People here don’t speak English. They speak Slanglish and have great fun with the language. Sometimes there are so many rhyming couplets, alliterations and just nonsense words that I have a hard time figuring out what anyone is talking about. I’m certain that my English friends could send me books full of this stuff, but I’ll just mention a few that I hear everyday.

Cheers

I’ve heard the expression “cheers” for many years, but I had no idea that is a completely all purpose word that can mean, among other things, thank you, congratulations, your welcome, hello, goodbye, good day, good morning or good afternoon. It can be used singularly or in combination with its root meaning, as in “Cheers, thanks” or “Cheers, goodbye”. Which, to my ear sounds a bit redundant, like “thanks, thanks” or “goodbye, goodbye”. But if you use cheers as a verb or in the past tense it reverts to its more traditional meaning. You might say that you had thanked someone, where as you could never say that you had cheers’d someone.

Wee

Everything is wee. We’re in a wee country, in a wee county, in a wee village, where we’re going for a wee walk to have a wee bit of lunch at a wee restaurant.  And the subject doesn’t necessarily have to be small or charming. The only thing I haven’t heard wee combined with is wee, as in wee wee.

Ha Ha

Although there is no wee wee there is a  Ha-Ha. This  16^th or 17^th century invention, is a reinforced trench that stretches across a field or pasture and works like a fence that keeps sheep and cattle from wandering near the manor. But unlike a fence, it does not disrupt the vista and is almost invisible when viewed from the house out. The name refers to what you might exclaim if you stumbled across it by accident, although you’d more likely say “call 911!”

Londonderry

In 1613 the British rulers selected Derry as the site for one of their infamous “plantation” projects. Under the control of London livery companies they renamed the town Londonderry. Locals have never really taken to the name as it was seen to symbolize foreign rule and regardless of what the road signs say, have continued to call it Derry for 400 years. Recently, in an attempt at political correctness, authorities have hyphenated the name to “Derry-Londonderry”. Over here the hyphen is referred to as a stroke so now it’s become “Stroke City”.

A  Miscellaneous  Few 

A room that had a window at eye level was referred to as a “tippy toe room”.

When searching through a junk shop we were encouraged to “have a wee nosey”.

When a tour guide was off talking to someone else, we were asked to wait as he was  “having a wee bit of a gnash at the minute”.

If you need time to think about something you might have “a wander and a ponder”.

Lunch would be a “rumble corrector”.

Giving something a try might be “taking a punt”.

And needing to hurry up would be to “Get A Tic Toc On”.