLASS 

A FULL MOON SHININ' 

AN’ THE SALT’S BEEN SPILLED. 

YOU’RE WALKIN’ ON THE PAVEMENT CRACKS’

Yes, its written phonetically in the scouse accent! A fun little detail for you there.

So there’s a few for a start. Putting shoes on the table, killing spiders, breaking mirrors, full moons, spilling salt, et cetera. We also have a magpie superstition where I’m from; if you see one, it’s bad luck but if you see two, it’s good luck. Pretty standard stuff. Some believe in the Friday 13th bad luck too!

There was probably no need for the Blood Brothers reference, but it’s a great play!

[scriptbrit]

Are/were people as obsessed with Hamilton in the UK as they were here? Curious since i've seen you reference it twice here already! Thanks <3

Do you mean Hamilton as in the actual person or the musical? Because he’s not much of a big name over here, I don’t even know who’s on the other dollar bills. As for the musical, you could say it’s fairly popular, considering it’s opening in London this year! Hopefully, it’ll gain a little more popularity from the British crowd when that happens!

tag yourself I’m Thayne

[bogleech]

I’ve repeatedly seen British people make fun of American food for apparently always being either “too sweet or too salty” but our cuisine is still pretty mild compared to a lot of other countries, and having repeatedly tried British food, I’m pretty sure the term you’re looking for is “having any flavor at all.”

[durpacerangerrogjro]

Britain invaded over half the world for spices and then decided they didn’t like any of them

[kakaphoe]

What happened historically is that spices became cheaper and available to your non-posh non-stinking rich British people (while the super poor people were using flour mixed with water as baby food because they had nothing else). This upset the posh stinking rich people and thus the ideals of what makes “good traditional British cooking” shifted. The idea was rooted in racism too, because it was basically the whiter and blander the food the more nutritious and “morally good for you” it was supposed to be (which is obviously utter bullshit but it explains an awful lot about attitudes towards food).

If you look at what makes traditional British dishes (and I mean all of the British Isles here) its either stuff made from things that are left over from when the upperclasses took everything decent, or things that are completely bland, or both. But if you compare it with what the Tudor era court ate, you’ll see that flavour and spices were prized as good eating because they were costly.

Of course there’s also the history of food diversity within the British Isles, because Chicken Tikka Masala (not Chicken Tikka itself) was allegedly invented in Glasgow by a Bangladeshi cook and while it’s pretty bland compared to other dishes of its type, lack of flavour or colour isn’t something associated with it.

[moonlight-fox]

You missed off one important part of traditional British cuisine - Dishes invented in WWII under the restrictions of rationing as substitutions for older dishes, which stuck around after the war because they actually worked; Crumble falls into that camp. [the ones that are lost are best not being revived]

Meaning that some ‘traditional British cuisine’… Is less than 100 years old.

(Been too long since I had haggis. Not been able to find anywhere in Wales that sells it, back in Fleetwood - which isn’t even Scotland, but England - my local chippie did it. Come to think of it, I haven’t had black pudding for donks, either…)

[kakaphoe]

Actually I talked about it just now, I reblogged again after. My head is full of bees today, I’m surprised I was even coherent.

My parents got a haggis for Burns’ Night (they’re not Scots though, just pretencious) from M&S and found out later it was made entirely with pork instead of mutton… which makes it not a haggis. So confused.

[thessalian]

British people bitch about AMERICAN food being too sweet? Fuck; while I give them that about the soda (high fructose corn syrup is gross, FYI), I can’t deal with ketchup in this country because I swear that shit is more sugar than tomato.

Don’t even get me started about quote-unquote, ‘barbecue sauce’ here…

[kakaphoe]

This is why I use chilli ketchup (AND FUCK FRUCTOSE SYRUP), but I still don’t understand what ranch dressing is though.

[moonlight-fox]

HP sauce, of the standard non-proper (e.g. mustard) condiments, is probably the best option, imo.

…I’m still trying to work out why you’d ruin the delicious sourness of lemons by mixing it with ridiculous quantities of sugar labeling it as lemonade (Despite not being fizzy)

[bogleech]

A drink of overwhelmingly sugary water with a squeeze of lemon juice had the name “lemonade” long before some weirdo countries started using it to describe a soda!

Reblogging mainly for the historical info

[scriptbrit]

Hey Everyone!

I’m Mod Haggis, the latest addition to the Script family, joining up with ScriptBrit to answer all of your Scotland-related queries. A young Scot, born and raised in the west of Scotland, my specialities include Scottish culture, language, and politics. However, if you have questions outside of these categories, feel free to ask and I’ll see what I can do. Thanks!

[scriptbrit]

What is the legal drinking age in the UK?

According to the BBC, teens aged 16 or 17 can drink beer, wine or cider with a meal if it is bought by an adult and they are with an adult. It is illegal for this age group to drink spirits in pubs even with a meal. It’s also illegal for people under 18 to buy alcohol in a pub, off-licence, shop or elsewhere.

However, when I was around 14, I knew tons of people who had been drunk before by borrowing/stealing alcohol from big brothers/sisters/friends/etc. A common ‘starter’ drink for teens to drink in parks is WKD, but it’s not ver alcoholic.

[scriptbrit]

Hi! Do you happen to have any info or resources on what life in a British boarding school is like?

Myself? No, but lucky for you, Connie, AKA Noodlerella made a video on it! 

(I love her so much ;-;)

However, her school was pretty different, but there’s probably plenty of other Youtube videos!

[scriptbrit]

What are Shrove Tuesday and Lent?

Shrove Tuesday (or Pancake Day) and Lent are Christian tradition holidays! Lent is a period of forty days that starts on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday. By doing Lent, Christians recreate Jesus’ sacrifice and journey into the desert for 40 days. Lent is marked by fasting! 

In the olden days, people would only eat one meal a day, and wouldn’t eat any meat or sugary things, etc, but now peeps just give up something like chocolate or video games!

(These are American pancakes, British pancakes are traditionally flatter and thinner!)

[scriptbrit]

Happy Shrove Tuesday!

Today marks the start of Lent! What are the lovely teacups taking part giving up?